Funny that trigonometry is more widely taught than economics

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

Thing someone said once: "If they taught economics in high school there would be a revolution. It isn't taught until college when you've already made a substantial financial commitment to the system."


Today's RW scare headline on the Drudge Report is:

"SUPER PUMP: $1 TRILLION CREATED OUT OF THIN AIR"

This is supposed to be alarming. It begs the question: Where does Matt Drudge think money usually comes from?

And a follow up...

Where did the 10 or 20 or 30 Trillion dollars of global asset value that disappeared last year go?

Thin air. Where else?

[FreakinDJ]

1. Drudge was Wrong about every thing else - why read him now

[grantcart]

2. and more than ethics, When was the last time somebody that wasn't

an engineer needed trig?

$ 30 Trillion would be on the low side. US property lost $ 18 Trillion by itself.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

3. I know I passed trig because it was required, but literally have no memory of it

[cliffordu]

16. Is this going to affect us prebendalists???

:hi:

[grantcart]

77. ok I know I am going to regret this but WTF is a prebendalist?

[cliffordu]

79. Well.....

The Catholic Encyclopedia defines a prebend as the "right of member of chapter to his share in the revenues of a cathedral."


OR: to quote the wiki:

Prebendalism has also been used to describe the nature of state-derived rights over capital held by state officials in parts of India in the early 18th Century. Such rights were equally held to be of a patron-client nature and thus volatile. They were thus converted where possible into hereditary entitlements.<8>

Mostly I was just yanking your chain. Non-sequiteur, joshing the grantcart.....

[grantcart]

80. OK thats what I thought

BTW "share in the revenues of a cathedral". How do I join that religion?

[cliffordu]

83. Wear a funny hat, no sex, speak latin....

[karynnj]

86. Everyone who needs to know how tall a tree is

based on it's shadow. :)

[depakid]

4. Not only should micro and macro be required- but also basic statistics

MUCH more useful in terms of real life skills than trig- and sadly lacking among most Americans, making them far easier to con.

[BlooInBloo]

5. There's no reality to any "study" of either of the 3 without calclus first...

And preferably difference/differential eq for the first 2. And linear algebra for the 3rd. And for the first 2.

:rofl:

[depakid]

8. Basics can be taught with little more than algebra

Upper division or graduate level studies may require a bit more analysis....;-)

(though there are those who can walked into some 600 level econ courses they're interested in and do fine provided that they've got their maths and computer skills down).

Point is the simplest concepts are often Greek to most people- which makes for eye rolling, jaw dropping things overheard from otherwise intelligent folks.

[BlooInBloo]

12. If by "basics", you mean "nothing of any value whatsoever", then yes.

[depakid]

18. Basic concepts have TONS of value

For example, you often hear people claim "my IQ is 165" -or some similar type thing.

If they knew basic concept:



They might not be given to sounding foolish.

[BlooInBloo]

22. (facepalm)

There's no such thing as economics without the concept of maximization. There's no such thing as the concept of maximization without calculus. Done.

[depakid]

24. Oh good grief- you can grasp all sorts of basic principles that help understand the world.

Here are two more:

Shifting demand curves and elasticity:

In this case, oil prices (which are subject to every conspiracy theory in the book)



More here: http://anz.theoildrum.com/node/5110#more

[Hippo_Tron]

25. Sure there is

I can explain to a class that a firm maximizes its profits by setting marginal revenue equal to marginal cost by drawing a graph with cost/price on the y axis and quantity on the x axis.

It would be better if I could show them a revenue function and explain them how to calculate the quantity to produce in order to get maximum revenue using an optimization problem. But that doesn't mean I still can't teach them something about maximization without calculus.

[BlooInBloo]

26. (shrug) You can say pretty words, and draw pretty pictures all you want...

but without calculation, there is no concept.

EDIT: And note that calculus is NOT an onerous req. In a halfway reasonable country, it would be mandatory high school learning. At least at a level to make a basic econ/physics/stats class worthwhile.

Possibly not stats. Multivariate distributions could be considered too important to leave out. But perhaps not.

[depakid]

29. Seems to me that with the emphasis on polling in the states

It would be wise (and not terribly onerous for the non-mathematically inclined) to teach kids how these things are done- and how to tell whether they're valid and reliable- or when they're suspect or spurious.

Makes for good fun hands on assignements, too.

