Apologies to any economists here....

[OwnedByFerrets]

But are they ALL fucking stupid???? This mess we are in is more than just numbers...especially numbers that are rigged. There are real people out there who are in really, really bad shape.
And, why the HELL do they NEVER bring up the GD war as the cause of ALL these problems.:nuke: :grr:

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

1. uh, they are all stupid

it seems

[sendero]

2. The war isn't the cause of these problems...

... the cause of these problems is easy money from Alan Greenspan which encouraged a bogus housing bubble facilitated by mortgage lenders who made money making fraudulent loans to unqualified buyers and collecting the fees and passing the risk to others via "securitization".

It is exascerbated by the fact that we are a country awash in debt at every level, government, business and personal.

It will take years to work through this.

[billyoc]

3. They don't let the facts sway them from their theories, it's frowned upon.

I am not kidding. :hi:

[On the Road]

4. Economists' Job is to Study and Explain the Numbers

It's called "the dismal science" for a reason. The war doesn't help things, but it's not the direct cause of the current crisis.

[Celebration]

5. The economists today are basically brainwashed

by their schools that all teach "rational choice" theory. Because Communism and Socialism and Collectivism are so EVIL, then the absolute opposite--everyone working solely for their own self interest, in their economic models, is ideal. People have won Nobel prizes for math models in economics based on self interest. Their assumption is that everyone has only their own material interests at heart.

It is really perverse, and it isn't the way our country started out. My daughter had a triple major in college-one of the areas was economics. She said she couldn't buck the system and didn't pursue it in grad school.

[crazymans economics]

7. Absolutely right

...why would Economists practice a philosophy that would essentially put them out of business?

[AngryAmish]

9. Umm, there are plenty of marxist economists

[AngryAmish]

8. That is a simplistic description of rational choice

As the theory goes, people want to maximize what they consider good and minimize the bad.

Under your description nobody would give to charity. Yet, people do.

Why? A good to many people is social recognition. Having that fancy NPR bag signals to others that you donate and thus have status among those people you wish to be held in esteem by.

Other reasons include "doing the right thing". It helps with group cohesion when we do the right thing. Donating to charity is commonly held to be the right thing. So we do it even when there is no recognition and no tax right off.

Economics is undergoing great changes. There are moves afoot to rename the field decision studies because a lot of biology and neuroscience has disproven the rational choice stuff you complain about. Social sciences are also undergoing sea changes because of the rigor that economics has given to their fields - a rigor that was born on Wall Street and the study of markets. There is even a movement afoot for randomized trials in education (which was not the case for years and why the vast majority of educational research is garbage).

Anyway, don't hate the playa. Economists do the best they can.

[Celebration]

11. I don't hate anyone

So called "rational choice" models are used to promote such things as school vouchers. They ignore any kind of group values such as the need for common culture. Furthermore, they are accepted by many politicians as being the same worldwide. That is why GWB actually thinks people will embrace "democracy" when they are exposed to it. Ha! What a joke.

[provis99]

6. they don't bring up the war, because the war isn't being paid through taxes

its being paid with the national equivalent of a credit card: high-interest bearing bonds that no one but the Chinese will buy. The bill isn't due on these until the future, so it's really not affecting our current economic situation. Its in fact a massive economic problem which will affect us down the turnpike, in ADDITION to the current situation.

[AngryAmish]

10. You say the numbers are rigged.

How so?

[Celebration]

12. inflation is an example

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aPjqNRudfM.Q&refer=home

William Fleckenstein, president of Fleckenstein Capital Inc. in Seattle and co-author of ``Greenspan's Bubbles: The Age of Ignorance at the Federal Reserve,'' isn't one of those investors.

``One reason why I've never owned TIPS is because I knew the CPI was a cheat,'' he said.

Criticisms of the CPI center on the practice of understating price increases to account for quality improvements in goods like cars and computers. The government also changes the basket of goods it uses to calculate CPI, replacing more expensive products with cheaper ones.

``I figured somewhere along the way people would revolt over these bizarre calculations and maybe someday TIPS would offer some value,'' Fleckenstein said. ``So far they don't.''

I kinda sorta think they should include quality deterioration, if they are going to do this. Like where does the time I spend on the phone on hold with Comcast go into the inflation model? You know, since they are taking the kitchen sink approach, including quality improvements such as cameras on cell phones and faster chips, that should probably be thrown in there too.