Friday, January 16, 2009

From the Department of it would be funny if it weren't so sad

This makes me want to cry.
Greg Mankiw & Thomas Sargent are two very top academic
macroeconomists. They also know nothing.
Via Greg's blog, Thomas is quoted as saying, "The calculations
that I have seen supporting the stimulus package are back-of-the-
envelope ones that ignore what we have learned in the last 60
years of macroeconomic research."

60 years! So, 2009 - 60 = 1949... So, basically, everything we've learned about Macro not counting JM Keynes General Theory (1937)! Or of what we learned from the Great Depression!

As it happens, I've taken several graduate macro courses, several from top 50 macroeconomists. I learned almost nothing in them, except I got really good at doing lots of fast algebra... There was nothing more to any of these courses. I never once had the suspicion that those teaching the courses, once again, top academic macroeconomists, knew anything more about macro policy than a guy off the street.

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