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Zombie Masters of the Great Depression

By catdynamics on October 14, 2008.

Brad deLong is 'causing me to lose sleep.

The problem is theoretical economists.
As a theorist, I know that almost all theory is wrong.
Economic theory, unlike physics, only kills people indirectly, but can impact oh so many people in each experiment.

Brad outlines the Theories of the Great Depression, and the current falsification status of those theories

The good news is that Bernanke may have been right, in which case his proposed solution may help head of a depression.
Modulo Unintended Consequences and non-linear responses by people who read Bernanke's thesis and incorporate that knowledge in their response to Bernanke inspired perturbations.

The other problem is our new Zombie Master - the Interim Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Stability
He is, by all accounts, one of those frighteningly smart, hardworking types.

But:
he is an engineer
who worked on the James Webb Space Telescope in the late 90s, specifically metrology of the mirror and the wing latches
he left to get an MBA
he worked at Goldman Sachs
for four years
and made Vice President

I don't see much actual hands on experience in actual banking...

JWST was descoped, late and over budget.
I do recall that mirror alignment at short wavelength was a major cost driver a few years ago and the specs had to be descoped, current mirror has weaker specs on the mirror tolerance at short wavelength then original plan.

Tags
Academia

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You write: Economic theory, unlike physics, only kills people indirectly, but can impact oh so many people in each experiment.

The difference is this: Physics kills when it is right, while economics kills when it is wrong.