Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Mankiw Takes advantage of Samuelson's passing to sell more textbooks...

Does anyone else think this is in poor taste?

(Scroll down to where he he shows the inscription from Samuelson, who wrote: "For Greg, who made this obsolete.")
Posted by Thorstein Veblen at 9:26 PM

3 comments:

  1. MichaelDecember 17, 2009 at 5:10 AM

    I read what Mankiw wrote and I saw it a an amusing anecdote about Samuelson's charm and integrity.

    I don't think what he said was in poor taste, but I do think you have an axe to grind against Mankiw.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousDecember 17, 2009 at 5:37 AM

    I thought it was a delightful story which showed that Samuelson was a gracious man with a good sense of humor.

    I agree with Michael - seems like this post has to do with you just not liking Mankiw in general.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousDecember 17, 2009 at 4:58 PM

    Full disclosure -- It is true I do not like Greg Mankiw. I thought he was wrong to advocate privatizing Social Security, cutting taxes for the rich, and running large structural budget deficits when he was Bush's CEA chair. I thought he was wrong to oppose the stimulus on the grounds that he wanted much more than 40% of it to be tax cuts.

    I could be wrong on this, but I don't think so. Mankiw only blogs b/c he thinks it helps his textbook sales, which is why he often posts comments from adoring students, as advertisements for his $160 textbook. He did not post about Samuelson to make people think fondly of Samuelson (actually, he didn't have anything nice to say about Samuelson's classes, he kind of dismissed them), he posted it b/c it put Greg Mankiw in a good light. total name dropping. Showing his faithful textbook users he's a player w/ the Greats, giving them evidence the Bigs take Greg Mankiw seriously, when they don't.

    -TV

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