Encourage your kids to become an economist

It seems to me that one of the required classes for becoming an economist is basket weaving, or perhaps modern dance.  There certainly cannot be anything more substantive required as it is quite clear these days that economist have no idea what they are doing. If an engineer is designing a building it’s pretty certain that the calculation for weight-bearing walls will be the same whether the engineer is on the political left or right.  Not so with an economist.  Was the massive stimulus a good idea or bad, too little or too much?  Make up any answer you like and you will find a “noted” economist to agree with you.  

Have the trillions we have spent on the economy worked?  Well…duh!  Of course it did or didn’t.  Worked to do what?

Should we worry about the deficit and debt?  Yes, no, not sure.  If you happen to be Greek, it’s no problemo…merrily we roll along.  Is Krugman Greek?

If you are on the left you know for sure this crisis is all George Bush’s fault and you ignore the fact that the Democrats controlled Congress during the last two years of the Bush administration.  You also may blame Wall Street for the crisis and ignore that Congress and previous administrations set in play the easy money, easy credit and easy home purchase rules at the root cause of all this.

Is the issue the growing debt or high unemployment?  I got the answer from a noted economist, yes.

Should health care come from a single payer government-run plan or private competition?  Yes, no, neither.  Again, expert opinion, but this time from health economists whatever the heck they are.

Should there be a QE3?   No, QE2 (not the boat) was a bad idea.  Yes, we need more stimuli. 

When you’re kids head off for college encourage them to become an economist, they will never be wrong, never held accountable, and get to pontificate about all their charts and data…not unlike a meteorologist, except you don’t have to be out in bad weather.

Economists should be made to take the (a) Hippocratic Oath.

…I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon’s knife or the chemist’s drug.

I will not be ashamed to say “I know not,” nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient’s recovery…

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• Raising Taxes No ‘Kiss of Death’ for Job Growth, History Shows (sfgate.com)
• Boehner Cites Support of Economists in Debt Limit Fight (thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com)
• Warning: Economic recovery at risk (money.cnn.com)
• The Morality of Economists (freakonomics.com)