A Quote by Katty Kay
Policy makers have plainly failed both here in the United States and in Europe as well. People who have suffered because of that. And when they say, "Throw out economists, we don't trust economists anymore," you can totally understand why.
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Question: Why does anyone bother to listen to economists anymore? The profession has become an embarrassment, and the most respected economists have shown themselves to have as much predictive power as a deck of tarot cards.
The reason socialism has failed around the world every time it's been tried is because people in socialist countries have looked at the United States and have said if they can have it that good, we can. It's a failed, flawed ideology, but if you ask socialists why it's always failed, it's because the United States has stood in the way.
I know economists will say well, we could run a small deficit but the problem is that once you cross that line as we see in the United States, nothing stops deficits from getting larger and larger and spiralling out of control.
I think that having good data, good statistics-and the United States generally has better macroeconomic statistics than most countries-and having good economists to interpret those data and present the policy alternatives, has a substantially beneficial effect on policymaking in the United States.
When most people think of economists, they think of macro-economists. Macro-economists try to describe or - even harder - predict the movements of a hugely dynamic system. They're like a transplant surgeon trying to simultaneously transplant every failing organ in someone's body.
I cannot disagree with you that having something like 500 economists is extremely unhealthy. As you say, it is not conducive to independent, objective research. You and I know there has been censorship of the material published. Equally important, the location of the economists in the Federal Reserve has had a significant influence on the kind of research they do, biasing that research toward noncontroversial technical papers on method as opposed to substantive papers on policy and results
In the 1970s, as historians became enchanted with microhistories, economists were expanding the reach of their discipline. Nations, states and cities began to plan for the future by consulting with economists whose prognostications were shaped by investment cycles rather than historical ones.
Physicists can only talk to other physicists and economists to economists... sociologists often cannot even understand each other.
What's going to be hard for the United States is that our policy for a long time has been a two-state solution; the Palestinians should have their own state. Now, the Palestinians are going to the U.N. and saying, 'We're having the U.N. vote to say we have our own state. Well, if that's your policy, United States of America, why are you vetoing it?' Which we will do.
As a general rule, the United States government is run by lawyers who occasionally take advice from economists. Others interested in helping the lawyers out need not apply.
A lot of people are surprised economists are assisting with kidney exchanges. Exchanges are what economists are good at.
No one knows anything about economics. It's the great lie of the economists. By contrast in football people might have contrasting opinions, each of which has some validity. But the economists always speak in conditionals - what a mess.
People confuse economists and economic policy.
The temptation to use mathematics is irresistible for economists. It appears to convey the appropriate air of scientific authority and precision to economists' musings.
Economists often define their discipline as "the allocation of scarce resources among competing ends." But when resources or money really become scarce, economists call it a crisis and say that it's a question for politicians, not their own department.
There is a small minority of well-educated people with relatively sensible views on economics, and an extremely tiny minority of economists with highly sensible views. Then there's everybody else. ... To win, a politician needs to please the median voter. It makes little difference if a few thousand economists think you a fool.
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