Pulp Economics:
Econ Quiz 1
Enjoy and discuss.
Published 2/24/2006 12:30:00 PM
Friday, February 24, 2006
Pulp Economics:
Enjoy and discuss.
==↑Return to the top of the blog↑==
new visitors to The Dark Wraith Forums
<< 38 Comments Total
Better pull out the dunce cap, I only got #1 and #3 correct.
Would all economists agree with your answers?
Good afternoon, Mr. Goat.
Yes, this is all "principles" of economics. The only place where you'd get some radicals on the Right and the Left taking exception would be with the inflation question: there's still a lingering myth—one pushed disingenuously by a few academics—that inflation can be caused by something other than erosion of purchasing power per unit of the currency. I know of one neo-con economist at one of the schools at which I teach who tells students that raising the minimum wage in "inflationary," as are union contracts that boost wages. Given that he's only in his mid-40s, he's young enough to have been taught better or at least to have come to grips with the sheer nonsense of his position by thinking about it for a while.
Now, I should point out to you that someone with a little too much training, but not enough teaching skill, can do all kinds of "yeah, but..." arguments where the planets align in certain ways, small rodents speak in Aramaic, and the supply curve for kangaroo livers bends backward to show situations in which the correct answer would be less certain.
Usually, when I'm given that kind of a counter-argument, I go for the wedgie treatment. It focuses the recalcitrant mind fairly keenly on the principle at hand.
It also tends to keep people from turning their backs on me.
The Dark Wraith forthrightly faces his accusers.
Good afternoon, nc gal.
Getting the correct answers for #1 and #3 is no small achievement. If you understand the principles behind those two questions, you're on your way to being an economics-literate person.
Perhaps not a professor of economics, but pretty smart in the subject, anyway.
The Dark Wraith doesn't need the job competition at the professor level.
Messed up on the last one.....
(Sigh....)
- oddjob
Not having taken an econ course in college, #4 is a total guess without even a hint of basis.
Is there a short definition for each available?
Respectfully disagree. Dark Wraith's online lecture series has provided an answer to #4, as well as #5.
- oddjob
So maybe you could point me in the direction of the thread where the four different economists are defined...??
You would ask....
- oddjob
Ok. I failed this utterly. Better stick to English...
Good evening, OddJob.
So help me, God, this sounds like a discussion between two grad students after a test.
The question about what breed of economist would claim that "All unemployment is voluntary" came from my article, "A Bad Idea Made Better for Tax Reform."
The explanation of how open market operations work was laid out, among other places, in the article, "Of Crystal Balls and Yield Curves."
The Dark Wraith has provided some points o' reference.
I'm getting the distinct sense that any notice of the cool coding to create a quiz right in a post, along with the answers being delivered right in the post, is somewhat lost in the economics.
The Dark Wraith can't decide whether he's overjoyed or underjoyed by that.
['Underjoyed'?!]
Good evening Mr. Wraith,
Thanks for the link; I now have part of what I'm trying to figure out.
...Keynesian economists, who held that government had a duty to help the poor and to stabilize the economy...
...Classical economists ...believed first and foremost that long-run growth was all that mattered.
Trying to find a definition, concise or otherwise, for a Marxist economist and neo-Keynesian economist is next to impossible. Any help here?
------------------
You've misunderestimated the effect of the code; it is a neat trick. We all figured if we hyped you up too much on your presentation we'd be seeing pop quizzes all too frequently.
LOL!
- oddjob
The Dark Wraith is supremely less than amused by the faculty rebellion.
[And add a couple of nodules to that double snort you might have just heard.]
Good morning, Dark Wraith.
If I scored a zero, is that a perfect score?
I must not have been paying attention. I thought of using a search engine, but didn't... I'm going to blame my answers on not being awake, yet.
Having read the comments, I must say, I think the coding you must have done to build your quiz was quite a feat! It's very cool!
Good morning, Old White Lady.
Yes, I suppose that in a way a zero is a perfect score.
The Dark Wraith will it go at that.
This post has been removed by the author.
So I screwed up #2. I'm rusty, and should have remembered the first rule of guessing multiple choice test questions, which is: when in doubt, always pick the weird foreign sounding dude that you can't remember hearing of.
So okay, that's not a good rule, but it would have helped in this case.
Anyway, had I not been reading this blog then I figure I would have had a shot at maybe only one of the questions. So if any education inspectors happen to be reading this, or Koufax Awards inspectors, for that matter, then pay heed.
Well,
#3 for me was a classic example of "READ the Fkg Question!!
And #5 told me I really don't understand economics at all!
Adjusting dunce cap to punkin head!
I'm going to blame my score on lack of sleep and 50 hour weeks. I SHOULD have gotten #5, but the logic circuits are blown. I'm right there with NC Gal. Sigh.
