The economics profession really REALLY sucks

Yesterday, Christina Romer--one of the supposedly enlightened members of Obama's economic team--gave a speech to the National Press Club.  In it, she basically admitted the Obama team had (has) NO idea the depth of the economic problems facing the nation.

The question becomes, WHY can't this nation get better advice from its highly-educated and paid economists?  My answer is that they have been taught utter nonsense but I am willing to listen to other hypothesis.

Outgoing Obama Aide Admits: Stimulus Failed Because We Didn't Understand The Recession

Joe Weisenthal | Sep. 1, 2010, 8:29 PM 

As she prepares to leave The White House, outgoing economic advisor Christina Romer has delivered something of a valedictory speech to the National Press Club. The title: Not My Father's Recession.

For Romer, her Father's recession was the one in the early 80s, when unemployment surged above 10%, and Romer's own father got laid off.

But the title basically tells you what you need to know: It's different this time -- this recession was not anything like the Fed-induced recession of her father -- and the old recovery playbook could not possibly go as anticipated. more

Putting the Brakes on Neoliberal Economics

Race to the Bottom

By ISMAEL HOSSEIN-ZADEH

While the harrowing economic hardship that started in late 2007 and early 2008 rages on, and countless people in the United States, Europe and other parts of the world are losing their jobs, their homes and their sources of livelihood, policy-makers in the advanced capitalist countries of the West are standing idly by without lifting a finger to alleviate the onerous burden of the crushing recession. On the contrary, they have embarked on an orchestrated series of cruel belt-tightening austerity policies that have, indeed, contributed to the worsening of the recession.

The question is why? How can the policy makers’ callous indifference to the plight of the people, or their pathetic inability to carry out effective policies of economic recovery, be explained?

The official explanation for not investing in the revival of the economy is that, due to the already huge debt and deficit, additional public spending would be “fiscal irresponsibility.” In light of the fact that governments in the US, EU and other debt-ridden countries have showered the powerful international banksters and other financial moguls with trillions of dollars, this explanation falls miserably short of credibility; indeed, it can more appropriately be called an excuse than an explanation. more