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