Credentials versus Competence: Economics Is Easy. Don't Let The Federal Reserve Tell You Otherwise
"The 20th Century was a horrible litany of absurd experiments and atrocities committed by intellectuals, or by elite groupings that claimed a higher knowledge. Simple folk usually have enough common sense to avoid the worst errors. Sometimes they need to take very stern action to stop intellectuals leading us to ruin."
There is a Federal Reserve research report, if you want to call it that, that is floating around the internet. It is a sign of the complete incompetence of the cartel at the Federal Reserve. As we have written before, if you grant any entity monopoly access to anything, you are going to create an environment of purely ideological incompetence. We see that today in the ECB, the Federal Reserve, the United States federal government, the Chinese communist government, BP, the lobbyist community, Goldman Sachs and on and on.
The Federal Reserve so permeates the economics community that it is nearly impossible to find a single economist who disagrees with Federal Reserve policy. The Federal Reserve is literally the life blood for the economics community. It funds research, internships, employment and even makes breakfast every morning for every economist in the mainstream community. This dynamic creates a highly credentialed yet ideologically-driven and systemically incompetent economics community. That this credentialed yet incompetent Federal Reserve PhD has authored such a ridiculous article really is no surprise given the Federal Reserve has missed every single economic crisis since its creation. Even though they are indeed charged with managing our economy.
There is a lot of misinformation in the blogosphere but there are countless bloggers out there who have added substantial editorial and research to the discourse of economics. Much more so than the Federal Reserve. And much more so than any degreed economist I am aware of. I would argue the very best of these bloggers have absolutely no training in economics. And on this blog, we have talked about endless outcomes we anticipated well in advance of them happening. Some have yet to unfold but they will. And what have the legions of PhDs in economics at Harvard, Yale, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan or the Federal Reserve alerted our society to? Rather, the Federal Reserve has literally f#cked up everything they have touched since their inception. And they have more Ivy League economics PhDs than probably any institution on earth. The best incompetence money can buy.
This really boils down to one simple metric. That is Competence versus Credentials. When the United States dominated global commerce, it did so through competence, a dynamic outcome of meritocracy and market-based economics. After World War II, the United States achieved a position of financial hegemony by becoming the world's reserve currency. And starting in 1947, the first signs of that corruptive credentialed force took hold in our government and so began the slow demise of our economy and our competence. As we have said before, the American economy really peaked somewhere in the late 1970s or early 80s. Since that time we have never had a recession. Ever. We have only had financial crisis after financial crisis that has brought the country to the verge of collapse. And with this dynamic came economic slowdowns we have inaccurately called recessions. We wrote of this years ago when we said the financial crises will lead an economic slowdown and not the other way around. A dynamic that is completely lost in the economics community. All of these crises were caused by a corrupt, monopolistic Wall Street.
Who is more credentialed than Wall Street? MBAs and economists from the top universities in the country. All teaching the same purely ideological pablum. The credentials are without question. The competence? Well, there is no other organization around the world more incompetent than Wall Street, aided and abetted by monopoly access to capital. Wall Street has had a hand in every economic crisis we see and will see around the world today. Every single one. Of course, ignorantly and unwittingly aided and abetted by similarly incompetent bureaucracies around the globe. Obviously all with the help of a wonderfully credentialed federal government. Our politicians are endlessly credentialed yet incompetent bureaucrats - the world's greatest democracy backed by the world's greatest document of freedom, our Constitution, and staffed mainly with lawyers from our finest hallowed Ivy League institutions of learning. While almost everyone would laugh at these remarks, given we have called every single major crisis around the globe in advance of any blogger or mainstream media source or economist I am aware of, I think I can speak from a position of competence rather than credentials. There is a reason why many peoples across the globe have a high disdain for our government yet generally have a high regard for the American people. That is, as Pritchard remarks above, common folk be they doctors, teachers, construction workers or whatnot recognize the meddling of elitist idiots in their daily lives.
Competence versus credentials. Anyone of great competence can be taught almost any job in the economy and it could done without the need for any credentials. And they surely don't need a college education. (Although I clearly support education and its necessary role in society.) They don't need the credentials of some type of certification either. They simply need to be competent. Yet, One cannot necessarily take anyone who is credentialed and make them competent in any job in the economy. Or, more frankly, anyone and everyone who is credentialed is not competent. Nothing highlights this more than Wall Street and Washington politicians. Our economy is the most credentialed it has ever been yet it is collapsing. Credentialed is often part and parcel to cronyism, monopoly, corruption and incompetence. A meritocracy is driven by competence, and where necessary credentialed competence. The Federal Reserve is not a meritocracy. Neither is our federal government. Because they have lost any competition by mangling State's Rights and by being backed by the world's hegemonic financial instrument; the dollar.
