Here’s a good reason why almost no one trusts economists. It comes from our friend Carl Schramm, an economist at Syracuse University and former president of the Kauffman Foundation.

Schramm reminds us that last September while the Build Back Better $5 trillion monstrosity was being debated in Congress – coming on the heels of $3 trillion of extra spending Biden and the Democrats have already lopped on to the budget – concerns about mounting inflation were everywhere.

Seventeen Nobel prize-winning economists signed an “Open Letter in support of [Biden] economic recovery agenda” urging Congress to approve BBB, plus enact a massive tax increase to “make our tax system more equitable and that enable our system to raise the additional funds required to facilitate necessary public investments and achieve our collective goals.” [Whatever those are.]

But here is the piece de resistance:

“This agenda… will ease longer-term inflationary pressures.”

https://www.epi.org/open-letter-from-nobel-laureates-in-support-of-economic-recovery-agenda/

At that time inflation was 6% and now six months later it is 8% – the highest inflation rate in 40 years. Image how high inflation would be if Congress had taken their advice and passed BBB!

THESE ARE SUPPOSED TO BE THE SMARTEST ECONOMISTS IN ACADEMIA!

Here are the 17 recipients of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences who signed the letter:

• • • • George A. Akerlof, Professor, Georgetown University
      • Sir Angus Deaton, Professor, Princeton University
      • Peter Diamond, Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
      • Robert Engle, Professor Emeritus and Co-Director of the Volatility and Risk Institute, New York University
      • Oliver Hart, Professor, Harvard University
      • Daniel Kahneman, Professor, Princeton University
      • Eric S. Maskin, Professor, Harvard University
      • Daniel McFadden, Professor, University of California, Berkley
      • Paul Milgrom, Professor, Stanford University
      • Roger Myerson, Professor, University of Chicago
      • Edmund S. Phelps, Professor and Director of the Center on Capitalism and Society, Columbia University
      • Paul Romer, Professor, New York University
      • William Sharpe, Professor Emeritus, Stanford University
      • Robert Shiller, Professor, Yale University
      • Christopher Sims, Professor, Princeton University
      • Robert Solow, Professor Emeritus, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
      • Joseph Stiglitz, Professor, Columbia University

(Another Nobel laureate, Paul Krugman didn’t sign the letter, but he promoted it in his columns.)

Schramm notes that as of today, not ONE of these economists has recanted. Nor are they sending back their Nobel or is lying prostrate begging for forgiveness. If they were doctors, they would be sued for blatant malpractice.