See all the posts in the TATKOP series by Fred Shivvin here.
Thursday, 28 November 2019
TATKOP 116
There Are Two Kinds Of People: those who think in boxes and those who think about those boxes.
See all the posts in the TATKOP series by Fred Shivvin here.
See all the posts in the TATKOP series by Fred Shivvin here.
Thursday, 21 November 2019
TATKOP 115
There Are Two Kinds Of People: those who think they really do deserve a little treat and those who don't see advertising.
See all the posts in the TATKOP series by Fred Shivvin here.
See all the posts in the TATKOP series by Fred Shivvin here.
Thursday, 14 November 2019
Seeking feedback, adjectives in particular
Hello AdjAngst friends. We've taking a short break from posting to discuss and consider the AdjAngst blog journey, what we might keep doing, what we might change, to talk with some interested writers, and also to have a little refresh.
If you have any feedback please feel free to comment so it can inform our thinking.
See you after our little break, when we plan to have more adjectives and a whole pile more angst!
Fred, Mae and Mike
If you have any feedback please feel free to comment so it can inform our thinking.
See you after our little break, when we plan to have more adjectives and a whole pile more angst!
Fred, Mae and Mike
Thursday, 7 November 2019
TATKOP 114
There Are Two Kinds Of People: those who are pretty damn sure they are right.
See all the posts in the TATKOP series by Fred Shivvin here.
See all the posts in the TATKOP series by Fred Shivvin here.
Wednesday, 6 November 2019
Economist, a word that requires an adjective
By Mike Lundy
The journalist was interviewing the Prime Minister about a government proposal for boosting jobs. The proposal had no modelling, no risk analysis, no costings - no detail in fact. She asked him how he knew the program would work without any of this basic groundwork being completed.
She asked, 'Why should the Australian people trust your word?'
'Well’, he replied, 'because I am an economist, Leigh.'
In the political fog that makes it difficult to find facts and detail, this comment struck me as particularly alarming. I think the prime minister thought he was providing a genuine and satisfactory answer.
It's not any sort of answer actually. It just raises a whole lot of questions.
When a politician justifies their view by saying they are an economist, does that mean their views are correct? Why is economics a matter of 'trust'? What expertise are they claiming? What gives an economist authority to comment on the hugely complex economy of a developed industrial country? Why does the prime minister think that an individual economist can forecast the outcomes of fiscal policy, even without doing any modelling? (And I have to add, can the prime minister even claim to be an economist? Studying a Bachelor of Science (Hons) in geographic economics - a subfield of geography - and then never working in the field hardly makes one an economist. But then, that's probably the least pressing of the questions I have about this field.)
Let's start at the beginning: what is an economist anyway?
The journalist was interviewing the Prime Minister about a government proposal for boosting jobs. The proposal had no modelling, no risk analysis, no costings - no detail in fact. She asked him how he knew the program would work without any of this basic groundwork being completed.
She asked, 'Why should the Australian people trust your word?' 'Well’, he replied, 'because I am an economist, Leigh.'
In the political fog that makes it difficult to find facts and detail, this comment struck me as particularly alarming. I think the prime minister thought he was providing a genuine and satisfactory answer.
It's not any sort of answer actually. It just raises a whole lot of questions.
When a politician justifies their view by saying they are an economist, does that mean their views are correct? Why is economics a matter of 'trust'? What expertise are they claiming? What gives an economist authority to comment on the hugely complex economy of a developed industrial country? Why does the prime minister think that an individual economist can forecast the outcomes of fiscal policy, even without doing any modelling? (And I have to add, can the prime minister even claim to be an economist? Studying a Bachelor of Science (Hons) in geographic economics - a subfield of geography - and then never working in the field hardly makes one an economist. But then, that's probably the least pressing of the questions I have about this field.)
Let's start at the beginning: what is an economist anyway?
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
Recent posts
-
By Mike Lundy Here's a versatile adjective: cheap . Depending on its context, it can be positive or negative. In its positive ... -
By Mae Wright Gender is a difficult topic to write about. I've thought a lot about what makes it so tricky. Because this is AdjAngst... -
T here A re T wo K inds O f P eople : those who fear they are ordinary and those who know they are. (View all the posts in the TATKOP serie... -
By Mae Wright Part 1 of this article explored how food industry bodies influence the advice and information we get about nutrition and he... -
Hello Adjangst subscribers Just letting you know that notifications from this blog will cease at the end of October . If you want to contin... -
By Fred Shivvin My love for graphs has a most unfortunate side-effect. I end up shouting and swearing at most news reports with line ... -
By Fred Shivvin A pandemic is a lesson in living with reality. It will be a hard lesson, there will be grief and heartache. For ma... -
We know a lot more now about pandemics than we used to. Sure, we'd heard of The Plague - the big one in terms of numbers of deaths and s...