Another classic “Read it here 1st” at TBP:
What Good Are Economists Anyway? (Business Week)
Why they failed to predict the global economic crisis—and why their help is still crucial to a recoveryEconomists mostly failed to predict the worst economic crisis since the 1930s. Now they can’t agree how to solve it. People are starting to wonder: What good are economists anyway? A commenter on a housing blog wrote recently that economists did a worse job of forecasting the housing market than either his father, who has no formal education, or his mother, who got up to second grade. “If you are an economist and did not see this coming, you should seriously reconsider the value of your education and maybe do something with a tangible value to society, like picking vegetables,” he wrote on patrick.net.
Take that, you pointy-headed failures! Go jump off a supply curve!”
Interesting take — looks kinda familiar. Now where else have I seen that sentiment expressed?
Hmmmm . . . Perhaps I spilled a few pixels on the same subject previously. Let’s do a quick search — hey, whattataknow:
Why Economists Missed the Crises (January 5th, 2009)
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/01/why-economists-suck/RIP Chicago School of Economics: 1976-2008 (December 23rd, 2008)
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2008/12/chicago-repudiation/The Mystery of the Awful Economists
RealMoney.com, 3/2/2005 3:42 PM EST
http://www.thestreet.com/p/rmoney/barryritholtz/10211333.htmlMystery of the Awful Economists, part II (April 8th, 2005)
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2005/04/mystery-of-the-awful-economists-part-2/Mystery of the Awful Economists (Part III) (April 13th, 2005)
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2005/04/mystery-of-the-awful-economists-part-iii/The Illusory World of Economic Forecasting (September 19th, 2006)
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2006/09/the-illusory-world-of-economic-forecasting
You can read it in the MSM, or you can read it here first — in some cases, 4 years ago!
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Source:
What Good Are Economists Anyway?
Peter Coy
Why they failed to predict the global economic crisis—and why their help is still crucial to a recovery
Business Week, April 16, 2009, 5:00PM EST
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_17/b4128026000502.htm
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