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Paralells between the Potato famine and today's politicians

Bigfoot, where in GA? Used to live in Augusta.
 
austrianecon said:
Masters degree which is required for PH.D. :2wave:
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One of my economics professors had a BS in business admin and a Ph.D. in Economics, no masters degree at all. He received his BS prior to serving in the army towards the end of Vietnam, after getting out of the Army he entered directly into a Ph.D. program. Masters degrees are typically expected for PhD candidates, but not always required, it just depends on the school.

Related to that, one of my son's friends will not be completing his Bachelors or his Masters as he is entering into a Pharm.D. program that only requires 66 credit hours of undergraduate pre-pharmacy curriculum.

Most chiropractic colleges also do not require a bachelors or a masters, they just have a requirement for X credit hours of undergrad work.

Anyhow, what was the point in you getting a MBA and a Masters in Econ? Seems like just one or the other would have been sufficient for most jobs that only require a masters. Not attacking you, but just wondering.
 
dnsmith said:
When I read that people want to make SS solvent by lowering benefits or shoving the retirement age further back I get rather aggravated. The fact of the matter is the SS premiums are too low, benefits are not too high. A quick fix can take care of it probably forever. Remove the caps on the income from which FICA is collected, and make all types of income subject to the premiums. Cutting middle class taxes more is ridiculous. What should have happened is ALL OF THE BUSH TAX CUTS SHOULD HAVE BEEN ENDED. As it is, approximately half of all our citizens are getting a free ride on federal income taxes. That is one of the biggest welfare giveaways we have. Cut the defense budget by 20%, cut not contributory entitlements by 20% , eliminate all government agencies/departments which are duplicated by state agencies. At the same time we need to look at tax incidence. Corporations (capital) seldom pays the taxes levied on them. Capital tends to pass on corporate taxes to either the consumer or labor depending on the elasticity of supply or demand. Especially if capital is mobile, the taxes tend to be paid by labor in the form of lost jobs or reduced wages. There are lots of ways to fix our economy, but allowing half of our citizens to have a waiver on income tax isn't one of them.
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Gosh, I so strongly agree with parts of that that it is amazing. I am equally amazed at how much I strongly disagree with.
 
imagep said:
One of my economics professors had a BS in business admin and a Ph.D. in Economics, no masters degree at all. He received his BS prior to serving in the army towards the end of Vietnam, after getting out of the Army he entered directly into a Ph.D. program. Masters degrees are typically expected for PhD candidates, but not always required, it just depends on the school.

Related to that, one of my son's friends will not be completing his Bachelors or his Masters as he is entering into a Pharm.D. program that only requires 66 credit hours of undergraduate pre-pharmacy curriculum.

Most chiropractic colleges also do not require a bachelors or a masters, they just have a requirement for X credit hours of undergrad work.

Anyhow, what was the point in you getting a MBA and a Masters in Econ? Seems like just one or the other would have been sufficient for most jobs that only require a masters. Not attacking you, but just wondering.
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I was speaking specifically in the field of Economics. Most schools require a Masters and require a certain amount of mathematics now. But yes you can go from a BS or BA to a Ph.D program somewhere in that process they'll give you a Masters "en route" and some times you can do all the work but not do the thesis work for the Masters and just finish out the Ph.D program.

Well I finished up my Bachelor in 3 years and figured why not get the Masters while I am at it. But after I finished my Masters I went to work on Wall Street and at certain point you need an MBA to progress outside of doing grunt work. So that was the next step.
 
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austrianecon said:
I was speaking specifically in the field of Economics. Most schools require a Masters and require a certain amount of mathematics now. Well I finished up my Bachelor in 3 years and figured why not get the Masters while I am at it. But after I finished my Masters I went to work on Wall Street and at certain point you need an MBA to progress outside of doing grunt work. So that was the next step.
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So in the field of economics/finance, an MBA is considered more valuable that a Masters in Economics? My bachelors is similar to yours, I have a BS in Business Admin with dual concentrations in econ and finance, but I never worked directly in either economics or finance, actually I havent work for someone else in the last 25 years, so I will admit to being ignorant about the different career tracts.

My son could graduate next year (totally unrelated major) if he changed his degree designation to a BA (three years like you). just this week we had this long discussion about this, I was suggesting that he should change to a BA (only 120 credit hours, in stead of the 148 that his current program requires), and then use the extra year in grad school. he was pretty insistent that his current bachelors program is more prestigious than a BA plus a masters, so I just let the issue drop - again the field that he is studying is something that I am fairly ignorant about. But all that's beside the point and unrelated to this thread so I probably shouldn't have brought it up.
 
imagep said:
So in the field of economics/finance, an MBA is considered more valuable that a Masters in Economics? My bachelors is similar to yours, I have a BS in Business Admin with dual concentrations in econ and finance, but I never worked directly in either economics or finance, actually I havent work for someone else in the last 25 years, so I will admit to being ignorant about the different career tracts.

