Winter 2021 LC Thread—I Want Sous Vide

[prana]

Moar ICP?

[Trolly]

I would guess another crab book.

I’ve been listening to Worst Bestsellers, which has a very different energy but is entertaining. Miss the IEODAT bros, tho.

[Melkerson]

@Devil

In grad school I sat in on a microeconomics class for a couple of lectures. I considered taking it for fun. But looking through the text, I saw it was sprinkled with partial differential equations and a lot of unfamiliar jargon. It seemed like a lot of work. The professor was all business, a new PhD. So I didn’t take the class.

Microeconomics class that required partial differential equations. Really? Do you remember what the title was? This seems very unusual.

This seems like it might be in @spidercrab 's wheelhouse. How common are econ classes that require the ability to understand partial differential equations?

[suzzer99]

[Lawnmower_Man]

@TrollyWantACracker

University of Chicago and that she thought the US deregulation of the airline industry was the single most pivotal moment in history

She thought it was GOOD right?

[Melkerson]

@Lawnmower_Man

@TrollyWantACracker

University of Chicago and that she thought the US deregulation of the airline industry was the single most pivotal moment in history

She thought it was GOOD right?

It’s nice that you’re giving her the benefit of the doubt. After all, Bernie went there too.

[Lawnmower_Man]

Bernie did not get a PhD from the House that Mason’s Favorite Economist built.

[Lawnmower_Man]

DiffEQ is definitely something you’d see on prereq math for PhD programs. I’d expect it to be more in macro though, not sure about micro. Certainly micro is littered with partial derivatives which is what I assumed devil might have meant.

[Melkerson]

That’s true. I suppose it’s safe to assume that poly sci undergrads are/were far more liberal than the econ faculty.

[Melkerson]

@Lawnmower_Man

DiffEQ is definitely something you’d see on prereq math for PhD programs. I’d expect it to be more in macro though, not sure about micro. Certainly micro is littered with partial derivatives.

I’d have bought that. Partial is a level up.

[Melkerson]

@Lawnmower_Man

Certainly micro is littered with partial derivatives which is what I assumed devil might have meant.

@Devil knows what he’s talking about on this subject (i.e. calculus). Maybe he can come back and clarify.

[Devil]

@Melkerson

Microeconomics class that required partial differential equations. Really? Do you remember what the title was?

It’s possible I’m misremembering the PDEs as it was more than 10 years ago and something I only briefly looked at. It could be me remembering definitions of quantities in terms of partial derivatives. The title of the course had Microeconomics I in it I think. It was 4 or 5000 level so intended for advanced undergraduate or beginning graduate students but that didn’t always indicate difficulty. The book title I have no memory of. I definitely remember feeling like I better stay in my lane, and the reason was the theoretical and mathematical emphasis along with the pace of the lectures when I wanted a gentle introduction.

@Melkerson

@Devil knows what he’s talking about on this subject (i.e. calculus).

Eh, I don’t want to claim great expertise but I can at least recognize a PDE. They’re all over the place in engineering (Maxwell’s equations, the heat and wave equations and on and on).

And just to be clear, I didn’t go on to learn much about economics on my own even though I still have some popular books on the topic. A signed copy of Freakonomics, even!

[VoteForSocialists]

why don’t you think they can do it through amazon? the conservative grift circuit tells gullible elderly folks to buy it for their heathen liberal grandkids.

[VoteForSocialists]

i torrented his culture warrior audio book to be aware of what the other side is doing. it was shit, but i did understand more having listened to it.

[econophile]

Could it have been a finance class? The Black-Scholes formula is a famous PDE in finance.

[Riverman]

Air travel is a weird one. Deregulation led to lower fares, but at the expense of a tolerable experience.

And of course, in every recession we end up shoveling billions of dollars to them so we’re indirectly paying way more than we think anyway, maybe?

[spidercrab]

@Riverman

Air travel is a weird one. Deregulation led to lower fares, but at the expense of a tolerable experience.

Air travel is like the best possible illustration of stated versus revealed preference. The typical consumer is all, “Wow flying sucks nowadays. I wish we could go back to the time when seats had plenty of room, you didn’t pay extra for checking bags, and you got actual food.” And that same consumer when booking a flight is just “Sort-by-price and then click purchase”. (This very much describes me.)

[spidercrab]

@Melkerson

This seems like it might be in @spidercrab 's wheelhouse. How common are econ classes that require the ability to understand partial differential equations?

I don’t remember anything like that in my undergrad econ classes. As for my graduate school econ classes, let’s just say I didn’t retain a lot of what I was exposed to. I was always considered good at math growing up, but I definitely didn’t have the math background that I should have had for grad school.

[Riverman]

This is of course true, but there really isn’t a tolerable option at this point. I’ll pay a little more to fly Delta vs. United, and would absolutely never fly Spirit, but even Delta (clearly the least bad) is a terrible experience.

[pvn]

@Riverman

And of course, in every recession we end up shoveling billions of dollars to them so we’re indirectly paying way more than we think anyway, maybe?

absolutely. since all of the consolodation, the big 3 know they’re now “too big to fail” and bailouts are part of the business plan. profits are immediately shoveled into share buybacks, there is zero reserve for any downturn. Privatized profits, socialized losses. And the management was 100% correct, no shareholders took even the slightest haircut in these bailouts.