The Cult of Economic Personality

11/04/2008 by Gabriel Voiles

Blogging at A Tiny Revolution (11/2/08), Princeton professor Bernard Chazelle incisively conveys how corporate media not only uncritically disseminate bad economic forecasting, but contribute directly to such poor analysis:

Economists are notoriously unable to predict anything but the past. Why? Yale Professor Robert Shiller, an exception to this rule, explains:

Why do professional economists always seem to find that concerns with bubbles are overblown or unsubstantiated?... It seems that concerns about professional stature may blind [them] to the possibility that we are witnessing a market bubble. People compete for stature, and the ideas often just tag along.

Translation: "They'll sell their mother to be on CNN."

Listen to the FAIR radio show CounterSpin: David Cay Johnston on meltdown/bailout (10/10/08)

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