Starting early, I came back home pretty early too. A co-worker who resides in Southern California was very proud of their warm weather down there. It sounded reaching 70+ degrees. However, Seattle seemed getting into Spring today as well. When I drove onto North Road, I even rolled down the side window of my caravan to breath the warm air. Glancing the kids playing sports in the playground at Lynnwood High School, I turned into our neighborhood feeling a bit hot because I wore a pretty thick coat bought at Costco in last December.
Slipping into the comforter, I started watching New Hampshire Primaries on CNN. It's still more than half an hour away from the beginning of votes counting. On TV screen, I could tell so many cars piling on the road headed to the voting center. Voters in New Hampshire were very active.
Not long after the counting started, CNN and other major media had already projected Sanders and Trump to win. The wins couldn't be exaggerated landslide but very significant. Sanders seemed catching a little bit cold, so coughed from time to time during his victory speech; Trump was a little bit disoriented at the beginning, no one really was sure who he thanked. However, his nationalism to making America be great again inspired a lot of people.
I couldn't decide to go to gym or not, eventually didn't go because I felt pretty tired. Anyway, I did finish reading the last chapter of Economics Rules: Economics and Its Critics:
Per author, there are several usual criticisms on economists:
- Economic Models are too simple. Author argues that simplicity is a requirement of science. I totally agree. According to my experiences in the past several decades, the highest level of expertise in certain area is that you can tear apart a complex issue into multiple smaller problems, then figure out solutions for each problem, finally summarize your conclusion in a simple way for the entire issue;
- Economists make unrealistic assumptions built into models. I didn't find author really argued in this chapter. My take is to try your best to make a realistic assumption, however, you have to make an assumption for building up a model to have a specific issue resolved. You can keep improving the model by making more realistic assumptions gradually if the issue is ongoing;
- Economists neglect the role of social and cultural determinants of behaviors. I don't necessarily agree with this criticism but do think economics should be integrated with other social sciences. Building economic models, economists should select a set of variables from the perspectives of psychology, sociology, etc.;
- Economists' theories can't be tested. Though as a social science, the testing processes for economics theories are not easily controllable and the testing results are not universally acceptable, they still can be tested through more consistent processes carefully designed;
- Economics models can't be used to predict future. I don't think any models can be utilized to predict future reliably. This is not the problem for economics models only. Cross references through a broad pool of tools is mandatory.
Author raises a question about values and argues that humans are selfish by nature. Economists focus on efficiency, which contains humans' selfishness. This is why I repeated many times before that Socialism is a higher social form because it requires humans in its system to act unselfishly. Socialism will take a long time to be established all over the world because people have to reach the same level of ethical standards, otherwise, good guys would be constantly taken advantages, then the whole system wouldn't be sustainable. So called "Socialism" in former Soviet Union and China was not real because ruling parties fooled citizens to devote unselfishly but their members pocketed the benefits. North Korea actually is imperial.
Pluralism is advocated by many students because they consider basic economics courses are taught too narrowly. However, as a stand alone science, there is always a boundary, otherwise, economics wouldn't be economics itself.
At the end of the book, author puts forward 10 commandments for economists and non-economists each, which impresses me very much. After reading these 20 commandments, you can test them in real world:
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