>
“Economics was the only profession where a person could be considered an expert without having once been right.”
-George Meany
>
Source:
Nixon’s Freeze and the Mood of labor
Time, September 06, 1971
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,943845,00.html
Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data, ability to repeat discredited memes, and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Also, be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor even implied. Any irrelevancies you can mention will also be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are, after all, anonymous.
"Dollar depreciation leads to higher inflation and ultimately forces foreign creditors to question their rationale and indeed their sanity for continuing purchases of U.S. Treasuries." -Bill Gross
Signs continue that European markets are getting tired. The Spanish and Italian stock markets, big beneficiaries of the sharp decline in their bond yields over the past few months are falling to the lowest since Feb 1. The European bank index is at a 1 1/2 week low after earnings reports from Commerzbank and Credit Ag (RBS bouncing although reporting weaker than expected earnings) were disappointing. This market action is in spite of the German IFO business confidence figure which rose to a 7 month high coming in a touch above expectations and Italian consumer confidence which bounced more than...
read more »
Tweet
Facebook
Reddit
Digg this!
July 23rd, 2009 at 2:36 pm
1971 – Now that was a great year
July 23rd, 2009 at 2:47 pm
And a great quote.
July 23rd, 2009 at 2:50 pm
It’s only fitting then that economists today lead the “Tyranny of the Incompetent” (hat tip: leftback) brigade in this country. Well done.
July 23rd, 2009 at 3:30 pm
The economy we have is a highly complex, highly diverse, highly granular collection of deep localized knowledge and specialized skills. It is fundamentally a creative phenomenon and a lot of that creativity can’t be foreseen until it occurs (hence the term “creative”). It developed from the “bottom up” through the knowledge and efforts of innumerable individuals and individual businesses. It is not configured in such a way to accept “top down” central management, and attempting to inject such management into the system is destroying it.
Trying to “fix” the modern economy is like a doctor trying to operate on a body with a million different organs most of which he’s never seen before and doesn’t understand the function of.
It’s simply the nature of the beast we’ve created that “experts” don’t exist.
July 23rd, 2009 at 3:48 pm
The only ones less likely to be capable of predicting the future by understanding the past are financial analysts (particularly on tv). They’re as much momentum followers and high priests of ignorance as any economist. But the economists are bad, too.
What I don’t get is why anybody, but anybody, ever listens to any of them. Why do people so gleefully wish to allow others to do their thinking for them. This age of reason in which we supposedly live really ain’t much of one.
July 23rd, 2009 at 4:14 pm
G ! Guess what? Economists are not fungible. Some, even, study books Not written by JMK ~
http://www.mises.org/
“Rothbard once quipped observantly (found on one of the many amazing podcasts LvMI makes available-thanks Jeffrey): ‘Keynes died…and left us with the long run ‘.”
http://hayekcenter.org/
July 23rd, 2009 at 5:27 pm
MeH:
Mises and Hayek were more philosophers than economists.
Most economists, in turn, are really politicians (e.g., Greenspan, Krugman, Bernanke, Stiglitz, et al.), pretending economics sanctifies their political theologies.
July 23rd, 2009 at 5:35 pm
Priceless…but what will all those economics professors say?
I can’t remember the article, but it was on the economist view blog where it was put forth that an Economists had become as reliable as engineers. My satire of this notion got me banned…no obscenities, no personal attacks against the blog owner or other posters…just ridicule of a ridiculous position…it’s kinda humorous, I think jokes that make fun of engineers obvious foibles are funny and so did my professors at university who told a great many of them.
July 23rd, 2009 at 5:49 pm
I’d say as a Union organizer, Meany had even less knowledge, one might say, deficit or negattive knowledge of economics. A fate even worse than the worst economist, as are all union organizers who managed to do .10 worth of good and multitrillions worth of damage to american industry, along with their accomplices in management, whose operating philosophy was: “The more the union gets, the more we get and add 10% to that, thank you”.
July 23rd, 2009 at 7:08 pm
@super: Wow! You sound just like one of my super smart friends. Complexity. System dynamics. And you are correct.
@flip: Why don’t you just shorten your name to flip? Or union hater? Or hater of the common man? I mean come on. Humans that don’t work on Wall Street or in corporate offices are slightly devolved from the common ape. Right?
July 23rd, 2009 at 7:10 pm
@flip: and another thing. I’d say the 10% union officials exact is a pittance compared to what WS and DC are bleeding from everyone.
July 23rd, 2009 at 7:23 pm
@alfred e: Wall Street, Corporate America, and DC together are destroying the nation. But, hey, at least they’re all doing OK (and are certainly “patriotic” with their “support the troops” car stickers), right? And at least they’re doing a good job at something? We all need to be good at something……
July 23rd, 2009 at 8:24 pm
Hyeck was against centrally planned economies. I would say he was luke warm on laissez-faire capitalism. He also felt the the gov. should play a role in Monetary policy. A mixed philosophy. I should read The Road to Serfdom again.
July 23rd, 2009 at 9:04 pm
@moss: The Road To Serfdom is a difficult read about .0000000001% of all “educated” Americans will dig into.
But it’s also brilliant in its ability to explain what’s going on.
An easier, simpler, current read is what Simon Johnson has written.
BananAmerica.
Bet BSO is never going to acknowledge that book or Simon.
So why isn’t he the candidate for Ben’s job? Duh?
July 23rd, 2009 at 10:11 pm
moss,
here’s one version:: http://www.mises.org/books/TRTS/
though, I tend to disagree w/ alfred e’s take, I think Hayek’s book is well written.
here:: http://www.amazon.com/Road-Serfdom-Fiftieth-Anniversary/dp/0226320618
others share their views..
~~
Curmudgeon,
I think I hear you, no doubt JMK, and his ilk, belongs in PoliSci..
July 23rd, 2009 at 11:40 pm
alfred e
I read it in college some moons ago.. stumbled across it a few weeks ago. It is not that long but I agree that it is a difficult read. I will check into that Johnson book. I like him.
MEH: that pictorial was succinct.