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