August 2011
Intermediate to advanced
320 pages
8h 43m
English
CHAPTER 9
Understanding Our Problems Is the First Step Toward Solving Our Problems
When people start talking about the financial crisis or the very slow economy, there is always a tendency to want to blame someone. The usual suspects are Federal Reserve Chairmen, past and present, individual investment bankers, all investment bankers, Congress, the President, etc. Although all of these people share blame, some more than others, for our economic problems, it is usually only a partial answer. We could change the Fed Chairman, but would that make that much difference? We could put some investment bankers in jail—and maybe they should go—but is that really the heart of the problem? We wish it were so, but it is doubtful that such changes will really turn the economy around.
The culprit we feel that is more important than any of these individuals or groups of individuals is economists. What we are witnessing now is a fundamental failure of the economics profession. Understanding this failure and how to solve it will create a powerful tool for solving our current and future economic problems.
