On July 16, 2009, The Economist (I call it The Statist) pilloried economists with a paper, "What went wrong with economics" https://www.economist.com/leaders/2009/07/16/what-went-wrong-with-economics. They wrote, "In the public mind an arrogant profession has been humbled...."
Two days after that I wrote a blog post about it. I said,
Economics' simplest definition is that "it is the study of proper allocation of limited resources"...
So, what's wrong or what went wrong with economics?
Nothing.
What's wrong with economists?
They sometimes behave like politicians throwing away subsidies, expensive welfare programs and various political favors.
What's wrong with this article?
The author forgot the definition of Economics when he took Econ. 11 several decades ago.
https://funwithgovernment.blogspot.com/2009/07/whats-wrong-with-economics.html
I followed it up, "What's wrong with economics, part 2" (Dec. 6, 2010),
https://funwithgovernment.blogspot.com/2010/12/whats-wrong-with-economics-part-2.html
So why did modern economics – as practiced by known economists – go into the policy of endless borrowing, endless taxation, endless welfarism and subsidies, knowing that resources (money from taxpayers especially) are limited, while those who seek welfare and subsidy, those who seek corporate bail-outs, those who seek rackets in governments, and even those who simply want to steal in government, are unlimited?
The quick answer would be the central planning mentality of many – but not all – economists.
Recently, another economist-bashing article,
Economists pilloried for getting forecasts wrong
February 4, 2024
https://bilyonaryo.com/2024/02/04/economists-pilloried-for-getting-forecasts-wrong/money/
“Many economists are actually a tribal clique,” she said, referring to a lack of openness to other scientific disciplines.
“They quote each other — men more than women but that’s another story,” the former IMF chief and French finance minister said. “But they don’t go beyond that world because they feel comfortable in that world.”
-- Christine Lagarde, former European Central Bank (ECB) President, former IMF Managing Director, former France Finance Minister.
That article to a certain extent is correct. Many economists are braggart, mayabang, especially those from the multilaterals and the big global banks. And Ms Lagarde is part of this cabal and now she criticizes the cabal, hehe.
Multilaterals like the IMF, WB, ADB, are into global economic central planning.
Same way, the UNEP, UNWMO, UN IPCC, the above multilaterals, are into global ecological central planning and energy rationing.
The WHO and above multilaterals are into global health central planning.
All central planners invent certain narratives. Like energy/oil crisis, hunger/food crisis, NCDs/smoking crisis, virus crisis, garbage/plastic crisis, climate crisis,... And there is only one solution -- more government, more UN and multilaterals as saviors.
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Among my favorite economists, Thomas Sowell (US) @ThomasSowell. Among his recent tweets:
There was a time when we honored those who created the prosperity and the freedom that we enjoy. Today we honor the complainers and sue the creators. Perhaps that is inevitable in an era when we no longer count our blessings, but instead count all our unfulfilled wishes.
Feb 6
There was a time when most Americans would have resented the suggestion that they wanted someone else to pay their bills. But now, envy and resentment have been cultivated to the point where even people who contribute nothing to society feel that they have a right to a "fair share" of what others have produced.
The most dangerous corruption is a corruption of a nation's soul. That is what this administration is doing.
Feb 9
When slavery is mentioned, too many people automatically think of whites enslaving blacks. That is not even one-tenth of the story of slavery, which existed on every inhabited continent. The very word "slave" derives from the word for some white people who were enslaved on a mass scale—the Slavs—for more centuries than blacks were enslaved in the Western Hemisphere.
Feb 10
There is nothing that politicians like better than handing out benefits to be paid for by someone else.
Feb 14
I don't understand how people who cannot predict the weather five days in advance can predict the climate decades from now.
Global warming, due to greenhouse gasses, is the latest in a long series of one-factor theories about a multi-factor world. Such theories have often enjoyed great popularity, despite how often they have turned out to be wrong.
Feb 17
Liberals try to show their concern for the poor by raising the level of minimum wage laws. Yet they show no interest in hard evidence that minimum wage laws create disastrous levels of unemployment among young blacks in this country.
Feb 25
One of the reasons it has taken so long for some people to finally see through Barack Obama is that people do not like to admit, even to themselves, that they have been played for fools by a slick-talking politician.
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