[BlooInBloo]

32. You can't, unless you either (a) lie to the, or (b) enjoy getting blank stares...

And I'm not knocking option (a), by the way. A largish percentage of an undergraduate education is basically a lie. (Or to say it in nicer terms: "abridged, due to time/backgrounding constraints".) The truth is learned in grad school (as well as is known, at least). This is typical across fields.

[karynnj]

88. Not true - you can very easily teach the CONCEPT of sampling

without using higher mathematics if your goal is as the poster said to explain in general terms how it is done and demonstrate that it makes sense. Years ago, the Analytical Support Center at AT&T had a little seminar they had various people give to explain sampling theory at that level to non-technical people (like Marketing managers).

Note that the goal was not to give them the ability to design, implement or analyze a sample - but to be comfortable with people doing that for them. This meant explaining that there were formuli for calculating the variance - but they did not need to know how they were derived or even what they were. (In a high school class, they can actually learn some of the formuli for simpler distributions. Even doing that would make them for capable of understanding say a Gallup poll than before they learned it.

[Hippo_Tron]

30. I will agree with you to a certain extent

But I would add the caveat that if you are going to gain a deeper understanding of economic concepts then you need an understanding of calculus, not merely a shallow ability to use it. Being able to take the derivative or integral of a function is useless to understanding economics unless you really understand what a derivative or integral is.

And I think there is also a difference between macro and micro. Introductory micro didn't make a damn bit of sense to me because there was no calculus (even though we had taken it in high school). I got by memorizing like everybody else did. Then with intermediate micro they added calculus and it clicked all of a sudden.

Introductory Macro I feel like I understood, though, and the intermediate class used very very little calculus. That is probably because the macro models are extremely simplified to begin with. Some economists don't take classic macro models seriously anymore because of that. But I still think they are good for a basic understanding of how things work. Not everybody needs to understand economics at the PhD level.

[BlooInBloo]

31. For macro, difference/differential eq is needed. And the notion that calculus is Ph.D. level...

Just shows what a fucking stupid country we are.

[Hippo_Tron]

33. I wasn't saying calculus is a PhD level

I was referring to economists who say that the classic macro models are now useless for serious academic work. Maybe they are useless if you want to understand economics at the PhD level but not everybody needs that level of understanding.

And I agree that differential equations are needed for some macro topics, but there's a lot you can do without it.

[joeglow3]

41. Wow. Do you get out much?

If you think THAT makes us a stupid country, you need to interact with society a bit more. The sheer fact that so many people don't even understand how supply and demand interact concerns me a HELL of a lot more than the fact that people don't know calculus.

[Lucky Luciano]

49. I agree that HS kids should need to know

econ and calculus - and any calculus class absolutely requires trigonometry...and trig does not need to be a standalone class - it should be taught along with algebra to speed the process. Statistics need to be included in a reasonable economics class and I don't like baby stats that make no mention of density functions and their integrals. The prob/stats does not need to prove the very intuitive Law of Large Numbers and it need not prove the Central Limit Theorem - that is best left for undergrads, but it should absolutely tell people what they are.

Someone below mentioned that basic econ needs stochastic calculus. I will draw the line there and say that such things are best left to undergrads majoring in econ, prob/stats, or derivatives valuations.

...and this is all very doable. I mean, is there any difference between 5th and 6th grade math? No, it is practically a repeat. Why repeat...go to the next level. Prealgebra in 6th grade is fine...then algebra and trig in 7th grade can set up people for pre-cal and intro to calc in 8th grade with calc in 9th grade. It is very doable.

[BlooInBloo]

64. I guess that poster means finance, and not econ....

And yah - there's no need for B-S valuation in econ.

In general,(real) *proof* of stuff doesn't need to happen until later (too many prereqs needed for a half-decent proof of anything interesting). I'm mostly concerned with *calculation*.

[Zynx]

58. Some math and stats majors have overinflated opinions of their usefulness in social sciences.

You cannot apply math as rigidly in social sciences as you do in physical sciences. I don't know why they don't get this.

[BlooInBloo]

65. (a) I don't know why you think I said you could....

(b) Spoken like someone who knows no math.

[Zynx]

53. You can teach someone what is behind maximization functions without

actually having them have to go through the utter hell that is a college math course.

[BzaDem]

90. That is the stupidest justification I have ever heard.

:rofl:

It's really amazing how people who think they are so smart could say something like that.

[Hippo_Tron]

19. That's like saying it's not worth teaching people about gravity

If you don't first teach them the mathematics required to understand Newton's law of universal gravitation. Certainly not having the mathematical tools means that you will have a more shallow understanding of economics. But that doesn't mean that a more shallow understanding is of "no value whatsoever". It is far better to understand supply and demand at a very shallow level than to believe that a magical fairy determines prices and quantities.

