Why Economists can't be trusted...

This posting title is an important question because so many Economists are given undeserved authority and soapbox forums on financial news programs and article quotations as if they are wise sages without the slightest touch of corruptibility.

So when answering why Economists really can't be trusted to give any honesty in their statistical findings or predictions about where the nation is heading economically, I quote Charles Ferguson, writer and director of "Inside Job" which won an Academy Award for Best Documentary this past March...

"Over the past 30 years, the economics discipline has been systematically subverted, in much the same way as American politics – by money, especially from the financial services industry. Many of the most prominent economists in America are now paid to testify in Congress, to serve on boards of directors, testify in antitrust cases and regulatory proceedings, and to give speeches to the companies and industries they study and write about with supposed objectivity.

This is not a marginal activity; it is now an industry, run by a half dozen large companies.  Some prominent academics have close ties to financial services yet neither their university employers nor the journals in which they publish require them to disclose their conflicts of interest, their financial positions, or the relationship between their financial interests and the policy positions they take..."

-- Financial Times, Oct 14, 2010, "The director of ‘Inside Job’ replies"