In all recorded history there has not been one economist who has had to worry about where the next meal would come from.
-- Peter Drucker
People love to be sold hope. They'll also be sold fear. An economist sells both, seemingly on a whim. Financial advisers, stock brokers, portfolio managers -- they all have the same thing in common: trying to convert other people's money into their hopes or dreams. Alternately, they try to diminish the fears of investors by giving advice on how to prevent disaster.
When all goes well, it's their cunning brilliance that brings in the paycheck. When it all falls apart, then "it wasn't supposed to happen this way", "no one could have predicted this", and "well, that's just the market-based economy for you". It seems to be a win-win game for people involved in projecting the economy. They have turned an already inexact science (at best) into a masqueraded-oft-confusing guessing game, all the while planning their next meal.
Plastics!
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