Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Economics Made Easier

All economists more or less agree on some basic tenets of economics. These have to do with the long-term effect of deficits, and the inevitability of inflation as a result. They appear to also agree on incentives for business and, to some degree, on tax cuts for small business, in the effort to increase jobs. Other than for such basics, they differ all over the lot.

I repeat what I have often said about economics and economists. Do not be impressed by awards, especially Nobel prizes.

Economics involve many complex variables, facts to digest, unknown and the unknowable, and can be difficult to understand. It definitely is not a science.

Economists can see what has worked well in the past and what has not. There is no predictability. Modeling and planning has not worked properly in the past and will not in the future. Therefore, as one observer has said, “economics is history trying to be physics.”

There are a handful in which I have more confidence. Such as Milton Friedman, Friedrich von Hayek, among others, whose work I follow.

As I often note, politics plays a big role in the thinking of many. It produces the variations we are accustomed to, as an accommodation by economists tuned to the political interests they may favor.

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