I haven’t been wrong yet, a-hole.
February 10th, 2009 | by Scott Jennings |This gives voice to my recent concern, i.e. that I do not trust anyone no matter how credentialed to provide sound, scientific economic analysis. I don’t have really any greater formal training in the hard sciences than I do in econ, so why is it so much harder to separate out the junk?
Today on television game show “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?” the question was asked: which Nobel prize had never been awarded to a woman? I had never thought about it before I heard the question, but the answer was immediately apparent before the options were offered.
Economics has always been the social science of agenda-driving and dick-swinging. (Which is probably why I got my degree in it.) Don’t look for a hard scientific validation to your policy preferences, look to history and to common sense. (Common sense: if you give people money in the form of tax cuts, they won’t spend it. If you need things to get bought, the government needs to do it right now.)