Are economists as stupid and useless as some people say they are?

Maybe useless, but I would not say stupid. I have a friend who has parents who are economists in Boston. They told her to avoid the field because it is almost impossible to predict unexpected macroscopic trends (e.g. most economists did not do a good job at predicting 2008).

Yes. Economics doesn't predict anything useful. The greatest economist ever was Marx.

Read the black swan if you want a good book that takes a huge dump on economists

Results in economics papers actually have a higher rate of reproducibility than results in genetics papers.

Nigga, Taleb is a big advocate of Austrian Economics by his rantings

Spelled Henry George wrong

Spelled John Maynard Keynes wrong.

>Are economists stupid?
No
>Are they useless?
Some
>Is Economics science?
Debatable, depends on your definition of science. Most often people argue that it isn't a science because it's very hard to do controlled experiments.
>Is it testable?
There's a lot of theory and tools available for testing within economics. Heck, econometrics is almost a field on it's own.

Coming from an economics/econometrics student

Spelled Paul Krugman wrong.

Economics tries its best to apply the scientific method from my understanding. The problem is that they make huge assumptions and come to different conclusions on data. For instance, more often than not they assume the general population makes rational decisions.

Someone explain to me Actuarial science.

Use mathematics to make more money for insurance companies and prevent them from losing money. Much of the modeling involves risk prediction. Companies will get a team of actuaries to determine how likely it is that there's a storm of X severity in this area of the world, or whatever.

It's bloodsucking capitalism: the job but a lot of people like that and you're actually doing interesting mathematics, unlike economists who make up models to conform to their preconceived ideology.

>assuming people are rational as axiom number 1
I mean come on, even sociologists are better than that

Le black swan man is a hack.

They bs, stupidly. Since they lack experiential intelligence, they cannot understand what the numbers represent. They also lack emotional intelligence (because the masses do). Some might be intelligent, but they'd be the ones who always see what they do is bs.

>is the Austrian school.

When the fuck did you people escape from those gold infomercials the wizard council banished you to

so what are your opinions on econometrics? is it a science? are econometricians also stupid and useless?

>Are economists as stupid and useless as some people say they are?

Yes.

Obviously.

>Are economists as stupid and useless as some people say they are?
>Nassim Taleb is such a joke. Man is literally meme material.

Implying Nassim Taleb even understands basic economics. Have you read his books?

Dude feel obliged to use "anti" and "non" infront of as many words as possible to make himself feel smarter. He's inventing a language.

Worse than Malcom Gladwell, except Gladwell is entertaining - Taleb just writes anecdotal stories about simple statistically unlikely events and treats them like a new breakthrough.

I've read all his books, cringe every time I see this guys face.

All economic math is derived from electrical theory. Inductance - cheap loans, capacitance - savings, current - currency, central banking - voltage control, consumption of goods - resistance...

The social world order is an electrical circuit Mr Beale, highly tuned, refined and optimized over the last century for control by the few over the many.

insecure economics major detected.
Taleb's thesis is common sense. You can't predict the future.

I don't know why economist get so triggered by this.

Yes.

On the other hand, no.

Depends.

Economics 101: this class is canceled.

In a barter system of individual trades in a marketplace of finite people and items where each trade is unique, how could you determine the value of items that would be valid at the next market?

If you then used a proxy in between those trades such as currency, how could you determine the proxy value (price) of items?

If you can move the supply or delay the trade because you have more of the proxy, then how could you determine the proxy value (price) of items?

If you can then take the proxy and sell it (interest on loans, fees on insurance for loss) then how could you ever have a proxy space that followed a conservative law? Aren’t you doubling the amount of proxy which reduces how much stuff it represents?

If you then add to the same marketplace the production costs and labor costs, which should be part of the sales price, then how do you have a proxy space that is conservative? Aren’t you again doubling the amount of proxy which reduces how much stuff it represents?

