clarinews@clarinet.com (MARK R. HOROWITZ) (02/04/90)
_B_u_s_i_n_e_s_s_ _P_e_r_s_p_e_c_t_i_v_e_ --_ _T_h_e_ _p_a_s_t_ _i_s_ _p_r_e_s_e_n_t
_F_o_r_ _U_n_i_t_e_d_ _P_r_e_s_s_ _I_n_t_e_r_n_a_t_i_o_n_a_l
After a roaring start in 1990, the stock market in the United
States hit a bumpy road amid rising inflation and decreased profits by
America's mighty corporations.
Will the Federal Reserve tighten up the money supply, and will
inflation run rampant in Japan, affecting both stock and bond prices? Is
the bull market turning markedly bearish? Can a rise in unemployment and
a recession be far beyond the horizon?
Enter the economist, armed with computer terminal, economic models
and a penchant for prognostications. But if the public is hoping to hear
the ``right'' answer to the future of the U.S. economy, or the world,
they have another thing coming.
Or as the great Irish-born playwright, critic and social
commentator George Bernard Shaw said, ``if all economists were laid end
to end, they would not reach a conclusion.''
Quite often, the economist brings the wrath of the masses upon
himself simply by avoiding clear, concise analyses of what is occurring
and why he thinks certain events will happen. This is often because of
an inability to communicate well or an innate ability to confuse.
The economist and Nobelaureate Paul A. Samuelson noted, ``if good
literary style is indeed a sin, it is not a sin that is very widespread
among our economics brotherhood.''
Another quality of the economist frowned upon by those willing to
listen is the habit of trying to convince people that he is right, and
that others have it all wrong. In the end, it is only hindsight that
wins in the prediction game. Or as the author Laurence J. Peter wrote,
``An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he
predicted yesterday didn't happen today.''
Many have noted the way this group of experts, referred to by the
father of communism Karl Marx as ``the vulgar economists,'' manages to
give contradictory answers when the moment suits. President Herbert
Hoover issued a plea to ``please find me a one-armed economist so we
will not always hear `On the one hand ... '''
Or as an anonymous author put it, ``When two or three economists
are gathered together, there are four or five opinions.''
One major criticism of economists is the way they view the world:
not as it really is but as it should be. The 19th century English writer
Walter Bagehot said ``English political economists are not speaking of
real men, but of imaginary ones; not of men as we see them, but of men
as it is convenient to us to suppose they are.'' And another unknown
writer noted ``an economist is someone who cannot see something working
in practice without asking whether it would work in theory.''
Should we act and react to the machinations of these men of
statistics, models and pocket calculators? Well, since the future is
important to us all, especially those running a business, it is perhaps
better to learn of probable tomorrows than to simply wait for them to
happen.
Still, the rule of the economist has taken something away from the
world of the unknown and the uncertain. We might well lament the passing
of blissful ignorance and its replacement by the ``computer program.''
Or as the 18th century British statesman and philosopher wrote
during the French Revolution, ``the age of chivalry is gone. That of
sophisters, economists and calculators has succeeded; and the glory of
Europe is extinguished for ever.''
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_M_a_r_k_ _R_._ _H_o_r_o_w_i_t_z_ _i_s_ _a_ _C_h_i_c_a_g_o_-_b_a_s_e_d_ _c_o_m_m_u_n_i_c_a_t_i_o_n_s_ _c_o_n_s_u_l_t_a_n_t_ _a_n_d
historian.
_a_d_v_ _s_u_n_ _f_e_b_ _4_ _o_r_ _t_h_e_r_e_a_f_t_e_r