An Economist Speaks

For a long time I’ve been confused about what passes for economic reporting these days. The reports of late have all been saying the recession has ended. Yet they all invariably add that most Americans (sometimes referred to collectively as “Main Street”) will not see any personal improvement for many months or even years. Indeed, it seems to most on Main Street that things are actually getting worse because of more job losses, more foreclosures than new home sales, higher poverty rates, much less available personal credit, etc.

The answer to this apparent contradiction, I’ve finally realized, is that the good news we’ve been inundated with of late has come from “experts,” people who supposedly know better than the folks actually suffering in this hyped recovery. My next realization was that none of these supposed experts has credentials that anyone with an ounce of sense would take seriously.

What do you have to do to claim the title of economist, for example? A lawyer, a doctor, most other professionals, need a license and must past tests to claim this title. But anyone can claim to be an economist. Me, you, the kid who delivers the morning paper, anyone.

Sure, most people who do make this claim nowadays have a lot of a certain kind of education. But this doesn’t enable them to understand the real circumstances in which other people are living any more than years studying oceanography gives one real insights into how it feels to be a fish. And since the unemployment rate among economists is a fraction of the national average, the number of homes they have lost via foreclosure is minimal, and they aren’t regulars at the local food pantry or welfare office, it’s fair to say their descriptions of real world economic conditions are about as soundly based as a theologan’s descriptions of conditions existing in heaven and hell.

And then there’s those analysts — you know, the people whose expectations are always being beaten. What are their qualifications when it comes to describing the present state of our economy and its likely future prospects? Does one even need a certain educational background or past success predicting things to be an analyst? Of course not. Most analysts being quoted endlessly in media are just employees of securities peddling firms.

So I’m an economist. I’m also an analyst. And by the by, my own economic analysis has been far more on the mark over the years than the folks the media is looking to at present—and if you check the site noted below, you’ll see I did this in verse.

And here’s what I say now. The Fed didn’t pull us back from the edge of the economic abyss. We fell into the abyss. We’re still falling. The economy wasn’t saved, the banks were saved. And the short-term cures our economic elite have contrived is very likely to pitch us much further into the pit without a plausible government life vest left to check the plunge.