An adult once again

Today (actually, yesterday when I wrote this blog entry), October 12,

I gained my adultship as a doctor of economics.

Thursday, October 12, 1989 I defended my dissertation

against my (carefully selected) peers at Erasmus University Rotterdam.

The thesis itself of course meant nothing in the world of economics.

It did not even dent economic theory,

except the Groningen version of it (read on, you'll get the message).

Let me introduce:

I wrote my dissertation for the sake of my mother,

not for economics.

My mother was critically ill of cancer at the time.

As 1988 neared, her doctors gave her 'only a few months'.

I took that very seriously as my entry into 'scientific orbit',

so I told my boss I wanted to write/finish a dissertation

and gave him a sort of summary of my plans

of the thing

the dissertation's subject and (for me) the final answer,

in research results as well as in method's terms.

He agreed.

So I decided to write.

(given only free time as time allotted to this excercise in time efficiency)

(cause I was ever so much overbooked in teaching chores)

(but who cared... nobody, BUT faculty board members....)

I took a long leave of absence in the summer of '88

(read my booklet on this and related subjects, I have still 15 copies for sale)

and I completed the verbal text in 4 weeks time, writing on a mountain

looking out over a beautiful lake in southern France.

I returned to Rotterdam and knew I had to substantiate my words

with empirical results, which were/are required for any research in economics.

At the time the university was dealing with the then important question

of centralising or decentralising computer power...

The PC was only there for the elite, the university slaves.

I decided on decentralising and bought an Olivetti MS-DOS machine,

which was NOT AT ALL capable of dealing with my problems

I next related on a comrade in arms, my then collegue Geert-Jan Kremer

Who helped me configure my empirical questions,

into managable statistical terms to be programmed into the faculty main frame.

I understood and gave in.

Months passed while I was calculating my 'thing'

on the machine.

It performed, I MUST say, beautifully.

I got my results,

they proved my initial ideas,

better still, it waved my doubts and confirmed my long-lived anthem:

Economics is not about theory, it is simply empirics, and that's that.

I was raised an economist in 60's, 70's and 80's theoretical fashion:

Everything was in equilibrium,

exceptions to the rule were only momentarily.

How low can you go....

I happen to be a member of a generation of students,

that were brainwashed into thinking,

that theory ruled

and empirics were only needed to confirm (NOT TO REJECT) theory

Of course we all know nowadays that this is reality reversed.

Give 5 economists a problem to answer,

and you will get 7 answers,

8 answers if any of the economists studied at Harvard.

My empirics told the story of continuous disequilibrium

where journal articles at the time ONLY mentioned equilibrium.

I devoted a whole chapter specifically on this topic,

DISEQUILIBRIUM.

My doctoral committee consisted of three peer-like semi-gods I selected myself

(my boss/supervisor, an econometrician and a Groningen Nerd

who considered himself to be the demigod of financial economics at the time).

Wrong, Wrong, absolutely wrong (my choice of peers that is)

My boss agreed to my proposal

(reasonable cause I asked him time and time over again

if THIS -the thing I created- was good enough).

He said yes.

I talked to the econometrician and asked him what he thought.

He told me: it's OK, it's not brilliant (as if I did not know) but it's OK.

2 out of three agreed on my dissertation.

Then the Groningen Mongol wrote his answer:

I summarise and use my own words to characterise his remarks:

You (that means I) DISREGARD common findings as published in literature.

You show NO respect to commonly accepted financial economic principles.

You will never get these ideas published,

cause they are outside the accepted paradigm.

I cannot accept this dissertation.

I was shocked.

It appeared that one of my selected peers was more a moron than I could ever have expected.

The man was completely bogus, not fit to be a full professor,

In short a complete idiot.

So I changed my dissertation,

(BTW: my mother's life had only a few months to go according to medical morons).

I skipped the most essential part of my dissertation

which was about the 'normality' of disequilibrium in economics.

And finally the Groningen moron accepted the story.

So I got my degree

On October 12, 1989

and my mother was present,

I selected the cloth my sister made her a dress from

and she looked beautiful

Cancer everywhere,

but she looked happy and beautiful

and smiled at me,

the whole nine yards that the dissertation defense took (i.e. 45 minutes).

I got my doctorate,

I never spoke to the Groningen sucker again after this time,

I heared he suffered a nervous breakdown.

I hope I have been partly to blame.

May his Reformed-church-pious-obedience-to-the-common-good-of-science

helps him to finally see the light (= the opposite of the former sentence)

but I fear

if I hear

a COMMON sound

in my ear....

IT'S ALRIGHT MA, IT'S LIFE AND LIFE ONLY

(the last 5 lines are copies from B. Dylan)

I enjoyed my 'victory'

I was allowed into the brotherhood of the few, the 'doctorates' of economics

without it, you do not count.

with it, and without network, the same.

I had no network, so do your own math...

And I published my expelled chapter

in a well-regareded book on economic methodology

the same year. So I got my revenge.

21 years later....

I am my own person

I still believe financial economics is disequilibrium economics

and every single day

I am proven right.

Forget the Groningen moron,

he does not count and is forgotten anyway

I, to the contrary, have a private -not business- network I hope to enjoy

the rest of my life.

I earn 5 euros per hour doing my thing (apart from my pension which, I admit, is a bit more)

I teach people financial things,

that are common knowledge for university students

but don't mean shit to 'the common man'

And I like it.

(and as it happens: on my 21st doctorate birthday the Nobel committee

again chose the wrong people for their Economics Prize...

OK, father, they do not know what they're doing....)