Principles of economics, translated
- by Simon Harris
- May 26, 2023
- 1 min
I watched this for the first time 15 years ago and it still makes me laugh:
Micro-economists are people who are wrong about specific things; and Macro-economists are wrong about things in general.
It came to mind again today in a discussion with our Senior Principal Engineer (who as it happens has a degree in Economics) on decision paralysis.
I think at times the drive to work on “the most valuable thing” leads to choosing between things of marginal difference, or between a set of options that are all necessary to derive the desired outcome:
the worst possible situation in fact would be someone offering you a choice between a Snickers bar, and an identical Snickers bar.
Now, people not trained in Economics might think that that’s no different from being offered one Snickers bar, but that sort of sloppy thinking will never get you a tenure-track position.