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Comment by browningstreet | Hacker News Reader

I unfollowed Marginal Revolution when Tyler joined The Free Press this week. I’d already been pretty skeptical about the content on MR because there was very little rigor in the discourse and there are, apparently, no limits or constraints to what economists think they’re qualified to comment on, particularly when economics isn’t even invoked in the discussion.

I don’t go to my doctor for a discussion on urban planning. And if I do.. not at their medical office.

It’s a blog. Not a practice of economics, this one article notwithstanding.

And it isn’t even by Cowen.

EDIT: The comment section on MR is pretty awful too.

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We need a cross-cutting examination of how bad 'economics' is as a science, outside of a narrow defined set of measurable parameters

https://aeon.co/essays/how-economists-rode-maths-to-become-o... (4 April 2016)

Economics is a great way of looking at the world as long as you acknowledge its limitations. I think you're conflating an economist with economics. Economists are human with all that entails.

Absolutely terrible.

The foundations of economics are built on school boy style maths errors.

They have famous "paradoxes" and results that are just bad maths.

It's a ridiculous joke of a research field.

If you’re going to dismiss an entire field, you could at least point to specifics that are widely held tenants.

A rational actor has never, does not now, and will never exist.

Despite what social media stoics say.

Alex Tabarrok has co-authored Marginal Revolution with Tyler Cowen for a decade.

Alex is a better straight up libertarian-ish guy. Tyler has been on this "but ... what if this CONTRARIAN thing....?" for a long time and I am done with it. I may not agree with Alex on this that or the other thing, but it doesn't feel like he's trying to show off how clever he is all the time.

I bet doctors have many compelling thoughts about urban planning. If they were enthusiastic, I'd curiously listen to what they have to say.

(It is the intersection between domains where wisdom and innovation shine.)

Sure, but that wasn't the essence of my take. Everyone can have opinions on things, but if the doctor said, "As a doctor..." and then just talked about urban planning, I'd be suspect. "As a human..." would be different.

> particularly when economics isn’t even invoked in the discussion…

I think the Professor Cowen fancies himself in the way of the “public intellectual,” so that he takes the liberty to write on a range of topics outside the domain of his academic focus. He does seem extraordinarily well-read; and in many topics he writes about, I have no way of judging his contribution to those fields. While I occasionally read MR, it strikes me as quite technocratic in the way that most libertarian writing is; and this sort of socioeconomic analysis detached from human values of empathy and concern for the wellbeing of the collective isn’t appealing to me personally. But I’m sure it fills an important niche.

He is part of the Koch network: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercatus_Center

Their money is probably a large reason his content gets well promoted.

The Kochs got into politics in the 1980s because of a series of fights with the EPA whom they thought were getting in the way of their chemical company's right to pollute. If you've ever heard a morality play written about hairdresser licensing and why it means Regulation is Bad - that was them, and it leaks on to hacker news sometimes. E.g.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42982578

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31765644

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31382755

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18798111

They also really like using their money to bludgeon American economics departments into teaching economics the way they "like" it: http://bridgeproject.com/research/koch-impacts-florida/koch-...

And then there's this idiot talking about screws in iPhones. Is this even how iPhones are built? Piles of hidden screws?

https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3lm5p4tdc6a2c

So many screws that we should have human American workers installing screws in iPhones? And this is how we make American workers wealthier?

They think we're stupid or they want us to be stupid. This isn't an economic policy. It's a way to reward fealty and punish disloyalty, to a specific person.

"that kind of thing is going to come to America... and be automated". Pretty disingenuous cut on the quote there by the bluesky post.

I’m not gonna tell you Lutnick is smart, but did you watch the clip or just read Rupar’s quote? He’s clearly saying that electronics manufacturers are leaning on low-wage foreign labor as a crutch to avoid the cost of investing in more innovative automated assembly strategies.

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