StickWithANose

It is not surprising that in an economically driven capitalist society such as ours that economists would occupy a prominent place in the social hierarchy, but it is certainly not a position that the dismal science has earned. Now that we’ve enjoyed yet another crash that demonstrates the utter poverty of the foundational assumptions of neo-classical economics it looks like the dismal science is going through another period of soul searching that will most likely result in naught. However, in the spirit of being somewhat optimistic, I’d like to point you toward this commentary by Barry Ritholtz on what he sees as the issues facing economics.

On Tuesday, the 2nd most emailed article on WSJ.com was Crisis Compels Economists To Reach for New Paradigm.

It is an intriguing look at the problems of the the field of economics. It went, however, way too easy on both the profession and its practitioners. The article fails to ask some very basic questions about the soft science, and does not discuss the fundamental incompetency of many economists.

Given the failures of the profession — failing to anticipate the worst recession in decades, missing the warping effect of the housing boom, not recognizing the credit collapse until too late — a damning indictment of the dismal science might have been more appropriate.

Perhaps I can be of assistance.

There are many areas I would have liked to see the Economics Crisis article explore: The lack of Scientific Method, the mostly awful performance of economists, its misunderstanding of the value of modeling, the bias inherent in Wall Street variant of economics, and lastly, the corruption of economics by politics. [My emphasis]

Go forth and read… Good stuff.