Why are so many economists idiots?

For example:

In my view, fixing the banking sector is more important than getting the stimulus right. So if you can afford to lose the money, go to a large bank (more likely to be insolvent), find their most overpriced service, and buy as much of it as you can. That way you are doing your part to recapitalize our banking system. If you’re stuck for ideas, just keep on using ATM machines, owned by other banks, so you can pay large fees to take out small sums of money from your checking account. When you need to, take all of your withdrawals and deposit them back in the account once again and start all over with the process.

Comments

[Dave Winer]

Hi John -- how's it going?

I had to leave a comment cause I think he's joking. No one could be that stupid and survive childhood, never mind the trials of adulthood. Someone would have killed him by now if only to put him out of his misery. :-)

I often miss these things myself, I am famous for having zero sense of irony, but I've developed it the way a blind man develops a little bit of vision just by inference.

[Grant]

It's not that so many economists are idiots, it's just that the news media only likes one-handed economists.

[John Robb]

Hey Dave. Going OK. Probably misread this as you point out.

Maybe I'm not prepared for satire from a profession that contributed so enormously to the growing debacle.

[James Bowery]

Reality sometimes seems written by a satirist. Lately for example.

But the question is serious and deserves a serious answer:

Economics is a social science. Social sciences are prohibited from conducting controlled experiments by virtually all forms of government except the only one that is ethical:

Allowing those who hold ecological hypotheses to assortatively migrate to territories within which to test their hypotheses with others by mutual consent.

Statecraft is the practice of ecological medicine and needs similar experimental ethics.

[fairhavenhorn]

You clearly don't read Tyler Cowen. That was humor, and it got decent recognition for cleverness from most economists. One such review of various responses is at http://www.williampolley.com/blog/archives/2009/02/what-will-you-d.html

Cowen was not the only one to attempt humor. The suggestion to use it for a hedge fund also falls into the humor category.

[John Robb]

I've started to read Tyler, but can't find much that is useful.