I hate to lump in all economists together but since they all pretty much think along the same laissez-faire axis, I’ll make an exception.
I’d like to hear an academic economist justify his profession’s existence.
I mean, what’s the economic incentive of a tenured university professor to do anything? Meanwhile, wouldn’t he have to admit that a trader or Wall Street economist (ignoring that most of them are glorified PR hacks) would inherently be better at researching economic correlations because they have a money relying on their analysis?
Further, if they believe they can see further, shouldn’t they be leaving their jobs to speculate in markets?
I never expect it to happen but I’d like to hear an academic economist justify his existence. Or better yet to do the only economically justifiable thing and quit.
