“Who is gonna make it? We’ll find out in the long run”

by digby

Of course, we historically-minded economists are not surprised that they were wrong. We are, however, surprised at how few of them have marked their beliefs to market in any sense. On the contrary, many of them, their reputations under water, have doubled down on those beliefs, apparently in the hope that events will, for once, break their way, and that people might thus be induced to forget their abysmal forecasting track record.

I would guess that people who are secure in the knowledge that they suffer no professional sanctions, loss of reputation or discomfort in their own lives by simply waiting for “the market” to eventually right itself, however cruel and painful that is for most people don’t feel any pressure to admit wrong.

You-know-who:

The long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is past the ocean is flat again.