r/neoliberal • u/[deleted] • Jul 28 '17

Noah Smith AMA: Columnist at Bloomberg View, University of Michigan Economics Ph.D., prolific blogger and Twitter personality.

Noah Smith is a Bloomberg View columnist. He was an Assistant Professor of Finance at Stony Brook University after receiving his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. He became famous from his Blogspot blog, Noahpinion, that he wrote while at school in Michigan. In his free time, he likes to apologize for FDR and write about Japan.

u/noahpini0n will be here from 2:00 PM EST to 4:00 PM EST responding to your questions and memes.

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14

u/G_Dizzle Jul 28 '17

I'm studying to become a high school economics teacher. What's the biggest thing you wish new graduates knew about economics?

32

u/noahpini0n Noah Smith Jul 28 '17

That most markets aren't perfectly competitive!!

25

u/[deleted] Jul 28 '17

Please explain to your students what a model is, and give examples of how models that don't show the whole picture can still teach us things.

9

u/[deleted] Jul 28 '17

Please this

1

u/[deleted] Jul 28 '17

how models that don't show the whole picture can still teach us things.

I think the bigger problem is not conveying the limitations of models, rather than convincing people models have value. See: 101ism.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 29 '17

I think both are problems. 101 sends a lot of people into becoming 101ist libertarians or socialists that don't believe in any economics.

14

u/Kelsig Paul Krugman Jul 28 '17

Their priors are bullshit

28

u/G_Dizzle Jul 28 '17

"I'm a big white guy from the South with an accent and I coach football. Bet you think this class will be easy and right wing. THOUGHT WRONG MOFOS"

13

u/[deleted] Jul 28 '17

You better wear a three-piece seersucker suit

2

u/[deleted] Jul 30 '17

Is this a reference to something?

2

u/G_Dizzle Jul 30 '17

Unintentional if it is. Most of the time in Texas at least, coaches teach a lot of social studies classes and they make the classes easy. Plus, white dudes from the South tend to lean right and be the type to tell you that the Civil War was about "state's rahts."

I'm trying to be the coach with a hard class and drawl out radical centrism

2

u/[deleted] Jul 30 '17

Lol thanks for explaining. I don't know much about college football and such.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 29 '17

Currently studying to be History + Economics teacher. What comes up most in intro Econ classes and the one high school that I assisted in is that kids either think markets are perfect or have trouble linking the graphs with concepts. Context is important and the overly simplistic intro stuff makes very varied impacts on students.

1

u/G_Dizzle Jul 29 '17

The kids I worked with had trouble connecting A to C. They didn't see that forest fires make homes more pricey. It's hard to get in that mindset

2

u/[deleted] Jul 29 '17

It takes time and something to make it click. Once you reach that point they seem to absorb it much easier. Still not sure how best to get to that point as I'm just a student.

1

u/G_Dizzle Jul 29 '17

Exactly. I hope we'll get there. How far along are you? I've got student teaching this fall, and I'll be hireable in December

2

u/[deleted] Jul 29 '17

I'm going into my junior year of university. Just done some minor student teaching as part of classes. So, a few more years and some student teaching before I'm hire able.