It is a bit annoying something that you’ve been shouting from the rooftops for years (and thinking about for decades) is finally taken up by someone with “credentials,” only then is it taken seriously.

Not that I have anything against credentials. They are more valuable and useful than not, and as social signals are even more valuable (though far more counterproductive used in that way). Principally, they serve to sort out the complete crackpots at probably a bit better than the rate of chance. And that is valuable.

I don’t have the stamina nor the interest in pursuing any sort of degree, as the things I can learn from books I can learn much more quickly if I just read them myself and don’t pay $1,200 and a quarter or semester of time for something I can spend 25 hours and $0 learning.

What’s that, most people can’t do that?

Good thing I am not most people, then.

Well in the end it doesn’t bother me that much that I’ll never get credit for the ideas that I had well before the academics who will get the discovery thereof attributed to them, as I have made my mark (and will continue to do so) in the Real School of the market, where it doesn’t matter what credentials you have – all that matters is your P&L.

And at that I have a fucking PhD.

If this post sounds a tad bitter, I am really not. The ideas aren’t that revolutionary (in fact they are obvious), I just had them and took them seriously before I saw anyone else do so. No one stole them from me – like most discoveries, they were in the air. The difference is that I sniffed the air sooner, and in fact when I first started writing about these ideas contra accepted economics, my contentions were considered laughable. Now they are becoming mainstream.