[kdw]

Okay, you win. I'll leave HN as well.

I'm just a guy with a deep and abiding fascination with economics and public policy. One so deep I recently picked up a graduate degree on the subject. One so deep that my current startup is based entirely on my desire to help individuals better understand the financial possibilities that lie before them.

But you've read a blog and some things on reddit, so clearly you understand it better than me.

I'm sick of arguing with people like you... people who base their economic beliefs not on solid econometric analysis, but rather on mostly inaccurate blog posts... and yet you still mistake yourself for an expert.

You win. I'm out of here too. I'm deleting my posts that are available for deletion, because the combined arrogance and ignorance of your response here makes clear that I was foolish for thinking that this could be a venue for informed discussion. I won't waste another second of my life "debating" well established knowledge with an idiot like you.

[bokonist]

Wow.

You complain about me being "arrogant" and "ignorant" and then you make entirely false statements about my own background (a subject of which you know absolutely nothing). You then complain about the quality of this forum, and then are the first person in two years of commenting on Hacker News that has ever attacked me ad hominem. I suspect that you are reasonable person that is just especially frustrated by the generally low quality of internet commentary about economics ( I too no longer visit reddit, but that doesn't mean the people there are wrong about everything). But if that kind of language is common with you, I do hope that you leave Hacker News.

I have had also had a long and deep fascination with economics and public policy. I've read dozens of books on finance and economics, from the original classics to more modern research. I've read hundreds of articles, I used to browse through social science libraries and download NBER papers for fun. I've had long and productive discussions with academic economists, people who work in finance and people who have worked in central banking. I don't claim to be omniscient about economics. But I have formed judgments, I state them plainly, and I welcome debate and hearing new arguments. I do not disagree with Keynesians or other mainstream folks because I am ignorant of their arguments. I disagree because I have evaluated them very carefully, read everything I could on the subject, and found their theories unconvincing.

I would be happy to debate or back up either of the two claims I made ( "The CPI is not a good measure of inflation" and "The mainstream economists led the economy off a cliff"). If you want to read comments where I elaborate more, you can read a few I made elsewhere: http://www.newmogul.com/item?id=15334 or http://www.newmogul.com/item?id=12274 I would actually really like to debate them with a worthy opponent. I too find good economic debate very hard to find on the web.

[bokonist]

There is no such thing as a Keynesian.

Some economists suggest that "we re-embrace Keynes" (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/magazine/06Economic-t.html ). We call these people "Keynesians" for shorthand.

I greatly doubt "dozens of books", but I wouldn't be surprised if you've read a couple books and some articles that generally all agree with your preconceived ideas and your austrian leanings.

That is false. I read books from all sides, and the results of my reading greatly changed my views.

After all, you're clearly a person who think that he can point to the sky and understand economics, which is typical for armchair austrians... whereas actual economists and intelligent people generally prefer econometric data.

I have no problem with data. Because I respect data and math, I care a lot about when it is used properly and when it is not. In particular, regressions are almost always abused in econometrics, because there are far too many variables to control for, all the variables are imprecisely defined, and there is no easy to way to check the author's assumptions for a sensitivity analysis.

The federal reserve failed to be an effective arbiter of systemic risk. (something which was not even remotely in its mission statement.)

Dear God, if you call me ignorant you should at least read their mission statement before making a claim like that: http://www.federalreserve.gov/aboutthefed/mission.htm Mission:

- "supervising and regulating banking institutions to ensure the safety and soundness of the nation's banking and financial system and to protect the credit rights of consumers"

- "maintaining the stability of the financial system and containing systemic risk that may arise in financial markets"

That's just nonsense. Most economists have nothing to do with the economy.

A great number of prominent economists work in official positions ( CEA, FED, the various agencies and bureaus). These economists play very major roles in regulating the economy.

Non-hedonically adjusted metrics have been studied at length and are generally be be more flawed than the hedonically adjusted metrics.

I never said straight up hedonically adjusted numbers are better. You have to use the right number for the job. For the purposes of monetary policy or investing, I would look mainly at national income statistics, asset prices, credit growth, and broad money supply growth. Maybe the Fed wasn't watching these, or maybe were and just ignored them. But all four measures were showing huge warnings as early as 2004, and had they been paid attention to, a lot of bad things could have been avoided.

That said, it's ludicrously arrogant and nonsensical to simply claim it's pure fabrications,

Calling it a "pure fabrication" is inaccurate, and a word I did not use. The CPI is the result of lots of honest hard working people, who long hours trying to boil down the economy into one number using the most accurate methodology they can. But the economists calculating the CPI do exist in a political world, and there is a selection effect for a methodology that has more generous assumptions.

But when you pile a ton of subjective assumptions together and then apply a bunch of math, the result is subjective. There are multiple semi-plausible ways to do hedonics and there is no right answer. How can you objectively measure how much percent better a 2004 Toyota is than a 1998 Toyota? The CPI does indeed have a consistent, thought out methodology. Unfortunately, it's actually in part measuring the Toyota new model roll out strategy. The Toyota model roll out strategy has nothing to do with monetary economics or investment strategy.

To you, economics is a religion, and as such there is no point in arguing with you... you point at the sky, not at the ground.

Well, I have changed my mind on many issues. I am very responsive to good arguments. In fact, I used to have exactly your position on CPI, with exactly the arguments you made. But I studied the issue further and was convinced otherwise.

I truly and honestly hope that at some point in time you'll pull your head out of your ass for long enough to realize the difference in the level of effort required to become a true expert in a field, and the level of effort required to simply become dangerous.

So what would you advocate I do if I wanted to become an expert? What defines an expert?