> "This means the claimed [number of deaths] was just kind of completely made up."
The basic axiom upon which all basic economics is founded on is this statement. Where the term they are seeking to quantify can be replaced with whatever it is you're trying to work out. It is a universal a priori syllogism so perfect you can apply the formula to anything. This ab initio sentence can be used to explain any literally meaningless economic term including (but not limited to):
- Gross Domestic Product,
- Consumer Price Index,
- Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium,
and many more.
A charitable view of economics (the type that say David McWilliams espouses) is that it is about figuring out what levers we can pull — or what levers are being pulled — to make people change behaviour. A realistic view on the vast majority of Economists and their graphs is that they're doing something worse than trying to figure out complex patterns from tea leaves, they're applying unflinchingly simple theories to exceedingly complex problems and using their best reckons to... well... fuck... to what? The economists themselves don't seem to benefit from their predictions, so one can only assume, using economists same logic, that they've drunk some pretty strong Kool-Aid that has been dished out by some of the worlds most reprehensible people. A great example of the unthinking nature of Economists are the lads in charge of New Zealand's Reserve Bank who a couple of weeks back, and I'm not shitting you here, suggested that "unemployment needed to rise to 5.7 percent to quell inflationary pressures, meaning another 75,000 job losses."*
What sort of psychopath can say the livelihoods of tens of thousands of people, their families, and their futures are less important than some completely made up number (inflation — which could be controlled by so many more factors other than making people unemployed)?
The answer is, of course, an economist. I have proven this by doing a study where I asked the people in the room where I am right now (n=1) if they thought all the economists they knew were psychopaths. The results were conclusive: 100% of the people (in this room) think 100% of the economists they know are psychopaths. Using a statistical model that accounts for biases, population demographics, and socioeconomic status, the author concludes that 100% of economists are psychopaths.
Give me a god damn PhD in economics. Someone. Anyone.
You’ve put forward and defended an excellent thesis and I can see no issue with your modelling, sampling or analysis. Based on my total lack of qualification to say so, please consider yourself peer reviewed & on your way to a PhD
Sir Wood (PhD), might you be able to predict for us commoners if interest rates might be on the rise? Also, can you favour us with your scientific prognostications on whether it might rain in some point in the future?
Do you have a chicken — fur or normal, it doesn’t really matter. In fact any small bird or mammal or human child under the age of 22 will do — which I can disembowel?
Side note: I’ve decided my already awarded PhD is on the science of Extispicium as it relates to economic trends of the late 2100s. This grand work will be available on the Amazon Kindle store post haste.
As Substack’s leading Haruspicologist I’m going to prove my theories are correct by predicting it will rain at some point soon, somewhere*.
*The only liver I had access to was my own. Please send an ambulance.
If only. IF ONLY.... Everyone who had shared this clap-trap diatribe on their socials in the first place were to retract and publish the corrected information instead. Hell-to-tha-naww-naww-nawwww. You can just hear the howls of ‘you’re only looking at the mainstream science...’
Sigh. I'm thinking of the people who took their first tentative steps down the rabbit hole some 25 years ago after believing the (since debunked and retracted) article published in the Lancet linking autism to the MMR vaccination, who are now fully-blown anti-vax, Q-Anon believing conspiracy theorists ... and have a sense of deja vu. How can this possibly happen again? I guess you have to laugh or else you'd cry.
Have you read Lionel Striver’s The Mandible’s? Not her best work but it’s clear from that, that she shares your position on the worthiness of a lot of economists and their work.
It's incredible how that got published in a journal. If you need more examples of economists being dicks, have a read of Freakonomics, and the podcast 'If books could kill' for a take-down of it. I took lots of economics papers at uni, and was recommended Freakonomics, which I read at the end of my degree, and got fully suckered in by it. It was pretty enlightening to hear about how much of the book was made up!
I was a paid-up member of the Freakonomics fan club and I've been annoyed for some years now to discover how completely I and every other reader of that damn book was had.
> "This means the claimed [number of deaths] was just kind of completely made up."
The basic axiom upon which all basic economics is founded on is this statement. Where the term they are seeking to quantify can be replaced with whatever it is you're trying to work out. It is a universal a priori syllogism so perfect you can apply the formula to anything. This ab initio sentence can be used to explain any literally meaningless economic term including (but not limited to):
- Gross Domestic Product,
- Consumer Price Index,
- Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium,
and many more.