My son could graduate next year (totally unrelated major) if he changed his degree designation to a BA (three years like you). just this week we had this long discussion about this, I was suggesting that he should change to a BA (only 120 credit hours, in stead of the 148 that his current program requires), and then use the extra year in grad school. he was pretty insistent that his current bachelors program is more prestigious than a BA plus a masters, so I just let the issue drop - again the field that he is studying is something that I am fairly ignorant about. But all that's beside the point and unrelated to this thread so I probably shouldn't have brought it up.
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Depends on where you want your career to go in Economics/Finance. Do you want to be a quant (numbers guys) or "Banker"? In the Wall Street world.. Quants are the behind the scene people. They get paid well but they never get the blame on their screw ups since they aren't the face of the company. Bankers are the face. Everybody hates a Wall Street banker but nobody hates a Wall Street Quant even tho it's their ideas and math the Bankers use.

Master in Econ is more in line if you want to be a Quant since it's math heavy (compared to the MBA) and they typical end up with Ph.Ds. MBA's are for those who want to run companies from an Econ/Finance background which is why you need it for promotion. To get into an MBA program you usually need 5 years working experience.


Having a B.S. is better. As it's Science based.
 
austrianecon said:
I was speaking specifically in the field of Economics. Most schools require a Masters and require a certain amount of mathematics now. But yes you can go from a BS or BA to a Ph.D program somewhere in that process they'll give you a Masters "en route" and some times you can do all the work but not do the thesis work for the Masters and just finish out the Ph.D program.

Well I finished up my Bachelor in 3 years and figured why not get the Masters while I am at it. But after I finished my Masters I went to work on Wall Street and at certain point you need an MBA to progress outside of doing grunt work. So that was the next step.
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I chose to get a MBA with an additional major in Economics when I retired from the army; but while I was doing that graduate work it became clear that to understand economics one must really understand HUMAN BEHAVIOR. So I continued and earned an Ed.S in Psychology with counseling as a part of the program. At my age I wasn't really interested in moving to a location away from my home to pursue a Phd in either discipline. Actually all I did for a while was teach Psychology and Economics as an adjunct since I could not be a full professor without a Phd. I think I learned more while teaching by the study I had to do to prepare classes than I did while attending classes.
 
austrianecon said:
Master in Econ is more in line if you want to be a Quant
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I have never met a QA with a masters in econ. At the very least, you need a graduate degree in math, statistics, computer science, etc.... Never met a QA with a graduate degree in finance either. The new trend is the masters in financial engineering (MFE), which is a bit of a sham because most programs do not require a math (subject) GRE. You will also see whiz coders taking QA positions, even though a great deal of them don't even have a basic understanding of fixed income pricing, which is watering down the field IMO.
 
Kushinator said:
I have never met a QA with a masters in econ. At the very least, you need a graduate degree in math, statistics, computer science, etc.... Never met a QA with a graduate degree in finance either. The new trend is the masters in financial engineering (MFE), which is a bit of a sham because most programs do not require a math (subject) GRE. You will also see whiz coders taking QA positions, even though a great deal of them don't even have a basic understanding of fixed income pricing, which is watering down the field IMO.
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I've met a few. But yes, it's heavily mathematical so you usually get hired based on those degrees. I've never said the QA has a degree in Finance but rather where you want to go in the career of Economics or Finance. For example.. lot of those who work a Fed don't have degrees in mathematics but rather graduate degrees in some form of Economics. I've also never met a QA who's held a position at a Fortune 500 company without a Masters of Econ to go with it.
 
dnsmith said:
I chose to get a MBA with an additional major in Economics when I retired from the army; but while I was doing that graduate work it became clear that to understand economics one must really understand HUMAN BEHAVIOR. So I continued and earned an Ed.S in Psychology with counseling as a part of the program. At my age I wasn't really interested in moving to a location away from my home to pursue a Phd in either discipline. Actually all I did for a while was teach Psychology and Economics as an adjunct since I could not be a full professor without a Phd. I think I learned more while teaching by the study I had to do to prepare classes than I did while attending classes.
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While Psychology is a good match with Econ.. psychology of humans is innate for all of us, imho.
 
austrianecon said:
While Psychology is a good match with Econ.. psychology of humans is innate for all of us, imho.
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I always figured that economics is a weird mix of accounting, finance, psychology (micro) and sociology (macro). I don't think that one can really understand economics without an understanding of all four of those fields.

