The Bentley juggernaut

In 2009 the Bentley “Fed Challenge” team finished second to Harvard in the regionals.  In 2010 they beat Harvard in the regionals and went on to win the national championship.  Last year they again finished second to Harvard in the regionals.  Today I got this message from one of their two coaches:

Fantastic news… Bentley beat the field at yesterday’s Fed Challenge regional competition held at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston yesterday!

There were 19 teams in this year’s competition, and by far Bentley’s team had the toughest road to victory. In the morning round Bentley’s team went up against Yale, BC, and BU, all formidable opponents, and of course beat them to advance to the afternoon round. There were four teams that advanced to the afternoon round: Bentley, Harvard, Dartmouth, and Middlebury. Gloria [Bentley’s president] was there with the team during their afternoon presentation, and also stayed to watch the nerve-racking performance by Harvard, before winners were announced. In the end, Bentley earned first place, with a surprising second place finish by Dartmouth. So, Gloria still gets bragging rights in the Larson house, and of course we beat Harvard!

The team consisted of the following students:

Alfonso Martinez, Denise Klop, Spencer Tirella, Erik Larsson, Guillermo Fernandez, Brian Rogers, Josh Kulak, Dan Battista, Cody Normyle, Thomas Moore

Congratulations!   I have the honor of teaching many of these students this semester.  Also congratulations to the coaches Aaron Jackson and David Gulley.  On to the FOMC Board Room in Washington for the championship round.


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30 Responses to “The Bentley juggernaut”

  1. Gravatar of Bill Ellis Bill Ellis
    10. November 2012 at 18:02

    Neato !

  2. Gravatar of Greg Ransom Greg Ransom
    10. November 2012 at 18:04

    Funny how brands counts so much more than performance or competence in the education sector.

  3. Gravatar of gwern gwern
    10. November 2012 at 18:20

    I’m amused that I’ve read this twice and I *still* have no idea how, why, or what they were competing in or for. It could be soccer, table tennis, archery, karate, debate, chess, test-taking…

    A lot like ordinary sports articles, come to think of it.

  4. Gravatar of Benjamin Cole Benjamin Cole
    10. November 2012 at 18:48

    All hail the Bentley team, teachers and students!

  5. Gravatar of Saturos Saturos
    10. November 2012 at 20:41

    Is it hard not to be… erm, influenced, by this, in your marking policy?

    Congratulations to all those guys! Bentley is clearly the “monetary policy university” now.

  6. Gravatar of Saturos Saturos
    10. November 2012 at 21:07

    Garett Jones: A New Theory of Empty Chinese Apartments: http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2012/11/chinas_empty_ci.html

  7. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    10. November 2012 at 22:09

    gwern, It’s sort of like a debate team.

    Saruros, It’s hard to be influenced, when I never know whose exam I’m grading.

  8. Gravatar of Major_Freedom Major_Freedom
    10. November 2012 at 22:16

    Serious question:

    What pride can there possibly be in getting a prize from a violence backed banking cartel?

    Maybe I’m old fashioned and thought something like this would be cause for shame and embarrassment.

    Guess the Bentley profs are doing a number on the impressionable students.

  9. Gravatar of Lucas Lucas
    11. November 2012 at 09:48

    “What pride can there possibly be in getting a prize from a violence backed banking cartel?”
    Is this for real?

    Congratulations to Bentley, its students and teachers.

  10. Gravatar of Mark A. Sadowski Mark A. Sadowski
    11. November 2012 at 10:47

    I’m sorry Scott but when I see the words Bentley Juggernaut my mind turns to images like this:

    http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0a/Bentley_Speed_Six_Pierre_Marechal_Racing.JPG

    Which in turn reminds of John Steed’s car “Fido”.

    In any case, congratulations!

  11. Gravatar of Major_Freedom Major_Freedom
    11. November 2012 at 11:24

    Lucas:

    “What pride can there possibly be in getting a prize from a violence backed banking cartel?”

    Is this for real?

    Yes, that question exists. Now that you have been advised it exists, what say you? Or is shock the only response?

  12. Gravatar of Lucas Lucas
    11. November 2012 at 11:35

    “Yes, that question exists. Now that you have been advised it exists, what say you? Or is shock the only response?”
    My response: The Fed is not a violence backed banking cartel.

  13. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    11. November 2012 at 12:05

    Lucas, MF works hard each day to prove that he’s the most tasteless, classless, moronic and petty human being every to walk on the face of the Earth. It’s just my luck that he chose to make a fool of himself on my blog.

