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Ask HN: What are you reading to make sense of the economy?

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Re: Ask HN: What are you reading to make sense of the economy?

#251

Post by was8309 »

barrenko wrote: post #192
sergiosgc wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mind arrogance on public personas[^] who are very good at what they do. Think Steve Jobs arrogance. Think José Mourinho "I'm the special one" in 2004. I read it as putting your (reputational) neck on the line. "I'm so sure of this assertion that I'm risking my reputation here.". Taleb is one such brilliant mind. The downside to arrogance is that it will tank your reputation if you fail. This may be too early…

He's only arrogant to people covertly arrogant.

Sorry, are you referring to Kaleb or Trump? thanks

Re: Ask HN: What are you reading to make sense of the economy?

#252

Post by rch »

jazzyk wrote: post #168
passer_byer wrote: post #163

Consider a subscription to the British newspaper The Economist. It began publication in 1848 in protest against the British corn laws. The writing is superlative written with a rather sly sense of humor. In particular, they collect and graph enormous amounts of data to augment their articles. It's much better than random posts found on the internet.

Very well written indeed, unfortunately owned by globalists since 2015 (check out the ownership change, if you are interested [1]) I had been an avid reader for 30 years, cancelled my subscription around 2015-2016, and I was not even aware of the new ownership at the time, I just sensed the change of their ideological orientation and did not like it one bit. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economist_Group

I noticed the change as well, but didn't think to investigate. Thanks for surfacing this information.

Re: Ask HN: What are you reading to make sense of the economy?

#253

Post by dlp211 »

caseysoftware wrote: post #182
aqqTwxye wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Economists do not claim to know the economy, much less to the point of becoming rich. They are far more likely to insist that nobody can know such thing. You must be thinking of somebody else.

Distinguished Professor of Economics at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and winner of the Nobel in Economic Sciences Paul Krugman would disagree with you. He's full of economic pronouncements going as far as when markets are going to crash (immediately) and their specific cause (Trump elected). You can make the case that as a columnist, he's encouraged to make predictions but most Keynesians be…

Krugman walked that back and apologized and reflected on the fact that he to is human and liable to let his emotions get a hold of him.

Re: Ask HN: What are you reading to make sense of the economy?

#254

Post by dlp211 »

paganel wrote: post #211
barrenko wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's NOT a black swan event.

Not the OP but we've last had a pandemic of such proportions 100 years ago, and back then the world was not as inter-connected and inter-dependent as it is right now. Even during WW1 and WW2 industry and the economy itself were working (sometimes at full capacity), a fact that it is not happening right now. We've never had half of the planet's population in some sort of lockdown, that is the definition of a "black sa…

Black Swan events are unknown unknowns. White swan events are known unknowns. Pandemics are White Swan events.

Re: Ask HN: What are you reading to make sense of the economy?

#255

Post by rchaud »

thorwasdfasdf wrote: post #231
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like what I heard Tyler Cowen say a long time ago: a degree in economics is a great way to learn about a lot of ideas that sound good but don't work. (I'm paraphrasing, of course) I thought his point was great. There's some well-trodden ground in economics. If you learn nothing more but where the alligators are, you're probably going to do a lot better on that trip through the swamp you plan on taking. If nothing e…

Let's be a bit more specific here before people get the wrong idea. Economics doesn't work for predicting the stock market. Other than that, it works just fine. The principals of supply and demand and huge host of other issues are just fine and work great. It just doesn't translate to predicting equities.

It doesn't translate to predicting anything, stock market included. Economics is an art, not a science. Society is the petri dish on whch experiments are carried out, and even in the smallest experiments, you can't really isolate environmental variables like you can in say in a physics experiment. Every economic theory is prefaced with "all other things remaining equal", which should invalidate them right then and there.

It's ultimately a study of the impact of the decisions societies make, and even then, the metrics it uses are often poor indicators of quality of life. Apartheid South Africa was the continent's bread basket on the basis of its mining output and high GDP per capita. But that wealth was concentrated in the hands of the white minority and not used to improve infrastructure and education for the colonized majority. That was badly needed to fuel long-term growth and build an economy that wasn't dependent on commodities prices.

Re: Ask HN: What are you reading to make sense of the economy?

#257

Post by genidoi »

dlp211 wrote: post #254
paganel wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the OP but we've last had a pandemic of such proportions 100 years ago, and back then the world was not as inter-connected and inter-dependent as it is right now. Even during WW1 and WW2 industry and the economy itself were working (sometimes at full capacity), a fact that it is not happening right now. We've never had half of the planet's population in some sort of lockdown, that is the definition of a "black sa…

Black Swan events are unknown unknowns. White swan events are known unknowns. Pandemics are White Swan events.

So by your reasoning, a large asteroid discovered to hit earth a month from now would be a white swan event, because we always knew it could happen.

Re: Ask HN: What are you reading to make sense of the economy?

#258

Post by yaa_minu »

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Basic Economics[1] by Thomas Sowell.

It's a fairly detailed book but it's worth the time. If you're too busy to read a whole book, you might want to take a look at "Economics in One Lesson" [2] by Herny Hazlitt.

The foundation for economic education[3] has some great articles too about economics and public choice.

[1]https://www.amazon.com/Basic-Economics-Thomas-Sowel/dp/04650... [2] https://fee.org/media/14946/economicsinonelesson.pdf [3] https://fee.org

Re: Ask HN: What are you reading to make sense of the economy?

#260

Post by AQuantized »

genidoi wrote: post #257
dlp211 wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Black Swan events are unknown unknowns. White swan events are known unknowns. Pandemics are White Swan events.

So by your reasoning, a large asteroid discovered to hit earth a month from now would be a white swan event, because we always knew it could happen.

An asteroid is definitionally a Grey Swan. Very unlikely to happen, and of great impact, but still considered possible. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/grey-swan.asp

COVID-19s impact wasn't nearly unpredictable or unprecedented enough to be defined as a Black Swan imo. I did know many people both in real life and online who were concerned about it before the impact, considerably different from e.g. 2008 financial crisis.

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