 he
practice of using mathematics to give the
appearance of solidity to what is really pure wind seems to be more widespread
among economists than among any other group of people who make their living
by playing in the fantasy world of verbal toyland.
It apparently began in the thirties when economists at the Bureau of
Labor Statistics tried to understand what had brought on the Great Depression
by searching the principles of classical economic theory. They failed.
And so they went on a fishing expedition, studying the economic numbers
themselves, as numbers, hoping to find a reliable set of relationships
that could serve as a basis for understanding how an economy works. They
didn't.
A half century has passed since then and economists are still crunching
numbers trying to find a reliable set of relationships that could serve
as a basis for understanding how an economy works. And they still can't.
The only difference is that they now use high-speed computers to do it.
The problem is that their computer programs are based on assumptions
that haven't the slightest provable relationship to what actually happens
in the real world. Also their measurements and data are highly suspect,
and economic conditions, situations, and circumstances are never the same
twice.
Yet, despite these defects which render their findings utterly useless
in a practical sense, economists today seem to enjoy a status in society
as respectable as that of the physicist and the physician, members of professions
that make a real contribution to knowledge.
Pierre Gallois had it exactly right when he said: “If you put tomfoolery
into a computer, nothing comes out but tomfoolery. But this tomfoolery,
having passed through a very expensive machine, is somehow ennobled and
no one dares criticize it.”
Think about it. |