When our economy has an ability to generally determine competence and those in society find their additive and constructive role, all of which should be valued, it thrives. But monopolies, oligopolies and bureaucratic structures that distort the flow of information and merit destroy economic vibrancy. The Federal Reserve is the worst offender of all of these dynamics. And while we are at it, so are bureaucratic structures such as the Vatican, corporate monopolies, organized professional structures such as those protecting incompetent doctors and lawyers. All part of the credentialed versus competent dynamic.
In closing, credentialed yet incompetent economists are the norm rather than the exception for the very reasons cited above. Most hare-brained economic theories come from those who are quite credentialed yet who live in ivory towers of academia shielded from the real world. Were any of these economists ever to actually have to compete in a meritocracy of the real economy and outside of their profession, their theories would be shredded like paper. The old maxim those who can't do, teach is more than accurate when applied to economics. Now I'm all for theories and facilitation of the creative mind but the Big Bang theory isn't going to blow up the economy if it is wrong. Economics taught in our universities should be kept to basic facts of what is incontrovertible and undeniable. Theory is best left to what can be determined to be a hard science. Economics is not a hard science but instead a social science. So if we leave theory on the shelf is there enough substance in economics to merit a four year degree or PhD? So, maybe in the spirit of competence, we should no longer offer economics degrees. Would the world be any less capable? Would doctors still be able to practice medicine? Engineers still able to solve the world's problems? Teachers still be able to teach reading and writing? What would we miss other than a credentialed yet incompetent community which has never anticipated any major economic crisis?
Isn't this but a microcosm of the general repudiation of supposed experts we see today? Elitists who claim higher knowledge that have completely blown up our economy over the last thirty years? Including politicians and Wall Street's self-appointed genius who want to run our economy yet can't seem to be able to tie their own shoes? The path of the Buddha is one of enlightenment (competence) not credentials. As society becomes more aware, we repudiate more of the elitist dogma and replace it with a greater confidence in our own ability. In fact, the only credentials that matter are those of competence. Are they not? And how does the Federal Reserve and the economics community fit into that equation given they have never seen a single economic or financial crisis coming? Economics is easy. Don't let the Federal Reserve tell you otherwise. We each practice economics daily by managing our own personal lives. And we do it better than any bureaucracy ever could.
There is a Federal Reserve research report, if you want to call it that, that is floating around the internet. It is a sign of the complete incompetence of the cartel at the Federal Reserve. As we have written before, if you grant any entity monopoly access to anything, you are going to create an environment of purely ideological incompetence. We see that today in the ECB, the Federal Reserve, the United States federal government, the Chinese communist government, BP, the lobbyist community, Goldman Sachs and on and on.
The Federal Reserve so permeates the economics community that it is nearly impossible to find a single economist who disagrees with Federal Reserve policy. The Federal Reserve is literally the life blood for the economics community. It funds research, internships, employment and even makes breakfast every morning for every economist in the mainstream community. This dynamic creates a highly credentialed yet ideologically-driven and systemically incompetent economics community. That this credentialed yet incompetent Federal Reserve PhD has authored such a ridiculous article really is no surprise given the Federal Reserve has missed every single economic crisis since its creation. Even though they are indeed charged with managing our economy.
There is a lot of misinformation in the blogosphere but there are countless bloggers out there who have added substantial editorial and research to the discourse of economics. Much more so than the Federal Reserve. And much more so than any degreed economist I am aware of. I would argue the very best of these bloggers have absolutely no training in economics. And on this blog, we have talked about endless outcomes we anticipated well in advance of them happening. Some have yet to unfold but they will. And what have the legions of PhDs in economics at Harvard, Yale, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan or the Federal Reserve alerted our society to? Rather, the Federal Reserve has literally f#cked up everything they have touched since their inception. And they have more Ivy League economics PhDs than probably any institution on earth. The best incompetence money can buy.
This really boils down to one simple metric. That is Competence versus Credentials. When the United States dominated global commerce, it did so through competence, a dynamic outcome of meritocracy and market-based economics. After World War II, the United States achieved a position of financial hegemony by becoming the world's reserve currency. And starting in 1947, the first signs of that corruptive credentialed force took hold in our government and so began the slow demise of our economy and our competence. As we have said before, the American economy really peaked somewhere in the late 1970s or early 80s. Since that time we have never had a recession. Ever. We have only had financial crisis after financial crisis that has brought the country to the verge of collapse. And with this dynamic came economic slowdowns we have inaccurately called recessions. We wrote of this years ago when we said the financial crises will lead an economic slowdown and not the other way around. A dynamic that is completely lost in the economics community. All of these crises were caused by a corrupt, monopolistic Wall Street.
