{"id":494,"date":"2017-03-30T14:00:14","date_gmt":"2017-03-30T14:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mint.10yearsafterthecrash.com\/?p=494"},"modified":"2019-07-04T06:36:26","modified_gmt":"2019-07-04T06:36:26","slug":"verity-shame-about-the-economist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/verity-shame-about-the-economist\/","title":{"rendered":"Shame about The Economist"},"content":{"rendered":"

Economics is in a mess. Verity Bastion, Emeritus Professor of Economics, speaks out.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Mint has asked me to write a column. Now I know this Mint thing it\u2019s a rallying cry for the so-called new economics lot, but their editor \u2013 a nice northern chap, possibly a tad lefty as people from up there often are \u2013 said they wanted \u201ca credible voice from the established economics side.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well it\u2019s quite nice to be recognised in my dotage for my modest, but I should add, not insignificant, contributions to the discipline of economics. I can knock out a few hundred words now and then to provide a light diversion from pulling together my hard won economic wisdom for future generations. My husband, Thomas, and I have recently moved to a rather swanky private retirement home in delightful grounds just outside Pangbourne.<\/p>\n

The faciities are quite exceptional and wonderfully peaceful for writing without the bother of having to trawl through yet anther student\u2019s essay on the internationalisation of economic growth 1870 to the present day. I\u2019ve even managed to dust off my Badminton \u2013 some of the old backhand is showing a flicker of its former fabulous flourish (must use that in my column).<\/p>\n

Yes the Ash Court is quite the epitome of what the free market can deliver.<\/p>\n

Of course I would have preferred to have bagged a column in the Economist \u2013 so much more\u2026 well\u2026 right. And the new woman at the helm there, Zanny, seems a terrifically able girl.<\/p>\n

Sadly I couldn\u2019t quite fit in with their schedule. No. I went to meet Zanny in their delightful St James\u2019 offices \u2013 they look like they haven\u2019t changed since the sixties \u2013 so resassuring\u2026 like the patched pullover my tutor at the LSE used to wear. Sadly her PA must have double booked her \u2013 anyway she wasn\u2019t available. But I definitely couldn\u2019t have taken anything on \u2013 I overheard one of their editors saying they needed someone a \u201cbit more now\u201d but my diary at the time meant that was totally out of the question.<\/p>\n

So yes The Mint wants a steadying hand on their tiller. Quite sensible.<\/p>\n

I think I made the right impression on the The Mint editor when I told him from the off that the current difficulties are of course entirely the creation of self-serving politicians and corrupt bureaucrats, who wouldn\u2019t recognise a proper free market if they were in Petticoat Lane.Our resident\u2019s manager has organised a pruning class in the delightful gardens here at Ash. Thomas has trotted along leaving me to air my first thoughts for publication. And what a demonstration of the attention to detail this place is able to offer \u2013 all courtesy of sound, private sector efficiency. Thomas, bless him, has been a little critical of Ash Court recently. Ironically the excellent broadband here has enabled darling Tommy to avail himself of some unhinged nonsense written by those economic hooligans in Manchester that talks about the dangers of \u201cfinancialisation\u201d of the care home sector .<\/p>\n

Thomas does try to get a handle on economics issues. And it\u2019s endearing that he wants to be able to discuss ideas in economics. But he so often, as now, comes away with a partial grasp of thing. To be clear: I have not frittered my time reading the drivel he\u2019s currently exercised by \u2013 and like now he goes sounding off these crackpot theories which leaves me having to set him straight. It would be so much easier were he to just ask me to explain before investing his effort.<\/p>\n

Dear Thomas embodies the way things are going now with the partially informed hordes. It is quite breathtaking that Thomas is questioning Ash Court\u2019s integrity when the place is an exquisite demonstration of the way free markets enable initiative to blossom and deliver what people want. Compromising standards. Not one bit.<\/p>\n

Poor Thomas was particularly grumpy this morning, after he slipped in the shower. We are expecting the management team (I went to Cheltenham with the mother of the facilities senior manager, Arabella) to have a non-slip shower floor installed very soon. Tommy said it was a \u201cdeath trap\u201d which is a little over the top.<\/p>\n

The fundamental problem with real economists is that they lack the backbone to speak out. I know we had a bad Brexit but forecasting is tricky. Economists wield the surgical knife of mathematics to cut to the truth. We know free markets and free trade have advanced the world for 200 years. Without free markets we would not have mobile phones in Africa. Thomas, the sweetie, likes to throw in his simplistic retort: \u201cAye cos who needs food and water?\u201d<\/p>\n

I think the rot started when so-called nudge theory became fashionable with slick politicians such as Blair and Cameron. It says you can bamboozle people into doing what you want with little effort, because they are not very clever. And it gave a fillip to the so-called heterodox economists. Heterodox? Loosely translates from the Greek of course as mixed up thinking. Quite. As the great John Kay says, who would ever go to a heterodox dentist to have their teeth out Was Sweeney Todd a heterodox hairdresser, I ask?<\/p>\n

And there are too many na\u00efve people chipping in these days on economics. Now I\u2019m an admirer of the monarchy, not least its protection of property rights. But what was HRH thinking when she asked economists: \u201cWhy didn\u2019t you see the Crash coming?\u201d. She is clearly not an economist.<\/p>\n

Then the turgid toadies at the Royal Society felt they had to \u201cadmit\u201d that their models weren\u2019t up to it and it had all been a big mistake due to \u201chubris\u201c. I will never know why they didn\u2019t point out that the heterodox crowd were just lucky with their prediction.<\/p>\n

As Bernanke points out, the models weren\u2019t designed for exceptional events but work very well in normal, stable times. It\u2019s simply common sense that a system that works well most of the time is clearly the right one.<\/p>\n

Now for coffee in the residents lounge. Sweetly, Tom said it reminded hime of the lobby in the Mandarin Oriental in Dudley. The management tell us there will be at least two coffee mornings per week until the remainder of the apartments in the development are sold.<\/p>\n[1]\u00a0CRESC, 2016, Where does all the money go<\/a><\/p>\n[2]\u00a0John Kay, 2015, We can reform economics without creating new disciplines<\/a><\/p>\n[3]\u00a0British Academy, 2009, Letter to Her Majesty the Queen.\u00a0London School of Economics<\/a><\/p>\n[4] Bezemer, Dirk J, 2009, “No One Saw This Coming”: Understanding Financial Crisis Through Accounting Models”<\/a>. Munich Personal RePEc Archive. Retrieved October 23, 2009<\/p>\n[5]\u00a0Ben Bernanke, 2010, Implications of the Financial Crisis for Economics<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Economics is in a mess. Verity Bastion, Emeritus Professor of Economics, speaks out. The Mint has asked me to write a column. Now I know this Mint thing it\u2019s a … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[132,205,213,114],"class_list":["post-494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","tag-economics","tag-financial-crash","tag-mar-2017","tag-verity"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}