PeakTrader.com

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PeakTrader:

The summation of individuals is the aggregate. That’s why you don’t see, and even if you looked, you don’t understand how they interrelate and interact, based on your prior comments.

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Mainstream economists use rigorous models and scientific methods.

For example, a labor economist can build a sound empirical model and tested for multicollinearity, heteroskedasticity, autocorrelation, etc., using aggregate data sets (or actual data) to find a 10% increase in the minimum wage reduces teen employment 1% at the 95% confidence level.

And, mainstream economists often proved conventional wisdom wrong.

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It’s odd anyone believes the U.S. has a poor university system. World rankings show the U.S. has roughly 40 of the top 100 universities in the world, and there’s really not much difference between average and top U.S. universities.

Moreover, the U.S. has many excellent private and public high schools, for example, although there are also many poor schools, or a huge gap between good and bad schools.

When I was in econ at CU-Boulder, there were lots of foreign students. Some came from rich families, but most worked for government in their countries, e.g. central bankers. Their families or governments paid for them to attend a U.S. college.

Some of the foreign students did well and some didn’t, like the American students. However, I noticed, American students, in general, much more often related what they were learning to the real world, built more creative econometric models, mentioned new ideas, etc., while the foreign students, in general, tended to stay within the parameters of what they were taught.

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Some degree of government is needed for security and stability, e.g. a safety net.

If Congress began to slowly tighten lending standards when the Fed began to tighten the money supply, in the 2000s, the housing crash could’ve been averted.

Government can move an economy towards optimization, rather than allow a suboptimal economy, to a large extent, like in the 19th century. There are good policies and bad policies.

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Morganovich, your comment sounds like a bartender, who had too many vodka-marijuana-LSD cocktails.

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http://www.aei-ideas.org/2013/06/reynolds-law/#comments

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