Leaving Corporate America

The American Thinker ^ | November 29, 2009 | John Dietrich

[Scanian]

We are at the mercy of economic "experts." These practitioners of the "dismal science" are managing large sectors of our economy in accordance with theories learned in Ivy League Universities. They have assured us that the lessons learned from the Great Depression will prevent another such occurrence.

The problem is that every forecast by an economic expert can be matched by an equal and opposite forecast. Often these conflicting forecasts are made by the same individual. Economist Howard S. Katz provides an explanation for this situation in his book, The Paper Aristocracy: "Modern economics claims to be a science. This is a sham and a fraud." Katz bases this conclusion on his observation that "[w]hen it fails to predict future events it does not act like the scientist, disregarding false theories in search of the truth; it acts like the Indian Medicine Man who has failed to make rain. It equivocates, rationalizes and tries to make minor adjustments." Unlike an Indian medicine man, an influential economist might not only be unable to bring rain, but he may also cause drought.

[SkyPilot]

In February 2008, Michelle Obama stated, We left corporate America, which is a lot of what we're asking young people to do. Don't go into corporate America. You know, become teachers. Work for the community. Be social workers. Be a nurse. Those are the careers that we need, and we're encouraging our young people to do that.

In Michelle's Marxist world, engineers must be racists.

[dirtboy]

In Michelle’s health care world, we’d still be bleeding the sick.

[Scanian]

That’s the O-way. We’ve got ours socked away, now we’re gonna push toward spreading the misery around for everybody else.

Anybody here ever find out why Mo the Wookie had to surrender her bar license 15 years ago?

[1rudeboy]

Is it me, or is this column out-of-joint? The author begins with the sweeping generalization that economists revisit their work when their hypotheses fail (what is it that scientists do, exactly?), and then proceeds to discuss behavior easily predicted by economic theory.

[pieceofthepuzzle]

“Work for the community.”

So, the person who works 16 hour days routinely and develops a company that employs ‘members of the community’ is not ‘working for the community’, but someone who sits around drinking coffee with a group of people trying to decide how they can best influence the next election is a noble person ‘working for the community’? This is the all too common delusional thinking of the left.

[rbg81]

Unlike an Indian medicine man, an influential economist might not only be unable to bring rain, but he may also cause drought.

Excellent line! Many people think that we have stopped the bleeding and have a modest (albeit jobless) recovery. I fear the truth is that all that $$ has just bought us a temporary reprieve while digging us a bigger hole to crawl out of. We have printed massive amounts of money (inflation) to fight the pull of deflation. Its still an open question as to which will ultimately win out.

[Nateman]

The problem with economics is the political class funds, and it’s vocal organs promote, economists who give the answers they want rather than the truth.

[Rippin]

The comments on economics are particularly ignorant. No scientist claims to understand everything about everything. They claim to espouse theories that will be set aside if truly falsified. But isolating the variables under scrutiny is much easier in some sciences than in others. Weather forecasting, research on drug side effects and macro-economic theories are all similar in that failure to predict accurately can be attributed to a wide range of variables that cannot be fully controlled. This does not mean that meteorology, pharmacology or economics are relegated to the level of witchcraft.