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"If you can't trust your witch doctor, who can you trust?"

18 Comments -

1 – 18 of 18
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Its even worse when the witch doctor admits he has no clue what he is doing:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-12-11/former-bank-israel-head-rumored-be-deputy-chairman-fed

Mr. Fischer said making such statements – known as forward guidance – can cause market confusion. “You can’t expect the Fed to spell out what it’s going to do,” Mr. Fischer said. “Why? Because it doesn’t know.”

1/14/14, 5:15 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's often pointed out that virtually nobody on Wall Street went to jail after 2008


Never mind going to jail, it's striking that so few of these people were even fired or demoted.

Wall Street seems to operate much like the government, where nobody is ever held accountable for screw-ups. The worst that happens if you do a bad job is that you get shuffled sideways into a job in a different department which still pays the same - if not better.

1/14/14, 5:16 PM

Anonymous bjdubbs said...

49000 google hits for "brilliant physicist." 44900 hits for "brilliant economist." O-ring is right, Tabarrok gets that much right.

1/14/14, 5:30 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Never mind going to jail, it's striking that so few of these people were even fired or demoted."

Wall St. is evil. Please don't interpret my comment as in any way supporting it. But yes, I do know some former banking and Wall St. firm executives (up to the level of vice president) who lost their jobs during the 2008 crisis and who then had to take much lower-paying (low six figures) jobs supervising losers like me, my friends and acquaintances. I'm thinking of a handful of specific individuals here. How come I know so many? 'Cause I live in NYC. In two cases new positions had to be created within my organization just to give these Wall St. refugees a job. There was grumbling in the ranks of course. If I lose my job, no one's going to look out for me in that way. But in every case these people turned out to be nice. Breeding, manners, high IQ and all the rest of it. And I'm sure that to them this comedown must have felt tragic.

1/14/14, 5:44 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Consider that even in the rarefied world of monetary policy Fischer’s appointment isn’t unique. In 2012, the British appointed Mark Carney, a Canadian, to be the Governor of the Bank of England, the first non-Briton to ever hold the role.

Big deal. Canada has a long history of providing resources to the British Empire. Canadians also have a picture of Queen Elizabeth on their money. Surely that counts for something.

1/14/14, 5:47 PM

Anonymous JWS said...

Nassim Taleb has made the same comparison between traditional religious belief and modern economics in his books. He argues that religion has actually less harmful.

This point struck a chord with me. As a teenager, my parents sent me to a Roman Catholic seminary high school. In college I majored in economics.

It has been remarkable to observe how he cabal of social climbers at the top of each belief system have both managed to bamboozle huge numbers of people, including a few very intelligent ones, with credentials and elegant arguments.

I'm still not sure which system of voodoo is more nonsensical.

Another thing I learned in seminary: the root of the English word "prestige" is "prestigium;" the Latin word for "delusion."

1/14/14, 5:49 PM

Anonymous Gaius Baltar said...

"All of this has happened before and it will happen again."

1/14/14, 5:56 PM

Anonymous Stephen M Lawrence said...

Hey Steve,
Thanks for the in depth several day analysis of this debacle. I used to think that I was paranoid about the shadow state...

1/14/14, 6:49 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Nassim Taleb has made the same comparison between traditional religious belief and modern economics in his books. He argues that religion has actually less harmful.

Isn't he in fact a practising Christian?

1/14/14, 6:56 PM

Blogger AmericanGoy said...

Weak article.

Anyways, not only didn't they go to jail, the banking cartel members gave each other biggest in the history bonuses for a job well done.

1/14/14, 7:41 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

The dominant elegant argument is the atomic bomb. That argument supports all of the rest. The mystical authority of higher mathematics is dependent upon its unspeakable power

Neil Templeton

1/14/14, 7:59 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Sorry, but my eyebrows are raised at this. You state that Fischer was responsible for some economic crash, but I haven't found anything.

Okay, so you don't (or most people) don't understand macroeconomics. Plus, it's implausible that Fischer is THE sole individual responsible. He lectures about economic crashes, and yet he's responsible for it?

Doesn't make sense.

I've read this: http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/archives/001397.html

And while there may be conflicts of interest, it doesn't seem to be on Fischer's side. Call me whatever you want, I'm just not buying it.

We should remain skeptical.

1/14/14, 9:03 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm still not sure which system of voodoo is more nonsensical.

No intelligent person turns to embittered ex-Catholics to make such distinctions.

1/14/14, 9:11 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

It has been remarkable to observe how he cabal of social climbers at the top of each belief system have both managed to bamboozle huge numbers of people, including a few very intelligent ones, with credentials and elegant arguments.

I'm still not sure which system of voodoo is more nonsensical.


Oh come on, the distinction is simple: one is the product of a centuries-old effort to gain dominion over every human being on Earth, and the other is the Catholic Church.

1/14/14, 9:25 PM

Anonymous Mike in Boston said...

In their book "A World of Chance", Reuven and Gabrielle Brenner do a good job with the same witch doctor analogy:

Religion sustained the perception that decisions in the face of what we today would call incalculable risks are under control, and the rulers of the tribes and the priesthood managed them properly. This proper management was done by priests with exclusive rights to throw dice, bones, or other devices and who taught, at the same time, that a higher authority controlled the outcome of the throw.... The dice [and] bones... were tools used in rationalizing decisions, much as sophisticated geometry was in the hands of astrologers later, or, more recently, as trivial algebra and erroneous statistics have been in the hands of Keynesians and macroeconomists.

1/15/14, 5:21 AM

Anonymous PC Makes You Stupid said...

The inbred tribalists are beside themselves trying to explain how their witch doctor isn't the real problem, you are.

1/15/14, 11:38 AM

Anonymous NOTA said...

Part of the central banker's role is to be the witch doctor who, should his magic prove ineffective, will be pushed aside for a new witch doctor. The previous witch doctor may be discredited, but not the concept of trust in witch doctors.

1/15/14, 9:47 PM

Anonymous JWS said...

This essay by Nassim Taleb touches on some points he also gets at in his 3 books:

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/taleb05/taleb05_index.html

Only a former seminarian could appreciate how some bloggers refer the Harvard-White House-NY Times nexus as “The Cathedral” like I do.

Just like Mr. Taleb, I prefer the bishops to the Obama elite. As far as I know they aren’t threatening to bomb anyone, they aren’t snooping on anyone’s text messages or emails, and they certainly aren’t a risk to crash the global economy.

1/16/14, 7:15 PM

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