Paul Samuelson
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I should say that the idea that Gauge Theory would bring field theory to economics was any easy sell to Samuelson. The details never took.
"One must not expect to be able to make the naive measurements that untutored common sense always longs for." -P. Samuelson (w/ Swamy) 1974
"[W]e must not be bemused by the undoubted elegances...of the homothetic theory. Nor should we shoot the honest theorist." -Samuelson&Swamy
Paul Samuelson told me these lines of his would ward off any detractors who did not understand what Lie groups and gauge theory could solve.
I think many scientists would have found Paul Samuelson a formidable fellow scientist, technically knowledgable far beyond economics. I did.
âWould you bet a cigar on that?â -John Von Neumann cowing Paul Samuelson
"Some day when I pass through St Peterâs Gates I do think I have 1/2 a cigar still coming to me" -P Samuelson now looking for J von Neumann
.@riemannzeta: Samuelson's economics is to Newtonian physics what gauge theoretic economics is to Einstein/Yang-Mills http://bit.ly/PSINAE
2010
In Samuelson's Nobel lecture, he struggles with integrability. I wish there was more there as curvature tensors measure it's failure.
How crazy is economic gauge theory? Paul Samuelson liked it because he was looking for it in 1950(!): http://bit.ly/c6vILI (e.g. see fig 4).
2021
@swede_irish I donât know what those words mean at a *technical* level. I get what they are meant to suggest, obviously. But I donât think that is what CPI-U actually is in a meaningful technical way.
@swede_irish Wow. Uh. If I donât, who does? E Diewert? B Balk? Who?
@swede_irish As for âStay in your laneââŠha. Economists should listen. May I recommend âEconomic Imperialismâ?
No thanks. No one should put up with expert arrogance masquerading as understanding. I freely admitted I donât understand CPI-U. You pretended that you did. Thatâs not worth much..
@swede_irish I am going to sleep soon. But I spent years trying to understand what economists thought they were doing. I came to the conclusion that they didnât know themselves. And they were often forced to admit this based on technical questioning. Itâs not that they have this down solidly.
@swede_irish âMore heat than lightâ is PMâs book which is fairly idiosyncratic, but has the right flavor. Samuelsonâs Nobel lecture on integrability is another source. Von Weitzacker is yet another source admitting the issues from within the field: you canât restrict welfare theory as we do.
2022
Well let us give economists their due.
The most cogent economists on the subject of price indices include:
Bert M Balk (Statistics Netherlands)
Carl Christian von WeizsÀcker
Paul Samuelson and S Swamy
Amartya Sen
Franklin Fisher and Karl Shell
and Erwin Diewert (very uneven).
I cannot be objective about my collaborator @PiaMalaney, but I can say that it would be a good idea to review her critique by the Boskin commissioners, who I found to represent the âPsst. Just tell us what you need the number to be and we can help you out.â school of economics.
In short, there are economists who believe in measuring inflation, who struggle to understand the issuesâŠand there are economists who work backwards from the political masters they serve. This is a rough guide to both camps.
The researchers tend to lose to the political types.
2023