in this week’s Barron’s, commentator Gene Epstein shares a rather different view of Paul Samuelson from most who eulogized his life. Epstein perceived the economist who has been elevated for bringing math to his discipline as the scholar who needed more so to recognize human unpredictability. Commenting on Samuelson’s analysis of the Soviet Union, he saw a naive individual who failed to see the reality of their false statistics.
Because Epstein sounds rather harsh (although his basic opinions can be defended), I add here a link to a textbook inscription to Greg Mankiw from Paul Samuelson that is special.
http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2009/12/memories-of-paul.html
Con and Pro Thoughts of Paul Samuelson
Elaine Schwartz
Elaine Schwartz has spent her career sharing the interesting side of economics. At the Kent Place School in Summit, NJ, she has been honored through an Endowed Chair in Economics and the History Department chairmanship. At the same time, she developed curricula and wrote several books including Understanding Our Economy (originally published by Addison Wesley as Economics Our American Economy) and Econ 101 ½ (Avon Books/Harper Collins). Elaine has also written in the Encyclopedia of New Jersey (Rutgers University Press) and was a featured teacher in the Annenberg/CPB video project “The Economics Classroom.” Beyond the classroom, she has presented Econ 101 ½ talks and led workshops for the Foundation for Teaching Economics, the National Council on Economic Education and for the Concord Coalition.
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