I wish a consensus would emerge among the economists, so that we could have some idea of whether we’re even going in the right direction regarding Geithner’s plans. Unfortunately, there is no consensus.
Economists versus economists
- Post author:Erich Vieth
- Post published:March 30, 2009
- Post category:Economy / Politics
- Post comments:2 Comments
Erich Vieth
Erich Vieth is an attorney focusing on civil rights (including First Amendment), consumer law litigation and appellate practice. At this website often writes about censorship, corporate news media corruption and cognitive science. He is also a working musician, artist and a writer, having founded Dangerous Intersection in 2006. Erich lives in St. Louis, Missouri with his two daughters.
Dan Smolin aims lots of his venom at stock pickers and those claiming to be financial experts who can justify high-fee mutual funds.
Economists seem to receive the reverent treatment of harder scientists, which seems utterly unfair given the natural softness of their feild. I don't blame economists for the fact that their science borders on "dismal"; they simply do not have the ability to test their hypotheses by, say, creating miniature worlds.
I say this, of course, as an embittered wannabe psychologist, who must always swim upstream to prove that my beloved field deserves the "science" label. At least psychologist can perform controlled experiments. Economists necessarily have one arm forever tied back due to the nature of their subject, yet the media and lay public lean on them to "prove" or "predict" things that cannot handle. They haven't the equipment.
If climate change deniers can drag out a handful of real scientists who see a clear reality in a twisted and different light, of course any perspective can find support in a small collective of soft-science economists.