Music is also an odd topic, it's math, physics and language (communication) all sort of mixed up. People who can play music by ear, or who can write music without any formal training amaze me. They just seem to have some innate ability to understand music theory, note step and rythem, key signatures, chord progression, etc.
 
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imagep said:
I always figured that economics is a weird mix of accounting, finance, psychology (micro) and sociology (macro). I don't think that one can really understand economics without an understanding of all four of those fields.

Music is also an odd topic, it's math, physics and language (communication) all sort of mixed up. People who can play music by ear, or who can write music without any formal training amaze me. They just seem to have some innate ability to understand music theory, note step and rythem, key signatures, chord progression, etc.
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It's a highly developed and specialized form of pattern recognition and muscle memory
 
sangha said:
It's a highly developed and specialized form of pattern recognition and muscle memory
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The physical performance of music may be like that, but writing and understanding and interpreting it is something different.

Even with performance, there is a little "something special" about high end performers. You can look at youtube and find hundreds of video's of child prodigies playing, but few of them have the same performance quality as a seasoned adult performer. The kids may perform the piece technically flawless, but it may not sound exactly like we would desire it to. Children rarely play with passion or creative interpretation, even when they have amazing muscle memory and pattern recognition.

I only attended one lesson when my kid was taking piano lessons, I stood outside the door and listened. He was playing Moonlight sonata, which I thought that he played amazingly well. The instructor was explaining to him how he could improve on it, and I was thinking "how can you improve on something that is nearly flawless". But when I heard the instructor play a few sections of it, I heard a distinct difference, something that wasn't written into the notes on a sheet of paper and likely could never be duplicated by any electronic music reading/playing device. It was something that was very much unique to humanity.
 
imagep said:
The physical performance of music may be like that, but writing and understanding and interpreting it is something different.

Even with performance, there is a little "something special" about high end performers. You can look at youtube and find hundreds of video's of child prodigies playing, but few of them have the same performance quality as a seasoned adult performer. The kids may perform the piece technically flawless, but it may not sound exactly like we would desire it to. Children rarely play with passion or creative interpretation, even when they have amazing muscle memory and pattern recognition.

I only attended one lesson when my kid was taking piano lessons, I stood outside the door and listened. He was playing Moonlight sonata, which I thought that he played amazingly well. The instructor was explaining to him how he could improve on it, and I was thinking "how can you improve on something that is nearly flawless". But when I heard the instructor play a few sections of it, I heard a distinct difference, something that wasn't written into the notes on a sheet of paper and likely could never be duplicated by any electronic music reading/playing device. It was something that was very much unique to humanity.
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I was including writing and understanding it, as well as the less tangible aspects you refer to. Recognizing and understanding the difference between a "flawless" performance and one that is "aesthetically superior" can be a function of pattern recognition.

When I speak of "pattern recognition", I'm not taking a "mechanical" view of it. Pattern recognition can be used to recognize that in the more pleasing rendition, some notes are held slightly longer (or shorter) than the exact time period denoted in the score, and that different notes are played louder or more softly than others, though the score may not indicate the need to do so. Then there are instruments which allow for more expressive elements, such as bending strings (ex guitar), bowing technique (ex violin), vibrato, etc
 
JP, really?

The Irish suffered as a direct result of tragic British GOVERMENT rule and oppression. That you'd equate this to being caused by economic FREEDOM, when it was the hallmarket of government run economics, is astounding. America was founded off the exact same ****ing thing JP, purging the atrocious British rule in favor of life, liberty, and good stuff.

I do agree that some facists hide behind misused philosophical or political terms. But that'd you'd listen to their propoganda and believe it...that's the tragedy today.
 
imagep said:
I always figured that economics is a weird mix of accounting, finance, psychology (micro) and sociology (macro). I don't think that one can really understand economics without an understanding of all four of those fields.

Music is also an odd topic, it's math, physics and language (communication) all sort of mixed up. People who can play music by ear, or who can write music without any formal training amaze me. They just seem to have some innate ability to understand music theory, note step and rythem, key signatures, chord progression, etc.
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You would probably get a kick out of analyzing Indian music.
 
Mach said:
JP, really?

The Irish suffered as a direct result of tragic British GOVERMENT rule and oppression. That you'd equate this to being caused by economic FREEDOM, when it was the hallmarket of government run economics, is astounding. America was founded off the exact same ****ing thing JP, purging the atrocious British rule in favor of life, liberty, and good stuff.

