The "ist" in "economist" resembles "Trotskyist", not "biologist"
From the Department of "Yeah, but really"...
Realistically, the students who are struggling to pass third year economics courses are never going to be policy analysts or economic journalists. So what am I teaching them that would help them in the job market?
All sorts of useful things! Things like "unions are bad and self-serving"! Like "government regulation is bad"! Like "The USA's business friendly climate makes it the strongest nation in the world"! Or "Minimum wages are bad for everyone"! And so on.
What do the Chinese equivalents of this guy's students learn in their corresponding political indoctrination which helps them in the job market? How to be a politically sound cadre who can be relied on to support the existing system. Come on, dude, you are simultaneously wildly overvaluing yourself as a provider of useful knowledge, and undervaluing yourself as a vital part of the educational system.
I think I was the first to say that Nick Rowe is basically a 1970s professor of scientific Leninism from Dnepropetrovsk School of Mines. But then I read to the bottom, looked at the byline, and noticed it was Frances Woolley. OK, then, 3rd Moscow Technical Institute of Thermal Technology.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the comments: yes, learning specific proprietary software packages is a valid goal of higher education as long as they are ours! You know, I heard at a party that plumbers make more than investment bankers! Free markets good in everything, but the problem is IMMIGRANTS IMMIGRANTS IMMIGRANTS!
ReplyDeleteNick Rowe is hilarious. Every once in a while he'll do something like ask, "Wait, what is capital?" And after a zillion paragraphs he winds up with "Well, the textbook I teach out of says this, and so it must be right." Anybody who wants to study econ in college should read his blog first and then decide if it still seems like a good idea. I wish I had.
ReplyDeleteMy favourite Nick Rowe post was about how his students all look at him in amazement and confusion when he explains to them that it's not possible for prices to rise faster than wages, and isn't hilarious how stupid his students are?
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