[BlooInBloo]

23. That shallow of a level IS a magical fairy.

[joeglow3]

42. Jesus, the arrogance is amazing.

The average American is flat out dumb. You can whine about your fairy tale land as much as you want, but you will NEVER see the day when the vast majority of Americans even take calculus, let alone understand it. I took Calculus 1 and 2 through our local university in my senior year in high school. 15 years later and I do not remember that much of it. Does that mean all the economics courses I took are now worthless?

[PretzelWarrior]

37. that may be. but the essence of opportunity cost, possibilities curve

etc are all valuable pieces for students of eight grade and high school to put into their arsenal. Then from there they can add to it with true rate of change economics with calculus.

If young people understand equilibrium price, marginal profit, negative effects of monopolies on equilibrium price, etc.. it would make our country work a lot better.

[AngryAmish]

46. And what percentage of the population have the wherewithal to do calculus?

10% at the most.

[Zynx]

54. So for any self-respecting person to live should they have to know all the biochemical

reactions and all of their underlying math that have to do with the process of digestion?

[PVnRT]

63. You don't need calculus to learn the basics of statistics

High-level modeling, perhaps, yes, but not for figuring out how to work a Gaussian curve or probability.

[BlooInBloo]

67. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is indeed king, eh?

(Response to your phrase "high-level modeling".)

The ability to calculate P(x<X) is NOT high level. And it requires calculus in all but the the most useless of situations. Without the ability to do that, there are no distributions. With no distributions, there is no probability. With no probability, there is no statistics.

[joeglow3]

68. You really are out of touch.

The average person does not need that level of understanding to positively influence their behavior. For instance, people demand that minimum wage jump up every 5-10 years. They don't understand that increasing the minimum wage by anything more than the rate of inflation only leads to increased unemployment and increased inflation. That is why it should be indexed to the rate of inflation.

The questions we, as citizens, should be asking is why is it NOT indexed to inflation. I guarantee polticians know it should be, but they want their wedge issue to bring up every few years. This allows them to "remind" their voters that they are fighting for them. If the populace understood the simple economics around this, they would demand politicians simply index it. They certainly do not need to understand calculus to understand and demand this.

[BlooInBloo]

70. (shrug) I happen to think of knowledge as something more than a political tool....

Indeed, I must be out of touch.

[joeglow3]

71. Then why economics?

I have a Masters in accounting. Should I get up on my high horse and look down on you for not understanding, completely, GAAP accounting? Should you not know this just for the sake of knowing it? Should you not know it to better evaluate a company (i.e. if you want to invest in it, or if a bank wants to give a loan, etc.)? The simple fact is that no one can completely understand EVERYTHING, let alone simply for the sake of being able to tell everyone how well they know it.

[PVnRT]

72. You're either a purist, or just trolling

I also find it amusing that the same person who can't stand public school teachers is arguing for teaching more calculus.

[BlooInBloo]

73. Um, the two positions *reinforce* each other.

:rofl:

[antigop]

6. Not in our school district -- economics is required for high school graduation

and so is trig.

[JI7]

7. i was taught economics in high school , it was a requirement

did they change it ? this was around mid to late 90s.

[XemaSab]

9. I took econ in both high school and college

but neither place taught ANYTHING about what's going on now. :(

[Zodiak]

17. Unless you are fairly young

When you took econ what is going on now was considered illegal.

[depakid]

20. "what is going on now was considered illegal."

Ain't that they truth. But now we're talking law....

[specialed]

39. You have to take higher level course work in

Econ, Finance and Acctng in order to fully understand this crap.

[JI7]

10. i think they need better history classes and critical thinking

by "better history" i mean more focus on specific parts of history like great depression. not just that it happened and the debates , but how it happened and what was done.

and if we did that with other things people would see that Reagan did not defeat communism by saying "tear down that wall".

[PretzelWarrior]

38. my thoughts exactly. it is a shame that there isn't some "thinking" type classes

that deal with how we order our information and choose wisely what we believe and reject. I didn't learn about critical reading of authors until college.

I think we also need to go BACK to where civics class is a requirement to graduate in each and every state.

[PVnRT]

66. "Better history" needs to mean less patriotic indocrtination

Frankly, that's all a lot of pre-college history is these days.

[DJ13]

11. Not just economics is needed

It needs to be tied to sociology to make it applicable to the needs of society.

