Posted on 01/06/2010 2:31:08 AM PST by Halfmanhalfamazing
ROBERT SIEGEL, host:
The economist Paul Samuelson, who died yesterday at the age of 94, is quoted having said this: I don't care who writes a nation's laws or crafts its advanced treatises if I can write its economics textbooks.
Paul Samuelson wrote the textbook "Economics," which was a global blockbuster. It was published in 1948, updated many times since. It was the bestselling U.S. textbook for decades and it was translated into 20 languages. And then there was his scholarly work. When the Nobel Prize for Economics was established, Paul Samuelson won the second prize ever awarded in 1970.
And his academic contribution: He taught economics at MIT where he elevated the economics faculty to world-class standing; an academic home to several future Nobel Laureates. Among them, Paul Krugman of Princeton University and The New York Times, who joins us now. Welcome to the program.
(Excerpt) Read more at npr.org ...
If I had time , I’d run into the den and get his c. 1970 text to write out quotes praising Soviet system.
Samulson’s success wasn’t due to his politics, but his ability to write an understandable introduction to economics. He did a good job and to be perfectly honest, his opinions in those days were very similar to other economists (obviously not the Chicago School though).
Cheers to him for making economics more understandable to the average student.
More cheers to Milton Freedman for his contributions to economics.
And even more cheers to Reagan for instituting conservative economic principles.
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