Who is more credentialed than Wall Street? MBAs and economists from the top universities in the country. All teaching the same purely ideological pablum. The credentials are without question. The competence? Well, there is no other organization around the world more incompetent than Wall Street, aided and abetted by monopoly access to capital. Wall Street has had a hand in every economic crisis we see and will see around the world today. Every single one. Of course, ignorantly and unwittingly aided and abetted by similarly incompetent bureaucracies around the globe. Obviously all with the help of a wonderfully credentialed federal government. Our politicians are endlessly credentialed yet incompetent bureaucrats - the world's greatest democracy backed by the world's greatest document of freedom, our Constitution, and staffed mainly with lawyers from our finest hallowed Ivy League institutions of learning. While almost everyone would laugh at these remarks, given we have called every single major crisis around the globe in advance of any blogger or mainstream media source or economist I am aware of, I think I can speak from a position of competence rather than credentials. There is a reason why many peoples across the globe have a high disdain for our government yet generally have a high regard for the American people. That is, as Pritchard remarks above, common folk be they doctors, teachers, construction workers or whatnot recognize the meddling of elitist idiots in their daily lives.
Competence versus credentials. Anyone of great competence can be taught almost any job in the economy and it could done without the need for any credentials. And they surely don't need a college education. (Although I clearly support education and its necessary role in society.) They don't need the credentials of some type of certification either. They simply need to be competent. Yet, One cannot necessarily take anyone who is credentialed and make them competent in any job in the economy. Or, more frankly, anyone and everyone who is credentialed is not competent. Nothing highlights this more than Wall Street and Washington politicians. Our economy is the most credentialed it has ever been yet it is collapsing. Credentialed is often part and parcel to cronyism, monopoly, corruption and incompetence. A meritocracy is driven by competence, and where necessary credentialed competence. The Federal Reserve is not a meritocracy. Neither is our federal government. Because they have lost any competition by mangling State's Rights and by being backed by the world's hegemonic financial instrument; the dollar.
When our economy has an ability to generally determine competence and those in society find their additive and constructive role, all of which should be valued, it thrives. But monopolies, oligopolies and bureaucratic structures that distort the flow of information and merit destroy economic vibrancy. The Federal Reserve is the worst offender of all of these dynamics. And while we are at it, so are bureaucratic structures such as the Vatican, corporate monopolies, organized professional structures such as those protecting incompetent doctors and lawyers. All part of the credentialed versus competent dynamic.
In closing, credentialed yet incompetent economists are the norm rather than the exception for the very reasons cited above. Most hare-brained economic theories come from those who are quite credentialed yet who live in ivory towers of academia shielded from the real world. Were any of these economists ever to actually have to compete in a meritocracy of the real economy and outside of their profession, their theories would be shredded like paper. The old maxim those who can't do, teach is more than accurate when applied to economics. Now I'm all for theories and facilitation of the creative mind but the Big Bang theory isn't going to blow up the economy if it is wrong. Economics taught in our universities should be kept to basic facts of what is incontrovertible and undeniable. Theory is best left to what can be determined to be a hard science. Economics is not a hard science but instead a social science. So if we leave theory on the shelf is there enough substance in economics to merit a four year degree or PhD? So, maybe in the spirit of competence, we should no longer offer economics degrees. Would the world be any less capable? Would doctors still be able to practice medicine? Engineers still able to solve the world's problems? Teachers still be able to teach reading and writing? What would we miss other than a credentialed yet incompetent community which has never anticipated any major economic crisis?
Isn't this but a microcosm of the general repudiation of supposed experts we see today? Elitists who claim higher knowledge that have completely blown up our economy over the last thirty years? Including politicians and Wall Street's self-appointed genius who want to run our economy yet can't seem to be able to tie their own shoes? The path of the Buddha is one of enlightenment (competence) not credentials. As society becomes more aware, we repudiate more of the elitist dogma and replace it with a greater confidence in our own ability. In fact, the only credentials that matter are those of competence. Are they not? And how does the Federal Reserve and the economics community fit into that equation given they have never seen a single economic or financial crisis coming? Economics is easy. Don't let the Federal Reserve tell you otherwise. We each practice economics daily by managing our own personal lives. And we do it better than any bureaucracy ever could.
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