Since when has the presence of need created the solution for need? How does competition make better products? Isn't that up to physics? How does incremental good get expressed if it isn’t enough to overcome economies of scale?

tl;dr: Economics is a lie told to get you to be a fucking sucker and support rich people who sit around in their fucking fantasy world eating their own shit.
The only reason trade works is, on a micro level, there is a norm of what you can earn for your labor and a norm for what you pay for your bread, which allows you to predict how much bread to make and how much work to do.
All the rest is either a shell game, a pyramid scheme, or a chain letter for those who would exploit you.

Welcome to capitalism and its excuse, economics ....

Macroeconomists gave you 70 years of continued growth. You shits are taking a lof things for granted.

>macroeconomists
>not technology advances
Not even the smartest economist could sustain the current world population with medieval technology. Fucking self-obsessed little shits.

>Macroeconomists gave you 70 years of continued growth. You shits are taking a lof things for granted.

Except 2008 was just trolling

My mom's doctoral dissertation was an econometrics paper. It's definitely not a field for stupid people as she needed to use multivariate calculus, linear algebra, and learn to code to do the analysis. It's not the same as social scientists who have only taken stats 101 and can just run an ANOVA, it requires more competence.

That is such a naive statement. Sort of like saying that Religion brought us peace.
Bankers filled in for civic purpose and foresight and offered the illusion of resources by playing a chain letter of IOUs against each other to trick people into slavery while others created.

You just fall for the post-priori story of how the great Wizard saved Oz.

Aside from Bretton Woods, whose purpose was to make sure Capitalists didn't start any more wars, and was no more that a list of things any sane person would have realized was going to piss people off, there is no macro economic policy that ever did anything but rob the poor.

Ah yeah, 2008, when basically nothing catastrophic happened because macroeconomists knew what to do and took control of the situation quickly.

That is such a naive statement. Sort of like saying that Religion brought us peace.
Bankers filled in for civic purpose and foresight and offered the illusion of resources by playing a chain letter of IOUs against each other to trick people into slavery while others created.

You just fall for the post-priori story of how the great Wizard saved Oz.

Aside from Bretton Woods, whose purpose was to make sure Capitalists didn't start any more wars, and was no more that a list of things not to do that any sane person would have realized was going to piss people off, there is no macro economic policy that ever did anything but rob the poor.

There is technology, and there is having access to a technology. The soviet union up until the 80s had the same technological level as the west did. But the soviet people didnt have access to those technologies, and the western peoples did.

One was ruled by "useless" lawyers, economist, managers, etc. and one was ruled by "oh so useful" engineers, chemists, phycisists, etc. Guess which one is which.

More dialectic myopia. The more factors you have to assign to right and left, commie and capitalist, black and white, the more the dichotomies lose meaning.

You seriously are trying to shill for the con artists who produce nothing by justifying how much less they stole from those who actually did the work of inventing and making?

Those who organize organize to win the greater share of the pie, not to make a better pie. Even Operations Research is geared towards making management decisions to maximize profit, not management decisions to maximize customer benefit. Capital is a resource, not purpose. Proper management uses resources efficiently, but economics, accounting, and business management is all about the circular argument of screwing customers and labor out of benefits through the vehicle of a product.

Lawyers and bankers are equally parasitic.

you have no clue what the hell you are talking about. keep circlejerking in your "me stem masterrace" bullshit, while Musk the businessman is out there changing the world.

Well desu economy is not that well behaved system and for example mathematical finance is not that developed yet. It's no suprise that economist are having difficulties but it's worth trying

Great comeback.

for /pol.

Let's see. Musk. One guy. Every one else 7 billion guys. Hmmmm...

Why don't you go suck his dick....

Actually, economics on the capital/financial markets works perfectly because everything there is done by AI nowadays.

umm the general population does make rational decisions... even militants in congo have apple stocks.

>2008 financial crisis, when basically nothing catastrophic happened
> 2008 financial crisis
> crisis

you mean "crisis". Most banks were saved, and unemployment was down to below 8% within two years. basically nothing happened, thanks to some useless macroeconomists.

