Unforeseen Contingencies

Our economic "experts" do not understand economics.

A friend just sent me a NYT op-ed by Ben Stein worrying that the economic downturn will not end in any foreseeable future. Read this, and then watch the video of Stein and other "experts" mocking Peter Schiff when he perfectly forecasts the economic catastrophe ahead. Especially worthy of note: Arthur Laffer describing the U.S. economy as "never in better shape" and monetary policy as "spectacular."

Stein, Laffer, and the rest cannot understand what is happening, and are now reduced to crying about "losses of confidence" and inadequate aggregate demand, as though the cure is big doses of Prozac and more of the Keynesian fiscal and monetary poison that brought us to this point. Economists who were caught off guard by the crisis didn't have sound theory to warn them, and don't have theory to explain what has happened. They can't explain how they could have been so wrong, but nevertheless they are quite confident in their competence to steer us out of this mess.

Ben Stein and Arthur Laffer and their ilk are utter frauds. We have been eating our capital, not building wealth, and need to reverse this.

I wonder what these "experts" will propose when their Keynesian nostrums fail and the real disasters hit? Marxism?