Robert Samuelson, writing for
RealClearPolitics,
recalls a joke at the expense of economists, practitioners of "the dismal science."
Q: How many economists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. When the one they used in graduate school goes out, they sit in the dark.
Then Samuelson gets to the serious point of the column:
If you add the last six years of U.S. budget deficits and the Fed's injection of cash into the economy, the total is approaching $10 trillion. It's hard to believe that all this stimulus didn't aid the recovery, but the fact that it resulted in only modest growth has created an identity crisis for economists.
The "science" of economics is dismal because carefully controlled experiments are impossible - exogenous factors being both random and rife. This leaves economists spinning untestable theories about what has happened, much like theologians trying to explain existence. Almost no one (except Mary Baker Eddy) calls theology a science.
