Comments on: Paul Romer, Macroeconomics, and Trouble

By: John Hearn

John Hearn — Sat, 17 Sep 2016 08:58:39 +0000

Please read “The four fallacies of the coming economic apocalypse” at jbhearn.wordpress.com and you will understand what is wrong with macroeconomics

By: R Richard Schweitzer

R Richard Schweitzer — Thu, 15 Sep 2016 18:48:27 +0000

.If “Science” is “an organized body of knowledge;” and,
if the perceptions of information and the perceptions of the connections of bits of information with one another are the constituents of knowledge, then assurance of the validity of that organized body of knowledge (as a “Science”) is dependent upon constantly testing for the falsity of the initial perceptions of information and for falsity in the perceptions of the connections amongst the bits of information that are assumed to constitute knowledge.

Is this done?

By: Robert Puharic

Robert Puharic — Thu, 15 Sep 2016 17:20:44 +0000

Paul Krugman has argued we’re in a dark ages of economics

By: collin

collin — Thu, 15 Sep 2016 14:20:03 +0000

I generally agree that Macro-economics can not explain everything as something new and different in society changes the Macro-economic reality. The greatest example is Japan the last 25 years have disproven all the Macro I learned from 1988 – 1994. However, we still need Macro and GDP stats to understand what is high level going on in the economy. For all the Macro complaints about Krugrman’s or Summer’s models, they have been 80% right on where the economy is going.

And in terms of Macro usefulness, I had a Macro Professor in 1993 who predicted Japan would have a long term economic slowdown because of low birth rates would have a large effect on the labor supply in the future. (Few in the class believed him.)

By: andrewknorr

andrewknorr — Thu, 15 Sep 2016 14:12:20 +0000

“Suppose an economist thought that traffic congestion is a metaphor for macro fluctuations or a literal cause of such fluctuations. The obvious way to proceed would be to recognize that drivers make decisions about when to drive and how to drive. From the interaction of these decisions, seemingly random aggregate fluctuations in traffic throughput will emerge. This is a sensible way to think about a fluctuation. It is totally antithetical to an approach that assumes the existence of imaginary traffic shocks that no person does anything to cause.”

What is the difference between “seemingly random” and “imaginary”? It would seem like the cause is equally mysterious in both cases. Is he proposing that we try to understand the cause of “seemingly random” events? The thing is that traffic jams do arise out of nowhere.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Suugn-p5C1M