On 1/15/06, Eugene Coyle <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I'm less worried about Autoplectic's lament for Bush's problem about > finding economists to come up with a version of the story that works for > him. Just a hiccup in the game. Unless, of course, Armageddon really is > coming to your neighborhood. > > Gene Coyle
----------------------- Well, why can't Dubya find more economist sycophants? Is the profession peeved about the hamburgers are manufacturing issue and no one wants to put their reputation at risk? I'd also assert that the utter absence of some substantive philosophy of history to complement their infatuation with modeling -hi Sandwichman- hobbles the ability of mainstream economists to latch onto Dubya's Orwellian approach to history as the long march of freedom as well as the freedom/terrorism binary and for them to try and find one on the shelf would likely create a bit of cognitive dissonance, especially given the problems of squaring it with the eschatological Xtianity that's been very prevalent over the past few years [think of the enormous popularity of the "Left Behind" series]. This dissonance may get worse despite the attempts by Barro and others to draw correlations between religious beliefs and prosperity. The very attempt to rationalize the monetary consequences of ubiquitous irrationality is a howler, imo. Ian
