Pater Familias

Theories, observations, and articles, by Philip Schaefer · All posts · Categories

“BARKING MAD” OR “JUST KIDDING”?

December 28, 2009 at 6:56 PM · Economics

“BARKING MAD” OR “JUST KIDDING”? John Kay, who claims the distinction of writing about the ideas of SCROOGENOMICS as early as Christmas, 2000, has a review of SCROOGENOMICS in today’s Financial Times in which he criticizes the extent to which the arguments by economists in books like FREAKONOMICS and SCROOGENOMICS assume that people are rational and all-knowing. He says that: “The appeal of such arguments lies, at least in part, in their teasing quality: are the authors really barking mad or are they just kidding?”