Sewer workers have a code of conduct.
Economists are in the gutter.
Source link: http://archive.mises.org/17938/ethical-economists/
Ethical Economists?
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This can’t possbily be a bad idea.
Of course she thinks that, look at who she’s worked for over her career.
This would have been a perfect story if she differentiated between Economists who are for central planning, and for those who are not. Does she know anything about economics herself?
A council of economists sounds horrible…something Ellsworth Toohey would have created…
Heavens no…they’re forcing Austrian Economics even further to the fringe.
“Economists tend to present themselves as knowing more about the economy than it’s possible to know,”
T’is heresy!
I’m familiar with Al Lewis. He was known as the anti-business editor when he edited the business section of the Denver Post.
“… about 300 of them signed a letter asking the world’s largest professional society for economists to adopt a code of ethics…. the movie ‘Inside Job’… exposed embarrassing conflicts of interest in the economics profession.”
Ah, yes. That’s what we need — another code. That’ll fix it.
“The American Economic Association’s Ad Hoc Committee for Ethical Standards For Economists…. is expected to….”
And another committee! Excellent. We’re on a roll now.
“Economists have absolutely no guidelines regulating their conduct,’ Starr said. ‘Accountants, financial professionals…sociologists, anthropologists, historians, mathematicians and physicists all have standards, but not economists.’”
Holy smokes…. What color is the sky in this woman’s world???
They’re out there, I tell ya. They’re out there and are not going away.
Not wanting to ruin a short family reunion this past weekend, I refrained from point by point rebuttals to the voices emanating from successful and intelligent family members. The regulation river runs deep, from retired government workers to rental property owners to relatively wealthy consultants.
You’ve no idea how entrenched is the mindset, supporting the status quo and so-called protections. There is so little hope, yet we delude ourselves often. But this site gives me some comfort.
This sounds all too familiar to me.
From comments in OPs article:
oldsklinvestor – “I’ve thoroughly investigated Austrian economics. It’s very interesting but at the end of the day it’s just like all economic schools of thought: unprovable.
Economics is the only “science” that has never delivered a tangible benefit to society, only unprovable theories. ”
lol, wut?
oldsklinvestor – “I didn’t say they are the same, I said both have the same scientific credentials in that both are capable of pulling off some amusing parlor tricks and nothing more.
Sound science is postulating a hypothesis you can then prove and explain through observable evidence. Neither economics or astrology has this quality.
dbrooks via austrian economics has a good point. Economics is nothing more than the ill-equipped study of human behavior. So why don’t we leave psychology to the psychologists, and sociology to the sociologists, and anthropology to the anthropologists, etc. and never pay another economist for any service ever again. There’s no necessary service that an economist does that can’t be done by an accountant.”
how a person that thoroughly investigated AE could have no idea about its epistemological underpinnings is beyond me. Lying just to show how cool he is?
Yeah, if only a “code” would help. I promise that any such “code” will be anything but ethical. I’d go still further, though, and say it will be used to protect the most unethical.
Indeed. And this is where libertarianism gets its biggest boost, in my view. Recall the Reason TV piece on the taxi medallions in DC, a wonderful video exposing the government protections for the well-connected and well-off.
http://blog.mises.org/17644/freedom-or-regulation-in-taxi-services/
If more shows could (in layman terms) connect the dots between regulation and fat cat billionaires, it would counter the plethora of shows that connect dots between so-called DEregulation and billionaires.
The other evening John Stossel, on FOX, discussed the unfunded pension liability in an Alabama town — had a retired fire fighter on the show who received a third of what was originally promised.
When a “regular Joe” gets stiffed by the government, it must open some eyes on the left. But that’s too much to hope. The response of the brain-dead is, “See? We needed more taxes from the wealthy to fund the pension, and better politicians, and more rules, and more codes to protect them.”
Well, that and “FOX and Stossell are racists.”
Pity.
Where is Ed Norton when you need him?!
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&gbv=2&biw=1280&bih=961&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=ed+norton+honeymooners&oq=ed+norton&aq=3&aqi=g10&aql=&gs_sm=c&gs_upl=6989l9095l0l11435l9l8l0l0l0l0l352l1519l2-3.2l5l0
at least sewer workers know their shit.
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