>>All that Schumpeter was seeking to do was to find some underlying regularity in the business cycle.<<
Yeah, and that's why I think he's an idiot. No matter how smart he was, no matter how well educated, no matter how prescient. It was a common failing of late 19th century-early 20th century social scientists, the mistake was trying to turn social science into hard science. They wanted to run with the big dogs.
There is regularity to the movements of the planets; astronomy is valid, but astrology is garbage. There is regularity in the interactions of elements and compounds; chemistry is valid, but alchemy is garbage. You can predict the future of the physical world, you cannot predict the future of beings with free will, each motivated by forces that are not regular, but individual.
I don't dismiss econometrics out of hand. Econometrics is valid when it measures things that can be measured. I also think it's semi-valid when econometricians say up front that they are just trying to approximate something in a closed system, but that in real life the system isn't closed.
BTW, did you notice you were quoted in last week's Thread Talk?
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