Irony challenged.
The only reason Musk has to do what he does is that a government big enough to where it can be doing what he does is a threat to those who exploit.

yeah, there are some models in economics that are quite stupid and assume impossible things like all market agents have perfect knowledge but those models are not really relevant within the economist community.

...who stole 5 million home, tanked entire industries, and transfered even more wealth into their master's pockets.

You can keep your macoappologists.

>Can't repay loan
>U stealin from me cracka!!!
Also nothing to do with economics.

economists nowadays are just absolute shit tier statisticians

>For instance, more often than not they assume the general population makes rational decisions
they have to start from somewhere. i can imagine that it would be extremely difficult to work with the assumption of irrationality, that is that agents have conflicting preferences or does not perform actions that maximizes it utility. people are basically completely random then, even though its not entirely true.

they gave out loans they had no business giving out. it's as if you have never studied the 2008 financial crisis.

pretty sure they had too much business giving them out :^)

The reason economists assume rationality is because rationality can predict peoples behavior, sometimes. Only sometimes.

If you don't assume rationality, you lose any ability to predict behavior.

+1

me? you're wrong sir you don't know where I live

+1

>how could you determine the value of items that would be valid at the next market?
they're all valid.

>Since when has the presence of need created the solution for need?

the presence of need/rise of demand creates an economic incentive for the solution, it doesn't create the solution by itself

>How does competition make better products?

really? companies that make shit products fail in face of competition, they're pressed to innovate

I'm sure you knew the answer to those questions but was just being a stubborn cynic.

ok but "sometimes" is a lot less often than an economist would tell you, and the policies they advocate for and actions they take based on that blanket assumption are detrimental to the common good.

You clearly don't understand Taleb. Maybe come back to him when you think outside of Veeky Forums reductionism and ridicule. He's not even difficult. You're just stunted.

whatever

>"An economist can tell you tomorrow, why what they predicted yesterday, didn't come true today."
So, yes.

Oh goody, it's this evenings "shit on economics" thread, brought to you by smug faggots who don't know anything about economics that didn't show up in last nights thread.

>they assume the general population makes rational decisions.
They don't assume because general population can't make optimal decisions due to lack of information ("information asymmetry") and high cost of getting it. So this is a typical optimization model when the individuals are trying to resolve between making decision with the scarce data or spend more recources in order to get more information

This microeconomics though. Macroeconomics doesn't look at individuals at all, it only analyses how things like interest rates unemployment rates, inflation, and other macroeconomic indicators behave over time, and what kind of dependencies they have between each other.

not when if thw title ends with. sci. oecon only the oecons without the sci. are what you say

I know what is macroeconomics because I have the bachelor degree in this shit. In my opinion, both subjects are useless because as microeconomists can not justify how individuals collaborate and make decisions (this "reserearches" just always introduce new proxy variable which they think can help them to frame model) as marcoeconomists whose theories and assumptions last up to next crisis / end of business cycle

That's because you probably attented some shit university where they didn't teach you economics probably. People not being rational, not having all information, etc. was even already solved by Keynes, who blamed "Animal spirit" for people's irrational behaviour. An investor will start selling if he sees his peers selling, although it's not the best rational decision for him. Because of this boom and bust cycles happen, and the state needs to intervene every now and then.

*properly

>the state should bail-out rich people who make stupid decisions

very progressive

>even already solved by Keynes
I doubt that you can justify all bubles in stock market by using Keynes's "Animal spirit" statement.

I have graduated from HSE in Russia which is considered best economics university but comparing with US economics universities I think it is absolute shit and can not argue with you. I just want to say that in the economics even fundametal theories can not be properlty applied for analysis. For example, efficient market hypothesis which describes assets pricing works only for small proportion of countries and markets meanwhile for other significant proportion of markets it is absolutely worthless

>strawmanning this hard because you're too stupid to understand nuance

>Austrian
>advocating praxeology on Veeky Forums

kill yourself

I cannot speak for all economists, but for those i know...yes.

Economists are very good at what they do.

What they do is justify a system that is structured so that certain people win.

Those certain people are not you OP.