[MilesColtrane]

13. It's necessary to understand trigonometry if you're going to learn anything more...

...than just a Cliff notes version of economics.

You have to be able to solve differential equations for starters.

Now personal finance, on the other hand, is a class that every high school grad. should have to take.

[Hippo_Tron]

21. Trigonometry is not essential to many aspects of economics

Unless you assume that it is a pre-requisite for calculus, which it really isn't even though it is often taught before calculus.

[niceypoo]

69. Um, yes, it is a pre-req for calculus

Good luck getting past Calc II without knowing trig......let us know how it goes

[Hippo_Tron]

81. It's a pre-requisite only if you want to study calculus itself

If your goal is to study calculus as a means to studying economics then trig has some value, but you can get very far without it.

[DavidDvorkin]

14. As it should be. In trigonometry, you have to be able to prove your assertions.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

28. Agreed. Unlike economics, trigonometry has definite answers to problems

[DavidDvorkin]

76. One of my favorites.

[karynnj]

89. Lol

I bet at least one teacher got that problem handed in that way.

[napoleon_in_rags]

15. As a math nerd, I gotta say its as it should be.

Trigonometry is the basis of pretty much any mathematics that applies to 3D space (aka reality). I mean GPS has rendered a lot of the triangulation skills less relevant, buts its such an incredible thing to know. Its what makes math jump off the paper and into the world around you.

[Hanse]

27. They teach ABC, but not XYZ!

What's UP with THAT?

[Uzybone]

34. Unfortunately the fool got the headline from the liberal NYTimes

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/19/business/economy/19fed.html?hp

"WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve sharply stepped up its efforts to bolster the economy on Wednesday, announcing that it would pump an extra $1 trillion into the financial system by purchasing Treasury bonds and mortgage securities.

Having already reduced the key interest rate it controls nearly to zero, the central bank has increasingly turned to alternatives like buying securities as a way of getting more dollars into the economy, a tactic that amounts to creating vast new sums of money out of thin air.Text But the moves on Wednesday were its biggest yet, almost doubling all of the Fed’s measures in the last year."

And some wonder why newspapers are dying

[dsc]

35. not necessarily

Trig is losing fashion in high school, certainly as a stand alone course, while econ is gaining as part of a broader civics curriculum.

[Thothmes]

36. The state of Virginia

just altered their high school curriculum to mandate a class in economics as a graduation requirement. Change will become effective for this years 9th graders.

[Jennicut]

40. I hated math in high school and probably would not have

payed attention anyways. As an adult I find it much more fascinating.

[Teaser]

43. You need stochastic calculus for economics

I doubt most high schoolers could handle it.

[PretzelWarrior]

44. no you don't. not for basic Econ 201 level work

and that is what people are talking about here. I took business calc. Differential cal with some integral calc. Yes, it does refine your models of real world situations to have a handle on calculus, but it is fine to teach the elementary aspects with simple linear algebra.

[Teaser]

45. "linear algebra"

is itself a nontrivial domain, and I doubt most high schoolers can do it either.

That said, we are talking about the economics that got us into trouble this year, are we not?

Credit default swaps, options, complex derivatives....They are all goverened by the mathematics of stochastic calculus/Ito calculus.

[Lucky Luciano]

50. Understanding the valuations of derivatives

is not necessary for understanding this mess we are in. You can state Ito's Lemma without proof with some of the intuition (and none of the rigor) for Brownian Motion. Then you can show the solution to the differential equation used to solve the Black Scholes formula without really showing where the solution comes from. It is good to show where that formula comes from, but all that can be done in two lectures if a lot of the rigor is left out - and that would suffice.

[Zynx]

55. That's finance, not economics.

You need stochastic calculus for a master's level education in economics, but not an undergraduate.

[Teaser]

60. a distinction without a difference

finance and economics are siamese twins, and it is specifically shoddy financial engineering that has been the driver for the economy of late and its current doomsday situation.

Look, can people get a "feel" for what happened? Certainly. But expecting the public to truly understand how we got here requires more detailed knowledge than they have or are likely to ever have. Which is problematic, because politicians are appealing to "common sense" solutions here, Republicans are falling back on old economic canards that work well at manipulating people.

If we allow people to think that this is an easy problem with easy solutions, they are going to turn to those people who are offering the easiest, and simplest (and therefore wrong) solutions to these problems.

Which is a sobering thought.

This is way more serious than I want to be. Back to your usual asshole next post, Teaser fans. I promise.

