A great pile of links

Economist’s View has put up the best daily link fest I’ve seen in a while today.

The two I’m 100% going back to when I get a chance are the links on inequality (pet interest issue of mine, and all economists) and the nice summary of the actions taken by the Fed over the past four years.

There is also a piece where an academic economist attacks some consultants who attacked an OP-Ed they did, which attacked some work done by the consultants (or at least came to a different conclusion).

This is all well and good, and when it is the specialist field of the academic economist I would place more weight on their words than on a consultant (this is coming from a consultant/forecaster).  But this doesn’t just cut one way – if the academic economist is correct that their “clients” are the community they work in, then I would expect more academic economists to come out to help educate the public, and analysts such as myself, about the issuess.  Given how little this actually happens, it appears that at least the consultant he is criticising serves his clients in a better fashion that much of academia serves theres 😉

This comment is not meant to be harsh at all – hopefully it illustrates the huge respect I have for academic economists, and my burning pashion for them to get more involved in the public discourse!  Because that is exactly how I feel.