FBXL Social

Pretty interesting going back to some of the econ podcasts I listen to and realizing how ignorant they are.

In one show they talked about how good it is that the government says everything is fine. in another it says entitlements are great and the guest shrugs off the existential crisis of government debt with a dismissive "it's a political problem, we can figure it out", and "entitlements are fine, America economy big!"

No wonder my predictions got so much better after I stopped listening to them. Imagine how disgraceful it is that these alleged economics reporters are likely to die in the gutter penniless because they don't seem to know fuck all about the markets or the economy.

It seems to me that the more prescriptive it gets, the more suspect it becomes. It's called the dismal science, and it should be treated as a science where we're trying to understand the world and predict the future. The moment that you start slapping prescriptions right into the school of thought you're in, you basically given up the ability to make any predictions contrary to that prescription. At that point of course you're going to get most things wrong because your job isn't too predict things correctly.

I want to read some good books, I think I will try that one out.

The sad thing is that the basic principles of macro and micro economics are actually quite intuitive, and get thrown out the window when someone is about to explain why you need to stab yourself in the heart to make sure the sun rises tomorrow or something equally crazy.