20 Dec 2013

A Reader Comment on Lessons for the Young Economist

Economics, Shameless Self-Promotion 28 Comments

I got this from Peter S., who gave me permission to repost:

Message: Hey i am Peter [S.] I am 17 and a senior in high school in Philadelphia and I just read your textbook “Lessons for the Young Economist” and I found it wonderful. I recently became interestied in Hayek, Mises and other Austrians but had trouble reading their economic based wok when they used words like marginal utility or when they discussed othe parts of economics I did not understand . Your book really helped me to understand the basics of economics and what the vocabulary means and in the 2nd half of the book, the errors of socialism.

I did not take economics this year because the teacher is a liberal(in the modern sense) and doesn’t understand why a government can’t just bring money. Your book taught me much more than I ever would in that class and sets up the basics for a potential college major and I thank you for that and for making it free through the Mises Institute.

Particularly for homeschooling parents, make sure you realize here is the free student text and here is the Teacher’s Manual.

28 Responses to “A Reader Comment on Lessons for the Young Economist

  1. joe says:

    The teacher does not understand why the govt can’t “bring money”? The phrase “bring money” appears nowhere in that book.

    It always cracks me up when a kid reads one book and then claims “the teacher does not understand”, especially when he did not take the teacher’s course. How does he know the teacher does not understand?

    What school is he going to attend where he can major in Austrian economics? Can you also get a BS in Intelligent Design at that school?

    • Dan says:

      He could always go to Loyola U. New Orleans if he wants to major in economics and study under Austrians. I here San Jose also has a good free market program. Also GW has produced plenty of Austrians for those looking to become PhD’s. I know you’re just trolling, but in case Peter S. is reading this I wanted to make sure he knew he had options. Walter Block would be a good source for finding a good free market economics program.

    • Dan says:

      I’m sure he meant “print money”. Probably just an auto-correct issue.

    • JSR08 says:

      Admittedly, his grammar and spelling are lackluster for a 17 year old. However, it is pretty clear what he was trying to say.

      “How does he know the teacher does not understand?” Given that the teacher thinks that the Government can print money ad infinitum and the kid read Murphy’s book, I think we have our answer.

      • Ken B says:

        Or, joe was the teacher.

        • Gamble says:

          Yes Joe sounds like a jealous teacher.

          I visited my kids school Friday and I was shocked to see all the supposed adults who were nothing more than insulated, spoiled, unrealistic teachers and administrators living in a fantasy land.

          I explained to my boy that that type of attitude and work ethic will get you nowhere in the real world.

          He replied, “Mr. Peterson had his feet on the desk.”

          I then proceeded to explain to him how bureaucrats come to our home with a gun, take our good money and then send it down the rat hole( feet on desk), never to be seen again.

          • Scott Lazarowitz says:

            The teacher-bureaucrats have their feet on the desk and fantasizing about money growing on trees, that is, when they aren’t busy calling the cops to arrest kids for pointing their finger and saying “bang bang” or sending the kids to the school nurse to get a prescription for Zoloft.

    • Matt M (Dude Where's My Freedom) says:

      In most high schools, teachers teach multiple classes. It’s entirely possible this student has had this teacher before for a different class, or is friends with someone who has previously taken an economics course from the teacher. In either case, the student could potentially know what the teacher’s thoughts on various issues are even though he did not take the class.

      • Dan says:

        My Econ teacher in high school was primarily a social studies teacher. That class was one of those almost guaranteed get an A classes at my school. A huge part of our grade was some stupid mock stock market game. Ironically, it wasn’t until I read a couple Paul Krugman books after high school that I realized that I enjoyed studying economics.

    • Jim PM says:

      Yes, yes — let the butthurt flow through you.

    • John P says:

      A couple of threads back you said that Henry Hazlitt was not an economist so didn’t belong on a poster showing Austrian economists ‘as much sense as putting Howard Cosell on a poster of heavyweight boxers from the 60s and 70s’ .

      Now you’re saying Austrian economists is comparable to intelligent design.So which is it?

      • Bob Murphy says:

        Actually Howard Cosell was the first to question the step-by-step origin of the bacterial flagellum.

  2. Daniel Kuehn says:

    Didn’t take economics because the teacher’s a liberal.

    What a great start this kid is off to!

    • Bharat says:

      A lot of people don’t want to spend an entire year taking a class teaching things they think is wrong – it is tiring and boring and will make a young student feel terrible.

