I love economics and I enjoy reading the work of many economists. But if you ever want to deal with a bunch of fence-sitting "on the other" handers, then spend some time with economists. Here's the latest example.
"Rise in Washington Area Unemployment Seen as a Good Sign for Economy's Recovery." How's that again? Well, here's the explanation from the article:
"Rising unemployment as a positive sign may sound counterintuitive, but economists explain it this way: The increase suggests that long-term unemployed people in the D.C. area who had given up looking for work have restarted their job hunt, perhaps because they see evidence that the region's economy is improving and that employers are beginning to hire again. On the other hand, the declining national rate indicates that discouraged workers elsewhere have remained out of the labor force because they do not see any reason to look for work."
I understand the logic--but it just seems another example of why hard scientists and theorists don't take economists seriously. Give them a set of observations and they can reach virtually any conclusion.
Don't forget, Krugman is a Nobel Prize winning economist. Any science can be corrupted. We've seen it lately with the global warming fiasco. It's just like Aristotle said, politics is the supreme science because everything takes place in a political environment. In other words, if a set of facts goes against the grain of the current political climate, it's likely they will be attacked.
ReplyDelete