What kind of grades do you make?

Post Reply New Topic

Calculus is good. If you can take a statistics class then that would help as well as many econ departments require basic statistics before reaching higher level courses. The basic econ class is really not that great, it will give broad understanding but it won't address the greater aspects of econ. It pretty much sounds just like what is minimal for one to graduate from a high school.

I love economics. And yes, I've read Freakonomics (and subscribe to the Freakonomics Blog.) It is an interesting read, and makes some interesting observations---especially the bit about why drug dealers live with their mothers. For the record, I always thought it was common sense that they never had enough money to do otherwise, and that the violence over "turf" was because there was a limited supply and a big demand and a huge payoff (hopefully.) But what Levitt did was empirically prove my "common sense" assessment with hard data collected from the streets himself. That is what I found most interesting in Freakonomics. The chapter on names was uninteresting because it has been done to death. I also liked the bit about teachers cheating.

The econ class in high school, even AP, is just basic Principles. I would sit in on a REAL principles of micro/macro class at your local university to get a taste of what it is like. At my school (college, not high school) the micro/macro classes are weed-out classes. I am currently an econ major but am seriously considering getting a liberal arts degree to encompass my eclectic interests (while taking all the math classes required of econ majors, of course). I am working on eventually getting a Ph.D. in economics.

Today we did basic cost-benefit analysis, which I thought was interesting, and which I thought made a very good case for abandoning a centrally-controlled economy in favor of a free-market economy. Apparently, my professor didn't agree and felt that the complexity of the market needed someone in charge to decide how best we should allocate our scarce resources to alleviate human misery. [sigh] This is why I find it impossible to separate political theory from economic theory...

Anyway. Economics is AWESOME!

Yeah, that is possibly somewhat true. Heck, I got a 5 on my Macro test without knowing much about a Laffer curve. The only thing is that your local community college might be worse than your high school AP class. I know that many kids at my school took the community college econ because it was a joke. So, it would have to be a 4 year university to go to.
Interesting. Yeah, I'd say that a very large percent of political debate is upon economics issues, many of which there is divide amongst econ professors, and I first became interested because I wanted to know the best ways to promote growth and efficiency. What I find interesting about your professor's argument(from what your comment tells me so far) is that it has been argued that because the market is so complex, effective uses of intervention tend to fail due to the quantity of issues that this intervention has to deal with.
I think economics would state that your valuation of economics is subjective.

This is true, although there could also be a great econ class at a community college. If there is a university in your area, I would try contacting the econ department (possibly located in the College of Business--or whatever name the university uses) and explain that you are interested in economics and ask if you could sit in. But definitely take the AP test. It won't hurt, and will probably help--plus, it is very interesting, informative, and important (I think, anyway.)



Ah, you and I think so alike sometimes, it's a little scary. That is EXACTLY what my argument is, and I don't understand how ANYONE who studies economics can see anything differently unless they ignore certain facts in order keep their pet theories viable. (There is an interesting paper entitled "The Problem of Demarcation" by Karl Popper--who, interestingly taught at the London School of Economics--that I would recommend.)



Nice.

Got a 2.70 over at Georgia Tech thru seven semesters.

Not bad if i say so myself.

If possible it might be good to take both AP tests if you feel up for it. There are texts on the internet that could probably help you. Like, there is an entire list of free online textbooks on the internet.
http://www.oswego.edu/~economic/newbooks.htm

Uh... well... it isn't that scary. You did tell me about Mises.org and I noticed quickly that they had free econ books that I could download and read on my own time so all my statement ended up being was just something based off of their work on economic calculation and also based off of the work of a few other free-marketeers I have read as it isn't hard to conceive that a fundamental problem with economics is information. I have not read "The Problem of Demarcation" by Karl Popper though, I did not know he had major works in economics even though I did know he was a Mont Pelerin philosopher. Really though, I am not sure that we know absolute truth either, we do have a relatively good idea but some people point to their sources and such and consider marketeers to be the ideologues. I will admit that any modern Galbraithian or Marxist is probably unscientific but then again there are questions such as the problems with lemons and things of that nature. I dunno, that is just my attempt at being even-handed I suppose, given I don't have the expertise of a PhD.

I like to think I have some wit.

Popper was mostly a philosopher of science, and I wouldn't say he had major writings in economics. The paper is actually about where to draw the lines between science and non-science. Wikipedia has a nice entry on the paper. It is mostly about empirical testing, really--you know, taking a theory and submitting it to what we know already. I don't think we know absolute truth, either. What we do have is over 2000 years of human experience and history. (Popper has some really interesting ideas on this, actually.) Basically what Popper says about Marxism in his paper on The Problem of Demarcation is that Marxism ceased to be scientific the moment its followers ceased to think and observe and accept that maybe Russia, China, Cambodia, Vietnam, Cuba, etc. were offering proof of falsification of certain parts of the theory and instead began being dogmatic.

P.S. When I said it was scary that you and I thought alike, I meant in a joking way, not seriously.

Ah, ok, well I don't think that the threat is so much from traditional Marxism it is possibly taking some ideas from Marxism without fixing them but I'd say that a bigger issue isn't Marxism itself but rather other economic ideas that go for high economic interventionism. I didn't think you meant that you were literally frightened, I just reacted as if you were just shocked by it. I didn't find it that shocking. Perhaps I was trying to read to much into that little off-hand comment though.

Yes.



Welcome to the Life of Me, an Aspie, Wherein I Take Everything Literally.

I really don't know how to respond. Are you claiming that I took you too literally?

No, I took your response literally. And now I am all sorts of confused. I haven't slept in a while, and it is beginning to show. My bad. I actually don't know why I said what I said, come to think of it.

Well, for you to take my response literally though is not unusual considering the fact that you simply thought I was being aspie. Yeah, I suppose it is showing. Sleep is a good thing.

No, see, I was meaning that *I* was being Aspie by literally taking your comment about our similar thought processes being not scary. Does that make sense? Probably not. But my last "Welcome to the World of Me" comment was intended as a self-deprecatory remark on my own tendency to take things literally, not a slander against you in anyway. So if you wre offended, I didn't mean it for you, but for me...and I am going to stop now before I confuse things even more.

But you were being aspie in thinking that I was being aspie??? It makes no sense! I didn't get offended, I was curious on whether or not you were poking fun at me or yourself. You had better stop, you are confusing yourself. This convo really isn't that complicated nor is what happened that complicated to understand once all of the info has come in.

This is good advice. I am thinking too hard. I shall stop. Now, the question is, to get back on topic, whether I can pass my classes this semester since my current econ class is rather boring. Well, not really, it's just not that interesting. But I think I am going to enjoy it more than my previous class, that is for sure. I do think, however, that my favorite class is Linguistics. The professor is cool, the subject matter is interesting, and it is just fun to to pick up and observe patterns in language.

I think I will pass my classes, and therefore increase my GPA simply because I am growing up---and by "growing up" I mean learning that sometimes you just have to do what they tell you in order to succeed. (Well, that I am never working for minimum wage again. Ever.)

I bet I will get a C/B average again.

Same here.