  14. Gravatar of Patrick R. Sullivan Patrick R. Sullivan
    11. November 2012 at 12:16

    Here’s the page on the Fed Challenge from the NY Fed;

    http://www.newyorkfed.org/education/fedchallenge_college.html

  15. Gravatar of Major_Freedom Major_Freedom
    11. November 2012 at 13:05

    Lucas:

    My response: The Fed is not a violence backed banking cartel.

    Actually it is, I am sorry to have to tell you.

    I recommend reading the history of the creation of the Federal Reserve. Read “The Creature from Jekyll Island”, by Griffin, and “What Has the Government Done to Our Money”, by Rothbard.

    It is well established that the Fed is a banking cartelization device.

    The banking dynasty Houses of Morgan and Rockefeller literally wrote the Federal Reserve Act in order to protect themselves from competition (bank failures) using state power. It is perhaps the most clear cut case of cartelization in our economy.

    ssumner:

    Lucas, MF works hard each day to prove that he’s the most tasteless, classless, moronic and petty human being every to walk on the face of the Earth. It’s just my luck that he chose to make a fool of himself on my blog.

    Lucas, Sumner just doesn’t want his most informed critic to be taken seriously. Just look at that ad hominem attack. According to Sumner, I’m worse than Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Ivan the Terrible, and Ghengis Khan.

    That should tell you whose worldview is more under threat.

    It is understandably discomforting to have one’s entire intellectual and career investment demolished by a random internet poster. It refutes the just world theory, and that often elicits tremendous outbursts and vitriol.

    I am both intellectually and emotionally mature enough not to devolve down to Sumner’s level of ad hominem discourse. My conscience is clean.

  16. Gravatar of Razer Razer
    11. November 2012 at 13:18

    Lucas,

    Then you support a free market in money production then, right? I guarantee you that the Fed doesn’t, and the powers under its control (the government) will happily jail those that try. But it’s not a violence backed institution, is it?

    And Sumner, who pretends to be a Libertarian is nothing other than a boot licker trying to secure his next job at the Fed. MF has shredded his entire philosophy in great detail, but Sumner doesn’t respond because, in the end, he is not a truth seeker but a bias confirmer. He fits right in with the macro economists, I guess. He’s Krugman light.

  17. Gravatar of Major_Freedom Major_Freedom
    11. November 2012 at 13:45

    Greg Ransom:

    Funny how brands counts so much more than performance or competence in the education sector.

    You mean “in the state financed education sector.”

    The Fed, as Lawrence White has shown, finances a very large portion of the economics profession, especially the field of monetary economics. Since the ultimate core foundation of central banking is unadulterated naked aggression, there is no intellectual foundation for it, so branding must take precedence over substance.

    Too much substance, and the core would be revealed.

    Razer:

    Then you support a free market in money production then, right? I guarantee you that the Fed doesn’t, and the powers under its control (the government) will happily jail those that try. But it’s not a violence backed institution, is it?

    What’s incredible is how casually the “Act” in “The Federal Reserve Act” is being overlooked and misunderstood. All governmental “Acts” are backed by the force of law. That force isn’t a recommendation or suggestion. It is “you shall obey or else we will use physical violence against you.”

    And Sumner, who pretends to be a Libertarian is nothing other than a boot licker trying to secure his next job at the Fed. MF has shredded his entire philosophy in great detail, but Sumner doesn’t respond because, in the end, he is not a truth seeker but a bias confirmer. He fits right in with the macro economists, I guess. He’s Krugman light.

    It is rather tragic, in a sense. After years of intellectual, emotional, and reputation investment, it can be very, very difficult to accept that one has been wrong all those years. This is often manifested in a primal, irrational “fight or flight” response driven by the amygdala that overrules the hippocampus. At first Sumner fought, but he saw fighting wouldn’t work, so he flew instead.

    This is why it is important that the younger generation are made aware of the fallacies held by the older generation, before they too make an investment in the same fallacies and thus be faced with the same implications.

    I was rather fortunate. I had my worldview demolished during my early 20s, after only 7 or 8 or so years of serious intellectual investment. That was tough enough. I suspect it would be far more tough to experience after 30 or 40 years.

  18. Gravatar of Lucas Lucas
    11. November 2012 at 16:20

    I’m sorry Scott. I now realize that I have fed the trolls

  19. Gravatar of Major_Freedom Major_Freedom
    11. November 2012 at 16:34

    Lucas:

    Dismissing people as trolls, despite the fact that they are not writing words to garner an emotional response from their interlocutors, shows that you don’t really understand what a troll is.

    You really should read the books I recommended, because I can assure you, as a non-troll, that the Fed is a cartelization mechanism for the banks.

