Commentary: No more junk economics

From NM Politics.net - After watching and listening to economists and politicians ride the media merry-go-round, espousing their economic recovery plans and sounding like freshman economics teachers or Madison Avenue ad executives, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I turned off the television set and thought about what’s wrong with all their arguments, whether it’s stimulus-based deficit spending, 9-9-9, or 20-20 in 2020. Then it came to me: What’s wrong is that the economic theory we practice today is not science, though we insist it be presented as such. It’s more like art – not the paint-by-numbers variety, but a traditional school of art like realism that depends on a few constants: a stable, unchanging motif; suspension of conscious analytical judgment (allowing only the eye and not the mind to judge the depiction of reality); and the use of dependable tools like the right brushes and paint or, as in the case of the marketplace, interest rates, taxes, incentives, investments, etc. Read more

Commentary: No more junk economics