      At some point in the future, should he be open to learning the wrong stuff? Sure, to make sure it’s wrong and that he’s not missing out on something. But for a young kid, that’s definitely not needed.

      Secondly, it’s likely he won’t receive much real feedback against the point of views he already holds. His high school teacher likely knows little to nothing about Austrian economics and will probably have nothing of value to say on it.

      I think the criticism of his decision is unwarranted.

      • Daniel Kuehn says:

        Back up, buddy. He doesn’t want to take the class because he sees things through a political lens and is ASSUMING this teacher is going to teach bad economics because of his perception of her politics.

        That’s not a good way of going about educating yourself.

        And that doesn’t even get into the fact that:

        1. If he is a high school student he doesn’t have the capacity to determine what’s good or bad economics yet, and

        2. Even if he did if he’s going to turn down an opportunity to learn about economics because he has disagreements with the teacher, he’s got the wrong attitude.

        • Ben B says:

          “1. If he is a high school student he doesn’t have the capacity to determine what’s good or bad economics yet”

          How is this known apriori? Is this like when you turn 18, you magically gain adult-thinking powers?

          “2. Even if he did if he’s going to turn down an opportunity to learn about economics because he has disagreements with the teacher, he’s got the wrong attitude.”

          I agree. He needs to expose himself to the fallacious arguments of bad economics.

          • Major_Freedom says:

            “If he is a high school student he doesn’t have the capacity to determine what’s good or bad economics yet”

            I agree with your rejection of this comment, Ben B.

            I will only add that DK is likely feeling compelled to challenge this high school student because that student just so happens to have dumped on DK’s own ideology. So the high school student is claimed as ignorant, incapable of making an informed judgment, and so on.

            The irony is that this student is empirical evidence that sometimes high schoolers have better judgments about economics than grad students who write blogs.

            • Richie says:

              Another thing I find hilarious is that DK is criticizing the student for “seeing things through a political lens,” while Krugman does that every day in his writings.

              • Major_Freedom says:

                That’s an approved political lens.

        • Bharat says:

          I’m looking at this a bit from a parenting perspective – for an analogy, let’s say you have a young child (I saw from your blog that you had a child recently, so congrats! – maybe in a few years this will be relevant). I think it better if the child develops an interest enough to stick with a discipline rather than dealing with what he/she considers boring early on because it might be so monotone it makes him/her quit.

          I think Peter might be in a similar situation. I agree with you, that in the long run, Peter should be open to learning the “bad” economics as well (what he considers incorrect). But it’s quite possible that if he has to deal with a semester or year of this type of stuff right now, he will find it so boring and discouraging he will not pursue much farther in the subject.

          There’s another point you made about whether someone’s political perspective translates into an economic one. I’d say, generally speaking, it does, but it is more of a statistical correlation than an absolute relationship. I don’t think he is irrational to go on this assumption – it is much like taxi drivers who discriminate against picking up young black men. Sure, it is not some sort of absolute truth that a young black man will steal from you, but (from what I’ve heard) it’s statistically more likely, and thus not an irrational decision.

      • Daniel Kuehn says:

        “Secondly, it’s likely he won’t receive much real feedback against the point of views he already holds. His high school teacher likely knows little to nothing about Austrian economics and will probably have nothing of value to say on it.”

        BFD.

        He needs to grow up. If he just wants to learn more about something he read on a website, he should not present that as being intellectually curious about economics.

        And if he’s evaluating his educational opportunities on the basis of politics he’s making it pretty clear that he’s not interested in learning about economics.

        • Richie says:

          And if he’s evaluating his educational opportunities on the basis of politics he’s making it pretty clear that he’s not interested in learning about economics.

          Then he should never read Krugman.

    • Ivan Ivanov says:

      Yeah, what next?
      Kids not wanting to take biology classes when their teacher is a creationist?

      • Gamble says:

        Sounds like a good reason. Don’t you think public education should teach a variety of possibility’s and allow the individual to formulate his/her own views?

        • Daniel Kuehn says:

          They should teach the controversies that exist in the scientific community, but no they shouldn’t be teaching creationism in a biology class.

          • Major_Freedom says:

            Liberal economists teach the equivalent of creationism. I think it’s a good reason to opt out.

      • Daniel Kuehn says:

        Austrian economics and various non-Austrian schools of economics are both established perspectives in economic science, with various strengths and weaknesses.

        So your analogy is shitty.

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