Professor Jean Tirole Just Won The Nobel Prize In Economics: When we were kids in little league there used to be this thing called “The Hustle Award”. And you can just imagine the guy who snagged that one. Four eyes, two left feet and a couple of butter mounds where the hands should have been. Some years, ok decades, later we find that this award still exists. Only now instead of being given to fellows that failed on the ball field it appears to be going to people that fail in an even more important one; economics. And by failure we mean unable to have predicted the world financial meltdown and unable to prescribe actions significantly different from the ones that caused it in the first place. Interestingly enough there was a long lister for The Nobel Prize in Economics (or more accurately the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel) that has consistently not failed at either of those things. His name is Israel Kirzner and so far as we are concerned he is the MVP of econ.
This post was last modified on October 13, 2014
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WHAT?? You mean they overlooked Paul Krugman?
I become more of a fan of Milton Friedman the more I listen to him. His comments 30 years ago about regulatory capture and how elites skim off the top with the help of govt in the name of poor is even more relevant
My sister was a social worker and my dad went to visit her at her office. It was an extremely nice facility and my dad walked away saying "There sure is a lot of money in poverty."
Case in point...
http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1754046!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/article_1200/484186033.jpg
Southern saying "they've got all kinds of book smarts and not a single lick of common sense" this describes the professor to a T.
Caught between the Dumb People who riot when a cop shoots a vicious monster and the Smart People who are more interested in lining their pockets than fixing things, I feel like I'm Indiana Jones trapped between two moving walls of stone.
Economists are all highly educated and all they can think of is "Let's sell this debt over here and move this debt from column A to column B where no one will notice it for a while, and then we'll raise the debt ceiling again, and then..." They have no f*cking idea how to create a system that actually works. All they can do is manage a bunny-in-a-top-hat illusion and another sloppy sandbagging plan that helps a failing nation appear solvent for another month.
Education is a scam. Economics is a scam.
Damn, it. I thought it was a chick who won...
These people that see a capitalist cabal everywhere they look are absolutely blind to the duopoly that is our two-party system. If there were two companies that colluded as tightly as the Democrats and Republicans and produced 'socially undesirable' outcomes, these people would be going nuts.
If a market operated like our primary system on inbred party hacks playing high-school student council payback, they would be thrown in jail.
If the inherent bribes as contributions were done to foreign entities, you'd be in violation of so many corruption laws it would make your head spin.
If a company made claims like candidates do on the stump and then failed to deliver, the Commerce dept would make it rain lawsuits.
How is it that monopolies are bad, but Progressive have a dream of the govt having a monopoly in using violence to defend yourself? Gun control is the ultimate grab at concentrating power.
All these 'smart' people with their new laws and plans that just muck things up because they can't see 6 inches past the effects of their plans.
If there were two companies that colluded as tightly as the Democrats and Republicans and produced ‘socially undesirable’ outcomes, these people would be going nuts.
Would they go nuts? Or would they simply ask, "Do I want Mac or PC?" and pretend that everything's OK?
Mac....duh! ;)
UNIX!