I do agree that some facists hide behind misused philosophical or political terms. But that'd you'd listen to their propoganda and believe it...that's the tragedy today.
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JP did not claim that the famine was caused by economic freedom. He said its effects were exacerbated by policies that were promoted using free market "principles"

They couldn't be caused by a free market because, like its' defenders principles, it is nothing but a fiction
 
dnsmith said:
You would probably get a kick out of analyzing Indian music.
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I can't analyze any type of music to well, I'm really not much of a musician, although I have had a lot of exposure to people who can analyze music.

It's my understanding that Asian music doesn't use the same type of mathmatical note system that western music uses, if thats correct about Indian music, I'm sure that trying to analyze it would make my head explode. I guess that's why it sounds so odd to people who grew up listening to western music.

Even European music is tuned ever so slightly different than in North America.
 
sangha said:
JP did not claim that the famine was caused by economic freedom. He said its effects were exacerbated by policies that were promoted using free market "principles"
They couldn't be caused by a free market because, like its' defenders principles, it is nothing but a fiction
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If all the artcile was doing was attempting to show a literary similarity in words only, and not attempting to persuade the reader to draw conclusions with regards to politics, then what you wrote might be slightly more relevant.

The fact remains that in broad terms, the crisis in Ireland was a result of abusive British government rule, namely in how it restricted massively the freedom of the Irish, and most prominently their economic freedom. That so many fled there, to come to the U.S., a place by any measure remarked as "more free-market than Ireland under British rule", you'd think would be pretty obvious.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, Irish Catholics had been prohibited by the penal laws from owning land, from leasing land; from voting, from holding political office; from living in a corporate town or within 5 mi (8.0 km) of a corporate town, from obtaining education, from entering a profession, and from doing many other things that are necessary in order to succeed and prosper in life. The laws had largely been reformed by 1793, and in 1829, Irish Catholics could again sit in parliament following the Act of Emancipation.[13]
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Great Famine (Ireland) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Good gods man, government took away nearly every freedom imaginable, and you want to make absurd jabs about free markets being fiction? You believe it's fiction that these restrictions on their individual freedoms occursed? Maybe you believe protecting those same rights that were prohibited, is fictional? Would have perhaps a fictional effect on the population, on the economy, and their lives and death?

So in your fantasy land, if you actively using force, take away most of the general rights libertarians might claim you should have, and then when they starve to death, you claim "I'm not helping them because according to libertarian principles they should help themselves", this makes them pro libertarian? Makes the ideals of libertarianism suspect because they were used to support something so tragic? Really now, could it possibly distort history in a more destructive way?
 
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imagep said:
I can't analyze any type of music to well, I'm really not much of a musician, although I have had a lot of exposure to people who can analyze music.

It's my understanding that Asian music doesn't use the same type of mathmatical note system that western music uses, if thats correct about Indian music, I'm sure that trying to analyze it would make my head explode. I guess that's why it sounds so odd to people who grew up listening to western music.

Even European music is tuned ever so slightly different than in North America.
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They do use a different system, but the important point is that they use a system.
 
Mach said:
If all the artcile was doing was attempting to show a literary similarity in words only, and not attempting to persuade the reader to draw conclusions with regards to politics, then what you wrote might be slightly more relevant.

The fact remains that in broad terms, the crisis in Ireland was a result of abusive British government rule, namely in how it restricted massively the freedom of the Irish, and most prominently their economic freedom. That so many fled there, to come to the U.S., a place by any measure remarked as "more free-market than Ireland under British rule", you'd think would be pretty obvious.


Great Famine (Ireland) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Good gods man, government took away nearly every freedom imaginable, and you want to make absurd jabs about free markets being fiction? You believe it's fiction that these restrictions on their individual freedoms occursed? Maybe you believe protecting those same rights that were prohibited, is fictional? Would have perhaps a fictional effect on the population, on the economy, and their lives and death?

So in your fantasy land, if you actively using force, take away most of the general rights libertarians might claim you should have, and then when they starve to death, you claim "I'm not helping them because according to libertarian principles they should help themselves", this makes them pro libertarian? Makes the ideals of libertarianism suspect because they were used to support something so tragic? Really now, could it possibly distort history in a more destructive way?
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Good Gods!! The point of the idea is that "Free Marketeers" used free market "principles" to support policies that were neither "free market policies" nor in any way helpful.

WRT my free market "jab", I merely pointed out that the existence of a free market is a fiction. Where you got the idea that this means that the policies of the british wrt the famine were not restrictions on their freedoms is a mystery because my claim was the exact opposite.
 
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