A charitable view of economics (the type that say David McWilliams espouses) is that it is about figuring out what levers we can pull — or what levers are being pulled — to make people change behaviour. A realistic view on the vast majority of Economists and their graphs is that they're doing something worse than trying to figure out complex patterns from tea leaves, they're applying unflinchingly simple theories to exceedingly complex problems and using their best reckons to... well... fuck... to what? The economists themselves don't seem to benefit from their predictions, so one can only assume, using economists same logic, that they've drunk some pretty strong Kool-Aid that has been dished out by some of the worlds most reprehensible people. A great example of the unthinking nature of Economists are the lads in charge of New Zealand's Reserve Bank who a couple of weeks back, and I'm not shitting you here, suggested that "unemployment needed to rise to 5.7 percent to quell inflationary pressures, meaning another 75,000 job losses."*
What sort of psychopath can say the livelihoods of tens of thousands of people, their families, and their futures are less important than some completely made up number (inflation — which could be controlled by so many more factors other than making people unemployed)?
The answer is, of course, an economist. I have proven this by doing a study where I asked the people in the room where I am right now (n=1) if they thought all the economists they knew were psychopaths. The results were conclusive: 100% of the people (in this room) think 100% of the economists they know are psychopaths. Using a statistical model that accounts for biases, population demographics, and socioeconomic status, the author concludes that 100% of economists are psychopaths.
Give me a god damn PhD in economics. Someone. Anyone.
*https://business.scoop.co.nz/2023/04/05/out-of-touch-reserve-bank-putting-unemployment-ahead-of-wellbeing/
You’ve put forward and defended an excellent thesis and I can see no issue with your modelling, sampling or analysis. Based on my total lack of qualification to say so, please consider yourself peer reviewed & on your way to a PhD
That's DOCTOR J J W to you.
Sir Wood (PhD), might you be able to predict for us commoners if interest rates might be on the rise? Also, can you favour us with your scientific prognostications on whether it might rain in some point in the future?
Do you have a chicken — fur or normal, it doesn’t really matter. In fact any small bird or mammal or human child under the age of 22 will do — which I can disembowel?
Side note: I’ve decided my already awarded PhD is on the science of Extispicium as it relates to economic trends of the late 2100s. This grand work will be available on the Amazon Kindle store post haste.
As Substack’s leading Haruspicologist I’m going to prove my theories are correct by predicting it will rain at some point soon, somewhere*.
*The only liver I had access to was my own. Please send an ambulance.
If only. IF ONLY.... Everyone who had shared this clap-trap diatribe on their socials in the first place were to retract and publish the corrected information instead. Hell-to-tha-naww-naww-nawwww. You can just hear the howls of ‘you’re only looking at the mainstream science...’
Great article as always, Josh. More please!
Thank you for making me laugh out loud at a truly depressing aspect of contemporary life.
At times like this, I guess all you can do is watch this clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcB6EGBwdec
Now I just want to give Marge a hug
(Annotations and redactions are mine.) 🤣
FFS alright. That was painful to read, but not unsurprising. Thanks for sharing.
Sigh. I'm thinking of the people who took their first tentative steps down the rabbit hole some 25 years ago after believing the (since debunked and retracted) article published in the Lancet linking autism to the MMR vaccination, who are now fully-blown anti-vax, Q-Anon believing conspiracy theorists ... and have a sense of deja vu. How can this possibly happen again? I guess you have to laugh or else you'd cry.
Oh yeah, for sure. It’s happened so many times since Wakefield! This latest is possibly the most egregious instance I’ve ever seen, though.
Nice try, but hey ho, we know the ol' "it's been suppressed, cos they can't handle the truth" response will be in instantaneous hyperdrive. FFS.
Oh absolutely. Being “suppressed” only reinforces the conspiracist narrative.
Have you read Lionel Striver’s The Mandible’s? Not her best work but it’s clear from that, that she shares your position on the worthiness of a lot of economists and their work.
It's incredible how that got published in a journal. If you need more examples of economists being dicks, have a read of Freakonomics, and the podcast 'If books could kill' for a take-down of it. I took lots of economics papers at uni, and was recommended Freakonomics, which I read at the end of my degree, and got fully suckered in by it. It was pretty enlightening to hear about how much of the book was made up!
I was a paid-up member of the Freakonomics fan club and I've been annoyed for some years now to discover how completely I and every other reader of that damn book was had.