Re:
>If you set your task to explain why how in a tempestuous
>season a storm can permanently sustain itself unless the wise
>elite with the special training that allows thems to
>directly intuit aggregate relations used central power to
>do something about it, econonists are setting themselves a task
>that will have fatal consequences. -- Greg Ransom
>(channeling the spirit of F. A. Hayek -- and no, this is not
>an 'invasion').
Hmmm...
Milton Friedman said (roughly) that it was obvious that criminally inept
government policy--and not the malfunctioning of a near-laissez-faire
economic system--caused the Great Depression: monetary policy was much,
much too tight over 1930-1933; nothing happening before 1930 made a
_Great_Depression_ inevitable.
Friedrich von Hayek said (roughly) that it was obvious that criminally
inept government policy--and not the malfunctioning of a near-laissez-faire
economic system--caused the Great Depression: monetary policy was much,
much too loose over 1925-1929; nothing happening after 1929 could have
avoided a _Great_Depression_.
It is hard to figure out how to get the government out of the business of
macroeconomic management (and into the business of providing a proper
night-watchman state with a "neutral" monetary policy) if you can't even
agree on what a "neutral" monetary policy might look like...
Brad De Lonog