Economy

Sam1

(498 posts) Fri Jul 19, 2013, 10:02 AM Jul 2013

Noah Smith — How normal people see macroeconomics

Most of the time, econ bloggers and columnists write as if we were speaking to an audience that has taken a few econ classes. But the more widely read our posts and columns become, the more our real audiences fail to fit this ideal. Most people who read us are smart and educated. But smart and educated non-economists ("normal people", if you will) see econ - and especially macro - in fundamentally different ways from economists.

I've been thinking about these differences for a while, and I've reached two major conclusions:

1. Normal people see macro as inherently political.

2. Normal people see macro as being mostly about redistribution rather than about efficiency....

http://mikenormaneconomics.blogspot.com/2013/07/noah-smith-how-normal-people-see.html

3 replies

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Noah Smith — How normal people see macroeconomics (Original Post) Sam1 Jul 2013 OP

Sure, it's political. The real name of economics as a discipline is mbperrin Jul 2013 #1

Normal? westerebus Jul 2013 #2

The problem is that most people get almost no formal education regarding how the economy works Taitertots Jul 2013 #3

mbperrin

(7,672 posts)

1. Sure, it's political. The real name of economics as a discipline is

Reply to Sam1 (Original post)

Fri Jul 19, 2013, 10:11 AM

Jul 2013

political economy.

Everyone knew this until corporations began buying academic positions in the 70s. The "political" was dropped so that it wouldn't seem so.

westerebus

(2,976 posts)

2. Normal?

Reply to Sam1 (Original post)

Fri Jul 19, 2013, 10:36 AM

Jul 2013

You do realize normal is anything but in this group?

Taitertots

(7,745 posts)

3. The problem is that most people get almost no formal education regarding how the economy works

Reply to Sam1 (Original post)

Fri Jul 19, 2013, 11:04 PM

Jul 2013

Instead, they rely on talk radio, the MSM, the internet, or worse.

People see macro as political because they are getting their information from politicized sources. Sources that intentionally mislead people and propagate long since disproved economic ideas.

To the author's issues with economists demanding a model and dismissing non-economists arguments. Many non-economists that I've seen present opinions that are in disagreement with recorded data and deserve to be dismissed. For example, someone supporting the idea of expansionary austerity should be dismissed outright because the preponderance of evidence suggests austerity during recessions is contractionary.
Additionally, someone who isn't using a mathematical model probably isn't discussing the topic in terms of a relationship between two variables. There argument is inherently not worth responding to.

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