Actually, the best economic prediction I ever heard was in a song: "What goes up, must come down. Spinning wheel ,spiinnig around. Talk about your troubles by the riverside. Ride a painted pony let the spinning wheel ...."
And for the current decade, "The party's over. It's time to call it a day. They've burst your pretty balloon and taken the moon away. It's time to wind up this masquerade, take off your makeup, the party's over, it's all over, my friend...." http://idiotgrrl.livejournal.com/ > Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 11:46:55 -0700 > Subject: Krugman endorses behavioral economics > From: jwilliams4...@gmail.com > To: brin-l@mccmedia.com > > Summary: > > Krugman implies that most economists either believe in the simplistic > Keynesian theory, or the absurd efficient market theory. Neither > viewpoint was helpful in predicting the 2008 downturn. But Krugman > suggests that another theory, behavioral economics, may have useful > predictive ability. > > [end summary] > > Perhaps behavioral economics may have more predictive ability than > Keynes or EMT. If so, I would like to know why so few economists have > been making useful predictions with BE. Behavioral economics is not > brand new -- elements of it have been published for decades, and it > has certainly received plenty of attention in the past 10 years. > > If politicians are so concerned with helping the economy, why did they > not warn us long ago about impending trouble based on the predictions > of people like Shiller and Roubini? Instead of Bernanke reassuring > everyone that things were fine just before the 2008 downturn, > shouldn't the politicians have been warning us for years that trouble > was coming unless we reduced leverage and eliminated all the > incentives to sell mortgages to people who could not afford them? > > Politicians figure that voters do not like Cassandras. They may be > right. Perhaps what is needed more than a theory of behavioral > economics is a theory of behavioral politics. > > _______________________________________________ > http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com >
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