• young_broccoli@kbin.social
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            10 months ago

            Experts at a made up system they like to pretend its a natural phenomenon and its used as an excuse to keep people poor.

            An astrologist might be an expert on their field but you wouldnt argue that astrology isnt bullshit. Would you? Thats the same with economy, we made it up, its as true as we want it to be.
            Capitalism is like a religion and economists are its priesthood.

            • PugJesus@kbin.social
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              10 months ago

              Economics isn’t capitalism, economics is just as present in socialist… ugh. I don’t know why I even feel compelled to bother. It just goes in one ear and out the other.

              • young_broccoli@kbin.social
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                10 months ago

                I over-simplyfied, apologies.
                Doesnt change the fact that the economic theory we are sold over here is aligned with neoliberal/capitalist ideals. Nor that its all made up bullshit used to impose policies on people and justify their conditions and the only reason it works the way it does is because some assholes chose it to be that way a couple hundred years ago and those who most benefit from it havent allowed us to make any meaningfull change to it.
                Funny you didnt felt “compelled” to argue against that part.
                In one ear…

            • PugJesus@kbin.social
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              10 months ago

              There’s not a cabal of economists who are sitting in a board room plotting to oppress the proletariat. Economists are largely academics, and like most experts, they are mostly ignored by the powerful in society.

              • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.ca
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                10 months ago

                Not a cabal but there’s ideological groups preaching different models that aren’t necessarily based on good empirical data, which are then used to create economic policies that affect people’s lives. When you have groups that offer polar opposite opinions on what would happen when say the interest rates lever is moved, and therefore how it should move. Moving the lever in one of the advised directions might cause the proletariat to lose their shirts vs the other. It may not have been intentional, evil-hands-rubbing advice, nevertheless the effect could still be the same. Heck we very well know that increasing interest rates is supposed to result in inflation reduction via a proportion of people losing their jobs and homes. You can probably see how Joe might see this as someone wanting to actively harm them. Especially when 2/3 of the inflation was driven by Joe’s boss, some economists’ advise that Joe’s expected to take even more hurt to compensate. If that advice was based on engineering-level rigor that’s proven to work beyond doubt, it would be easier to swallow. But it isn’t. It feels like the field has an outsized effect on people’s lives for its standards of rigor. And so there’s plenty of room for ideology or opinion in the gaps and that ideology can and does tilt towards favoring different people in the economy. I think this is what people see and given their state conclude economists bad.

                BTW, I’m not even sure economics even can reach high predictive accuracy. The system might be too complex for that. 🤷 Or not.

                • PugJesus@kbin.social
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                  10 months ago

                  Not a cabal but there’s ideological groups preaching different models that aren’t necessarily based on good empirical data, which are then used to create economic policies that affect people’s lives.

                  Ah, I see you’ve met the Austrian cult of ‘economics’

              • blazera@kbin.social
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                10 months ago

                Everyone in a boardroom is typically a university educated economist. The CEO of Mcdonalds didnt go to a culinary school.

                • Blackbeard@lemmy.worldM
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                  10 months ago

                  Everyone in a boardroom is typically a university educated economist.

                  What evidence do you have of this? It is absolutely not my experience that any board members have training in economics, let alone all of them. More often than not I see business administration, political science, or some other liberal arts degree.

                  The CEO of Mcdonalds didnt go to a culinary school.

                  He didn’t get an economics degree either. He has an MBA from Harvard.

                • PugJesus@kbin.social
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                  10 months ago

                  Everyone in a boardroom typically has an MBA, which generally involves only marginal and niche courses in econ, which is largely an abstract discipline.