[lbo-talk] Discussing the Crisis/Bailout

Wojtek Sokolowski swsokolowski at yahoo.com
Tue Oct 7 12:56:10 PDT 2008


----- Original Message ---- From: John Thornton <jthorn65 at sbcglobal.net> I was surprised to see Krugman pronounce it a failure immediately especially after he endorsed it 5 days ago. I think he doesn't know his own mind on the matter.

[WS:]  I think nobody really knows what is going on, except in very general terms.  Everyone is just guessing and political views taint thier judgments.  ASFAIK, the explanations how markets really work resemble more astrology than science - some general common sense observations mixed with intuition guesswork and heavy dollops of abracadabra.  Solutions to th eproblems are also magical, depending which schoold of sorcery one belongs.

Let's face it, folks.  Economics is not science, at least in the emprical sense of the word, but modern day theology and fortune telling. If any other discipline had a similar record in explaining - or rather failing to explain - material reality, it would be laughed out of the stage.  Wojtek

--------------------------------------------------------------- "When a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental — men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack or be lost. [...] All the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum. The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men." - HL Mencken ----------------------------------------------------------------



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