Maybe It’s Your Philosophy, Ben
There’s an army of right-leaning and libertarian bloggers who would be willing to offer this puzzled economic power broker a pointer or two:
The economy’s continuing struggles aren’t just confounding ordinary Americans. They’ve also stumped the head of the Federal Reserve.
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke told reporters Wednesday that the central bank had been caught off guard by recent signs of deterioration in the economy. And he said the troubles could continue into next year.
What’s the quote from Keynes? “The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood.” Maybe Mr. Bernanke needs to question whether he’s getting something wrong from the point at which he makes assumptions about how the world works.
“The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood.”
Maybe Mr. Bernanke needs go out and visit America. Economists seem to over rely on metrics. Studying the money supply. They perhaps expect people to react rationally, much as they see themselves. There are probably no metrics for irrationality.
A few things I have observed in America lately. “Savers” second hand stores seem to be springing up everywhere. Public ashtrays are being raided for butts. Last week I had to spend a 1/2 hour in front of a Stop & Stop. In that time I saw 4 people retreiving butts from the ashtray. One person left a burning cigarette in the ashtray, it was gone in 20 seconds.
Say what you will about smokers, this was completely new in my experience.