    Your apology is accepted.

  20. Gravatar of Razer Razer
    11. November 2012 at 17:21

    What statists don’t realize is that Austrians/Libertarians were once just like them but had to go through a painful process of letting go long held biases and comforting beliefs to get where we were. And it was based on pure reason, not emotion. It’s tough letting go of comfortable beliefs. I would say it’s like converting from theism to atheism. Not an easy thing to do.

    I don’t think Scott wants to have his life-long viewpoint challenged with facts. He simply wants his viewpoint vindicated. It takes real courage to seek truth even if it means everything you believe up till then is B.S.

  21. Gravatar of Razer Razer
    11. November 2012 at 17:24

    I wish this blog had an edit function. Forgive my sloppy writing. I’m at a coffee shop trying to work on something else and not proofing my comments. My bad.

  22. Gravatar of Bob Murphy Bob Murphy
    11. November 2012 at 18:21

    Congrats to your team, Scott. For what it’s worth, I don’t think you’re a boot-licker, I just think you are insane.

  23. Gravatar of Saturos Saturos
    11. November 2012 at 19:19

    “What pride can there possibly be in getting a prize from a violence backed banking cartel?”

    Demostrating skill and understanding, of course. Those banking thugs know a lot more about economics than you do, MF.

  24. Gravatar of Saturos Saturos
    11. November 2012 at 19:27

    The Wisdom of Crowds, Or, How Voters Approach Politics Out There In The Real World:

    http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2012/11/liberal_schadenfreude_obama_s_win_brings_out_too_mean_gloating_on_social.html

  25. Gravatar of Major_Freedom Major_Freedom
    11. November 2012 at 20:36

    Saturos:

    “What pride can there possibly be in getting a prize from a violence backed banking cartel?”

    Demostrating skill and understanding, of course.

    As judged in accordance with what standard? The beliefs of the bankers in the cartel, of course.

    Excuse me while I reiterate that this is not something to be proud of.

    Those banking thugs know a lot more about economics than you do, MF.

    In your worldview where the banking thugs themselves are the standard, I can see how you would believe that.

    But just for fun, show me one thing economics related that you think a “banker thug” knows more than me about. I won’t even challenge it.

  26. Gravatar of Saturos Saturos
    13. November 2012 at 06:20

    How central banks work.

  27. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    13. November 2012 at 06:52

    Razer, Years ago te Fed offered me a job with a 75% pay increase. I turned it down. So nice try, but that won’t work.

    And if you think the message in this blog would make the Fed want to hire me now, then you are even more delusional than MF.

    BTW, I’ve done at least 100 pages of text in reply to MF comments. So you are wrong about that as well. I find that dogmatic ideologues like you and MF are wrong about just about everything. Which is why no one cares what you think.

  28. Gravatar of Major_Freedom Major_Freedom
    14. November 2012 at 13:01

    And if you think the message in this blog would make the Fed want to hire me now, then you are even more delusional than MF.

    That’s unconvincing. Everytime a Fed official even hints at NGDP, you become giddy like a schoolgirl.

    BTW, I’ve done at least 100 pages of text in reply to MF comments. So you are wrong about that as well. I find that dogmatic ideologues like you and MF are wrong about just about everything. Which is why no one cares what you think.

    That’s pretty funny, considering how I repeatedly show how you are wrong about just about everything. Dogmatic ideologue? At least I am not the one who believes that technocrats sitting in a marble palace can know what the correct aggregate spending ought to be. You keep using that word “ideologue” to describe me. I do not think it means what you think it means.

    Nobody cares what I think? Congrats on again showing your real motivation, thus confirming Razer’s judgment that you are not interested in truth, but rather in getting attention. Nobody who is serious about ideas and truth would look down on someone else because of how relatively unpopular their ideas are, and not only that, but try to make them feel guilty about it as well.

    As it happens, and not that this even matters for how I think, but more people care about my ideas than your ideas. That’s why libertarian, free market ideas are advancing more than your non-market NGDP ideas. Ask the man on the street how much he knows about Libertarianism versus NGDP targeting theory.

  29. Gravatar of Saturos Saturos
    15. November 2012 at 07:37

    MF, unfortunately the man in the street thinks that libertarians are all like you. So thanks for perpetuating the stereotype, man.

  30. Gravatar of Major_Freedom Major_Freedom
    17. November 2012 at 23:50

    Saturos:

    MF, unfortunately the man in the street thinks that libertarians are all like you.

    That’s a positive thing. A boon. A foundation for improvement.

    So thanks for perpetuating the stereotype, man.

    You’re welcome. Stereotypes can be accurate.

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