The quiz coding was sooo cool that I finally figured out that I wasn't going to have to copy and paste my answers here...which is good, 'cause I would have embarrassed myself totally. Though not being a professional in the field, I don't give a rat's behind over which dead economist wrote the quote, so I'll take a 50% score...extra credit for remembering my name at this point too, hee, hee.
(we duck and run from the professor of the course...I've always been a bit of a smart ass)
Good evening, Wild Clover.
Now, now. Normally, I don't much care about something like that, myself, but the importance of it lies not so much in who said it, but rather in the fact that it was said, and it was said by someone of profound importance in the field. The influence of that fellow's work cannot be understated, which would mean that the influence of that fellow's way of seeing the world has shaped the discipline and the world view implicit in economics as a whole.
No, the fellow's name isn't all that important in and of itself, but the fact that he thought that "modern civilization" was the result of the efforts of "white peoples" over a couple hundred years gives a little evidence not just of the biases that were previously implicit in conservative economic thinking, but also of those that simply cannot be shaken in the way we teach economics and even in the way we think about consumers and businesses as economic beings.
Naw, I'm in agreement with you about the simple memory part of the problem, and this is exactly why I'm doing this: for people who try to understand economics, there is a sense that its memorization and math, whereas in fact it's much more about meanings and processes.
Understanding that this is what economics is all about means you come to see that it's not difficult; instead, it's downright damnable.
The Dark Wraith should think about offering a re-take on the quiz.
happy sunday dark wraith,
so let's see, a score of 20%, five questions....i got one answer correct!! no grade inflation here.
i had thought that this was a kinda beginning sort of thing to let the instructor know what ecoknowledge the students lacked, so as to arrange the course. now i find out it's a quiz on material already presented. well, it did measure my ignorance. or maybe my inability to retain info.
"erosion of purchasing power per unit of the currency." as you put it, seems to me more a definition of inflation than a cause. what causes the erosion? is it rising prices?
nice coding dude.
Good evening, Dread Pirate Roberts.
My latest article, A Brief Story of Money, Part 2, should go at least a little ways toward answering your questions.
The Dark Wraith toils diligently for the long-winded answer to the short question.
Yay! I got one right! I rule!
Good morning, BlondeSense Liz.
Out of curiosity, which one?
I note that, out of several hundred people who've taken this quiz, only a relative few have said anything about how they did. Most, I would surmise, wandered away grumbling.
I made it a point to include no code that would assess averages or track quiz takers, but now I'm sort of curious about what the average actually was on that thing.
One way or t'other, there's no doubt that economics knowledge is worthy of featuring for those who want something new and exciting in their lives.
Okay, "new and exciting" might be a little off the mark. Maybe "old and dismal" captures it a bit better.
Clearly, the Dark Wraith will be running this blog for a long time to come.
Good Evening Dark Wraith,
OK, it's been a loooong time since I got a freakin' D in a multiple choice test. I'm going with Wild Clover, and throwing out the one about the dead econ's name - since I can hardly remember my own name nowadays.
#5 I got inverted, and I don't know why - so it's back to the source....
Oh, and they always say that if you get a new haircut, and people notice it, it's probably a really bad one. Following that logic, then not even noticing the spiffyness of a new program means it works so well, it's transparent!
Thank you for all the effort you must have put into it.
Good evening, SB Gypsy.
Yes, I'd been thinking about the interesting effect that, when a new feature works well, its functionality is apparent but its creation is completely lost. The color theme switcher is so smooth that it looks like some simple thing that took five minutes to install.
I have that same feeling as a teacher sometimes. It looks so easy when I'm in the classroom pouring through a lesson, but that's only because I've been doing it for lo these two-and-a-half decades.
The same is true with just about anything, be it some high-minded work or something less so: to an outside observer, it often looks not all that difficult—some "anyone could do that" effort.
I wonder if that's why there's such an obsessive fascination with sports, where things often look as difficult as they really are.
And maybe that's why I simply cannot watch even a minute of sports: maybe I'm just not in the mood to get exhausted watching someone get exhausted.
The Dark Wraith isn't the spectator sort when it comes to work.
I'm with you all the way SB; I don't know how I inverted #5 either. I'm not much for questions about dead guys either, I mean I remember the names from college years ago, but not much else.
The one that threw me was #4; I still maintain that it is a trick question. Whenever there are four economists together at least three of them are always wrong, regardless of their type or issue under discussion. In other words, four Classical economists will have different anwsers to a question, therefore they will have said four different things. Makes the probablity of any one of the answers being correct pretty low.
I've always maintained that sports are for doing, not watching!
MPG: I don't remember the names, but most of the time I get the concepts.(I had to withdraw from anatomy:-) all names, few concepts, and what a blow to the ego...)
