Drew Horn

Why Economists Messed Up

As long as economists fail to recognize the significance of fundamental elements of the economy, they will continue to have faulty vision. They could easily have seen that savings were negative, house prices were increasing much faster than income, the jobs that provided the income to support the economy were being exported, infrastructure was not being maintained, etc., etc.,etc.

I sometimes think that it is a mistake to train economists in universities. Academics constantly try to impress each other with a newer and more complex mathematical model or a combination of irrelevant data they claim has great importance. Their primary motivation is to publish enough to get tenure. Their jobs are not dependent on teaching students how to truly understand the world around them. Students are not taught to make a reality check by getting out of the office, actually seeing exactly what is happening on our streets. The are not taught to question data, only to massage it.

Frankly, we should take what economists say, put it through the sieve of common sense, and ignore all that does not pass that test.