[TheOtherHobbes]

Expertise is not a Boolean. I'd trust a qualified physicist to make useful predictions about quantum devices, an EE to model an analog circuit, and a structural engineer to design a bridge that doesn't fall down.

But financiers, bankers, and economists have a much less convincing record - and that's after you filter out the ones who have been caught breaking the law.

[7d6dyeyee]

I always hear these sorts of criticisms of economists and financiers but I just don't think they hold water overall. Usually when I hear econ get flak the conversation rapidly devolves into criticisns of the abstract fairness of a solution rather then its priorities and effectiveness within the context. You see this constantly in the US when politicians from either side talk about the bank bailouts, the national debt, minimum wage, immigration, etc. Suddenly, rather than having anything resembling a sober and informed discussion about the topic and the current expert consensus, everyone just starts soapboxing about fatcats and entitlement while larping as intellectuals as they promote fringe 'theories' that happened to coincide with their political objectives. Meanwhile the actual economists and their suggestions get either drowned out or misrepresented.