How can I help what you think?

We've lost two macroeconomists. There are now 14 of us (still precisely half of each gender). Every Econ major has to take either Macro or Micro, so we probably won't be losing any more - there's little love for Micro in this particular class. One of those who dropped is a Finance major. The other is an Econ student who's also doing Micro.

Yesterday's Macro lecture was comprehensible, and even a tiny bit dull, because I had read the paper. I will therefore make a habit of this paper-reading. The Growth lecture was comprehensible, too, but not dull. Dr Growth explained the beauty and symmetry of the models of Malthus, Ricardo, and Solow before rudely confronting them with the data. Yay for starting at the roots of the discipline. Too many of my lecturers have approached economics in the absence of its history, leaving their students floundering without context.

A sociology lecturer, incidentally, would never dream of doing this. Sociology is all about its intellectual roots - in fact, sometimes it's difficult to see whether contemporary sociology is achieving anything beyond arguments about its founders. It must be feasible to find some ground midway between these two approaches.

I did just under half of the Micro assignment before deciding that I do, in fact, need to hear next week's lecture first.