Economics, Intuition and Praising With Faint Damnation

     I guess I'll take this comment by Anonymous as a compliment. 

    "Williamson's main implicit point is that Krugman has become a shlock economist since he writes for the NYT. So yeah, it is totally about schools of thoughts in macro with the key difference being that the Keynesian camp acknowledges that there are some moronic economists out there whereas the Neoclassical camp claims that there are no Keynesians, that all the Keynesians are NewKeynesian and thus pseudo-classical or that the Keynesians are stupid or whatever (this is an obvious variation of Freud's borrowed kettle)."

     "So the funny thing is that even without knowing anything about economics you could tell that Williamson is a liar."

     http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2013/12/krugman-envy-stephen-williamson.html?showComment=1388272702572#c9216475861384058667

    I'll take this praise with faint damnation I guess. What I would point out is that while I think I may know a little about it by now-though I wouldn't say I know a lot-yet I think part of what it comes to is that economists in the Stephen Williamson-Tony Yates mold think that just as 'there's no crying in baseball', there's 'no intuition in economics.' For them, the model makes the man/economist. 

   ""In my time in central banks one definitely encountered a breed of policymaker that behaved as if they were above actually doing macro, but yet seemed to know all the answers for sure, and know how macro should be done [of course by someone else, not them].  It seemed to many of us who observed them as though they had fallen victim to the illusion that since they had done so well in life, their gut feelings about stuff must really be valuable, and that perhaps that’s where macroeconomic truth lay, in what they as great individuals felt and said.  Many can tell stories of attempting to advise them, and being met with the condescending twinkle in the eye that translates as ‘Ah, so that’s what’s true in your silly little toy world, is it, tee hee, how quaint that you think such things worth repeating, well, I can only hope that one day you glimmer the real source of truth, namely, the instinctive knowledge of the chosen’.   If the meme that microfounded macro has ‘no merit’ were to gain any more traction, I assert that great danger would lie ahead!:  theorising that is incomplete and ‘accidental’ [in the sense meant by Krugman];  policy promises that are unverifiable;  discretion untamable;  and a search for new economic knowledge that is empty and futile (since the truth is already felt by the great policymakers, and the only way to divine it is to draw the few charts they ask us to plot, and sit around and wait until the charts work their inner magic and they are kind enough to write it down in speeches for us)."

     http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2013/12/tony-yates-inside-mind-of-your-average.html

     Exactly-who are these ignoramuses who think that their absurd 'gut feelings' can matter? (Actually he's talking about policymakers who after all pay his salary; we all do, while he sniggers about our ignorance).  In economics you don't need to think, just have the correct model based on the proper assumptions, grounded firmly in the appropriate microfoundations. If you can't say it with MF you aren't saying anything at all-you're just grunting. 

     Speaking of praising with faint damnation listen to what Mark Sadowski has to say about Diary of a Republican Hater:

     "I try and skim your trog posts when I can, if only for the gossip value. With respect to your recent infatuation with Stephen Williamson I generally think it is a mistake to try and second guess other people’ motives. In this particular instance however, my personal opinion is that you’re mistakenly reading your own motives onto Williamson."

    Ok, he sees them as a new species of blog posts-'trog posts', as in I guess blog written by an troll-but I'll take it. For anyone who wants the latest gossip in the econ world-or who might actually even want to learn something or at least think something through-please come again!

    After his kind words I almost hate to tell him I still don't agree with him about monetary offset!

   UPDATE: Becky Hargrove is on the list! We now have these great lines by commentators. 

   1. Daniel a commentator over at Money Illusion gave me a great definition of monetary offset: 'code for letting poor people starve.'

   2. An anonymous commenator at Noahpinion referred to Stephen Williamson as having 'Krugman-envy.'

   3. An now Beck Hargrove has another keeper:

   "Never mind the taper. Brace yourself for the wrath of Mike Sax."

     

   http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=25690&cpage=2#comment-308387

   Yep. Believe it.