This blogger is proud to have become part of a webring of select and motivated economists initiated by blogger pal Edward Hugh. Ed applies Facebook's advantages so one can read all realtime arguments or comments on macroeconomic issues on one page instead of having to open n emails (yesterday 400+.)

Although I am a bit wary of social networks due to concerns Cryptohippie has perfectly summarized in this brilliant article on privacy in cyber age (PDF), I like the limit of 50 words as this forces one to be concise to the max.
We have blogs to dive deeper into issues, always knowing that billions of eye pairs will correct any mistake at lightning speed in comments.

Suffering from a blind spot for mathematics that cannot be done on my iPhone (i.e. electronic tag) and - god beware - contain other Greek letters than alpha, beta and delta, Deepak Jois from India has started a clever discussion on the issue of math proficiency in the macroeconomist world and its mostly incomprehensive results for those outside the ivory tower, like in markets or commerce.

I replicate first Deepak's wise words which combine thoughts on math and the Austrian school of economics and are seriously alpha:

What frustrates me as somebody who has a strong interest in Economics and has at times thought about taking it up seriously. Some of the core textbooks and papers I have read (are) such stylized models that I learn practically nothing from them because they have no real world applicability. This coming from somebody who actually has a background in computer science/math.
That is one of the reasons I am attracted to the Austrian School which emphasizes the importance of studying history and philosophy as well. My ideal economics curriculum would be something that would combine the principles of the Austrian school along with the things that Taleb talks about in the Black Swan regarding the 'science' of rare events and the cognitive biases that we as homo sapiens exhibit.

Here comes my beta-reply:
I am happy to see others share the problem that formulas with Greek letters may be of interest and useful only when one can make sense of it.

Honestly, everything exceeding merchant's mathematics, yield calculations and moving averages will forever be my blind spot and I will have to be reborn to mentally understand the deeper meaning/use of algorithms (if they are not done automatically in the few Excel sheets I use) but then again all my math skills come from financial analysis, whereas macroeconomics were rushed through in my diploma course.