Economics is a ponzi scheme :-)

As an academic discipline, economics is at its lowest point now.  It is simply hilarious to see "Nobel" prize winning economists disagree with each other in blogs and opeds.  Simply soap-opera style to see words like "hysterical" and "freshman" and "econ101" being used to make fun of the other's arguments ..... aaah, I am so glad that economics is in such a disarray.  May I have a moment of schadenfreude?  

Yes, I read the Economist, WSJ, and mouth off economic jargon.  But, I have never believed that economics is a science, which is what "mainstream" economists wanted us to believe.  And they always were uber-confident with their mathematical models--always built on assumptions--and the results of those models.  With all those, it is simply ridiculous that they can't quite figure out how we got into this mess, and whether a stimulus will do any good, and how much good could it ever do--says a lot about the true state of the discipline.  Maybe the field of economics now itself has been built up as one big ponzi scheme :-)

Gregory Clark describes it thus:

The debate about the bank bailout, and the stimulus package, has all revolved around issues that are entirely at the level of Econ 1.  What is the multiplier from government spending?  Does government spending crowd out private spending?  How quickly can you increase government spending? If you got a A in college in Econ 1 you are an expert in this debate: fully an equal of Summers and Geithner.     

The bailout debate has also been conducted in terms that would be quite familiar to economists in the 1920s and 1930s.  There has essentially been no advance in our knowledge in 80 years.

It has seen people like Brad De Long accuse distinguished macro-economists like Eugene Fama and John Cochrane of the University of Chicago of at least one "elementary, freshman mistake."

It has seen Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, guided by Larry Summers, one of the most respected economists of our time, produce a bailout plan for the US financial system stunning in its faltering vagueness.

Bizarrely, suddenly everyone is interested in economics, but most academic economists are ill-equipped to address these issues. 

Recently a group of economists affiliated with the Cato Institute ran an ad in the New York Times opposing the Obama's stimulus plan.  As chair of my department I tried to arrange a public debate between one of the signatories and a proponent of fiscal stimulus -- thinking that would be a timely and lively session.  But the signatory, a fully accredited university macroeconomist, declined the opportunity for public defense of his position on the grounds that "all I know on this issue I got from Greg Mankiw's blog -- I really am not equipped to debate this with anyone."