I told her, “I hate dentistry!” (not really, but I was thinking it!  What are you supposed to say to someone who just told you they hate your passion and chosen profession?)

But I am not writing about the fact that nobody has a problem telling me how much they hate my occupation.  I can live with that.  What would really bother me is if one of those people started arguing with me about Quantum Mechanics or the Calculus of Variations.  In fact, this has happenned before.  A while ago someone who had read some popular book, like Hawking’s “A brief History of Time”, wanted to actually argue with me about how quantum mechanics really works!  He had so many misconceptions of the subject that I just gave up and said, “whatever dude”, and left it at that.  I mean, can you imagine me trying to tell my dentist how to do her job that day?

But recently I have realized that this is exactly what almost every person does with both politics and economics.  Everybody, no matter how well read they are, has an opinion on these fields.  That must be exhausting for actual economists!  Economics is a science, like math.  You set out basic assumptions (axioms) and you draw conclusions through logic that you can test against reality for usefullness.  I’m glad they have kept math out of politics, because it would drive me crazy, I think, to hear the Hill debate weather or not Pi is actually a rational number.  Most people know nothing about economics, having never read a single book, but they nonetheless have many ideas and misconceptions of the subject (and will have no problem imposing those views on others through the force of government).  Similarly, everyone has an opinion on politics without ever having read the basic texts.

Marx, Bastiat, Adam Smith, Mises, Friedman, Locke, Hobbes, Hayek.  Everyone who ever talks about politics or economics should be familiar with all these names, and more, or they are like the guy arguing with me about quantum mechanics, full of misconceptions.  The one big difference is that the guy arguing quantum mechanics can’t really affect how the world works, or the direction of research in that field.  His understanding does not affect my world in a real way.  However, the peope who constantly argue politics and economics without at least a solid understanding of the fundamentals do affect the economy though their votes and elected representatives.  The TARP, (or TALF, or whatever it is now called), stimulus, bailouts, these all have serious implications for my future.  When the Mayor of Detroit gets on TV arguing economics with an economist, it drives me crazy.  Almost as crazy as Stephen Baldwin arguing the politics of Marijuana legalization with Ron Paul.  It reminds me of the classic skit in Monty Python’s Flying Cicus where the bulky boxer is put in the ring with a little girl and he just keeps knocking her down over and over.  Except this is real life, and instead of being funny, it’s actually quite depressing.

Now, since I am not an economist, though I have read many many books on the subject, I still tend to listen to actual economists before forming my opinion of any policy.  And just like the layman trying to decide on what to wear for the day and deciding what channel’s weatherman to watch, i want to listen to those that repeatedly get it right.  Some “economists” have proved to be so only in name, missing just about every single warning sign on the way to the current situation.  I dont listen to them.  I cant imagine a physicist or mathematician lasting too long when every time he sits to do an experiment or solve some problem, he misses wildly.  However there are many economists who have gotten it right over and over.  I tend to listen to them.

But one of the most respected and listened to economists has been disastorously wrong on multiple occasions.  Paul Krugman, Nobel prize winner and Keynesian economist extrodinaire, has been wrong over and over.  He suggested, in the wake of the dotcom bubble that greenspan should blow up a housing bubble to replace lost business investment.  Here we see a perfect example that replacing bubbles with other, larger bubbles can only lead to a worse situation in the future.  Would you rather go back to 2000 and let that recession take place and never have experienced the housing bubble to begin with?  Of course you would.  Unless, that is, you like the fact that we will be running a 2 trillion dollar deficit this year (which means we nearly have to borrow every two months what we did for the entire year last year at a time when the dollar really cant take anymore beatings), multi-trillion dollar deficits over the next four years, and moral hazard created when government steals from its citizens (who are broke) to bailout their rich friends on wall street.

Instead of continuing to listen to those economists that have repeatedly gotten it wrong, why not listen to someone who has been right?  Examples are abound, just not in the mainstream media.  Here is one.  Tom Woods is my hero.  Here is another, Peter Schiff, Ron Paul’s economic advisor during his long shot presidential bid (and someone I wholehartedly support to this day as maybe the only honest, principled representative left who is truely conservative).  Check out the recently popular Schiff was right video on youtube.  Finally, Gary North and Lew Rockwell.  Gary can be found on Lew’s blog, which I read everyday.  Obviously, when Obama says the economists on all sides agree, he is admitting the personal flaw of selective hearing (as egomaniacal authoritarian warmongers tend: to select facts to support their agenda;  self-absorbed and obtuse to the extreme).