When the Fed wants more money in the economy, it buys Treasury bills held by banks: the Fed pays the banks with cash money, so the money supply in the banking system expands. On the other hand, if the Fed wants to drain liquidity out of the banking system, it sells Treasury bills to banks: the banks pay cash money to the Fed for those T-bills, and that means less money in the banking system.
Ok, that's how I got it inverted, I have to think of the fed as opposite what I would do if I wanted more money: I would take out a loan, they buy back loans.
Hello DW...been a while.
Pre-quiz in the middle of a post - that's cool!
I guess I remember something from those econ classes oh so long ago, but just took a guess at neo-Keynesian (whatever the hell that is!)
Have been stopping by every now and again, usually just to catch up. Had to get busy and make some $$$. Now I can relax for a while, enjoy a poor excuse for a NH winter, read some blogs, and marvel at what is happening with this country.
Good evening, Lymond.
It's really weird: it's usually just a little while after I wonder where one of the old-time regulars has disappeared to that he or she posts a comment again. It happened with elf and Gary A., and now it's happened with you. I was wondering what had become of you, and now you post a comment. Now, I'm wondering where Andi is (which means she'll probably post a comment some time this coming week).
I know what you mean about the sorry excuse for a Winter, although I do have to say that February in my part of the country was considerably more serious about being a winter month than January was. I just hope we had enough bitter cold days to kill off the bugs; otherwise, this Summer's not going to be fun for man or beast (or farm crops, for that matter).
I've been watching the winter constellation Orion standing ever farther toward the West in the night sky. At midnight, it's made it far enough toward the western horizon that the distortion is making it start to look much bigger than it appears when it's high in the sky. That's a sure sign that Spring isn't far away, now.
I've promised myself that I'll go to a Vernal Equinox celebration on the night when Spring begins. I favor the one I used to attend where the witches have the eggs stand on end during the Vernal passage. It's a pretty cool sight, although I'm getting so old now that I don't much enjoy the stoned people.
Maybe things will get exciting this year, and the religious fundamentalists will show up to try to convert pagans. That could be fun to watch, especially if that one crazy lady who says she's a witch is in attendance. She's the one who's a lawyer. She once went bonkers in a court room because she said a ghost was attacking her from the other side of her defense table. She's pretty nice, other than for rare outbursts like that. She gave me a little box of various herbs and potions that she says are supposed to protect me.
Not that I'm superstitious, mind you, but I still keep that box with me, even though I haven't a clue as to what some of the things in it are.
The Dark Wraith believes that some things are better left unknown.
I wonder what happened to José and to cam....
- oddjob
Good morning, OddJob. Joseph, of course, posted during the Holiday season, but we haven't heard from him since. None of the signatures coming from Europe matches his profile as far as I can tell.
Cam simply vanished. She was a true regular, here, too. That's worrisome to me in a way, but her absence is not entirely unusual. In Internet user behaviors, some people go through very significant changes in the usage patterns, spending as much as several years being very active, but then quite suddenly simply vanishing. The same happens in video and online gaming: people who are very intense gamers just suddenly stop altogether. As far as I can tell, it happens for several reasons, but a notable one is not related to the person's changing interests; instead, it has to do with a change in the technology of the experience.
This phenomenon is poorly appreciated by some major software manufacturers (as well as by Web masters). Although some improvement in functionality, visual layout, or something else might seem highly desirable to the software designers, it has the potential to cause some long-term users to completely abandon to system or the site.
We see this in physical products, as well: a radical change in packaging or even in marketing can attract new customers, but it can be at the expense of having older customers walk away.
We see this rejection phenomenon even to a small extent in children, but it gets very noticeable in people past their teen years.
In certain business classes I teach, although I spend the required time on the traditional "how to attract new customers," I spare no breath talking about "how to keep old customers," a topic that doesn't get nearly enough attention. From "Whole New Menu!" to "Fresh New Bottle and Color!" types of campaigns, the costs are not merely direct costs of ads, packaging, and all that; there are also the implicit costs (which are a big thing for economists, anyway), one of which is the sacrificed revenue stream from customers lost by the shift.
And by the way, there's a lesson in that for old-line and new-breed Democratic politicians heading for the Right.
The Dark Wraith would say something about that to the Democratic leadership, but the DNC doesn't pay economists to be political consultants.
This phenomenon is poorly appreciated by some major software manufacturers (as well as by Web masters). Although some improvement in functionality, visual layout, or something else might seem highly desirable to the software designers, it has the potential to cause some long-term users to completely abandon to system or the site.
How true, although I would add alleged to the functionality part. What is especially frustrating is when that $oftware manufacturer has a monopoly and you pretty much have to take it. Too bad that birth control for computers didn't work, as there have been times when I would have liked to give mine a morning after pill.
What is especially frustrating is when that $oftware manufacturer has a monopoly and you pretty much have to take it.
Resistance is futile.
- oddjob