Let’s be clear, I tend to dislike Economists for a multitude of reasons. As time goes by, I dislike them more and more. Why?

The really basic reason, for me anyway, is that they pretend that they can predict the future. Let me drop some knowledge on you – the can’t. They, like accountants, can only analyze what has happened in the past and make inferences about what “may” happen in the future. They cannot do this with any more certainty than you and I given the same facts. Worse yet, they seem to do this “prediction” with a special amount of arrogance and the media just laps it up. The reality is, it’s a guess, maybe based on a bit more research than most people will do on their own, but it’s still a guess.

Economists, for the most part, didn’t predict the world financial calamity that struck financial markets in the late 2000’s. In fact, in retrospect, many people believe that their advice – at certain levels – contributed to it, or even caused it. The reason is essentially the same. They cannot predict the future.

Back when I was in second year university it was considered difficult to get into the business faculty. The GPA requirements were fairly significant, but the discussion between my fellow students was that if we couldn’t make it into the business faculty, we would do an economics major instead. I have no idea if this is still the case at many institutions, but it was reality at the time. Roll the clock forward a few years and some of these same people who’s grades were inferior to mine, now have a magic crystal ball that can predict the future. I’m not buying it for a second.