[Zynx]

78. Most Economics professors confess they don't know the first thing about finance.

Frankly, I think the two fields should be taught together, but they aren't.

[joeglow3]

82. Who here expects the public to understand the formulas behind today's mess

Of course not everyone is going to have the time or ability to understand this. You are basically advocating everyone get a bachelors in your field of choice. We are talking about giving people a basic level of comprehension that allows them to make smarter choices in their daily lives and get a better understanding of why government's do what they do.

[Freddie Stubbs]

47. Econ was an elective at my high school

[PfcHammer]

48. Won't.happen. The US is fundamentally antiintellectual. It's all about

keeping the peasants entertained, ignorant, scare, and compliant
to serve the top 1%.

[BeyondGeography]

51. Finally, a K&H thread I can get behind

K&R

[Odin2005]

52. A lot of basic economics concepts don't require a lot of math to understand.

Just high school algebra allows a person to get the basics.

[Zynx]

56. Exactly. Also, you can teach them the basic calculus equations in an afternoon.

Anyone can take a simple derivative if you show them exactly what it is. It should take only 15-20 minutes for people to get that.

[Odin2005]

57. Exactly! n/t.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

59. ADDENDA TO OP:

1) I see what is probably a generational difference in the replies. Circa 1980 high school economics was rare. Apparently it is more commonplace today, so that's cool. (Depending, of course, on what is being taught.)

2) Folks citing the mathematical importance of Trig or the mathematical sophistication required to be an economist are missing the point, which is that high school is a minimum basket of learning considered prerequisite to being a participant in our democratic society. It is compulsory.

Economic concepts are central to our national political life. Trigonometry is, though prerequisite to the most sophisticated understanding of any math-based discipline, not central to our national political life.

Until the 1990s the "minimum preparation for a self-responsible life and participatory citizenship" often included Trig as a requirement for all while not offering Econ even on an elective basis.

That is odd.

It is doubtless true that being a trained economist is deeper than any a general understanding, but that goes for everything, always.

Our form of government presumes a population of generalists.

[treestar]

61. A fundamental understanding of the economy would be good

When times are bad, it is easy to inflame emotions on the subject. And a poor understanding leads people to support policies that may not even be in their interests or the interests of society.

Too many people just go and get a job and collect their paychecks and feel entitled that said job will always last and that there will be no changes and that they can gamble their retirement savings on the stock market yet be entitled to always winning. They simply feel their employer must stay in business whether there is a market for the products or not. Then they can sit back and claim not to need "socialism."

When the shit hits the fan, these people end up screaming that foreigners are to blame for their woes.

[PVnRT]

62. Except economics is subjective, after a certain point

Do you teach the Keynsian (sp?) model? Austrian school monetarism? Milton Friedman's theories? Krugman? It's virtually impossible to teach without injecting personal opinion into, and that's not a good thing. History education pre-college is bad enough, not to mention the manufactured evolution "controversy."

[delete_bush]

74. Exactly right. And if I could remember anything from the

several calc courses I took decades ago I could prove it.

I would submit that calc is a requirement for the purpose of understanding historical events and/or modeling various future results using "what if" variables.

The underlying psychology/sociology and other ologies of the economy are based on trillions of decisions made on a daily basis by the population at large...which can turn on a dime depending on thousands of other variables.

Which in part goes back to your list of the various schools.


The First Law of Economists: For every economist, there exists an equal and opposite economist.

The Second Law of Economists: They're both wrong.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

75. If we teach economics in high school, there'll be a revolution?

You mean like in the way the country is now filled to the brim with surveyors and carpenters because we teach trigonometry?

[BootinUp]

84. I had an economics course in high school

it was at a private school back in the late seventies. Might have been an Advanced Placement course I can't recall. Anyways, the whole field of study is apparently f'd up due to political influence. It is probably worse than science and religion.

Asset inflation should be the new buzzword.

[karynnj]

85. The state of Indiana required a semester of economics even back in the 1960s!

It was actually the best class I had in high school because we had an extraordinary teacher. He basically told us to leave the high school text book in our locker - and he assigned us to read sections in books by people like Keynes and Samuelson borrowing the copies he had in the class room for one night to prepare for lectures in the next week. He also had all of us pretend to be legislators and take a then current legislation proposal that dealt with helping the poor. We had to research it and then present it to class. We then got to vote on different packages groups of us made up. It was funny that we all did more work for this class than any other - and for many of us, it was our favorite.

In college, almost nothing covered in Econ 101 or 102 was new to me after that class.

[Occam Bandage]

87. Trig is more useful. nt