Sep 25 2009
How many economists does it take to preside over a recession?
A wellwisher has sent me an extract from a government website. It says the Government Economics Service employs over 1000 economists in 30 departments – and it is still recruiting more!
I remember having to stop the Welsh Health Service appointing new economists when I was the Secretary of State. I argued that we had plenty of economists in the Treasury, producing official economic forecasts, so we should just use those.
Clearly since then there has been a massive expansion of economists power in Whitehall. Pity it hasn’t produced better economic results. A suitable case for savings?
23 Responses to “How many economists does it take to preside over a recession?”
John Redwood has been the Member of Parliament for Wokingham since 1987. First attending Kent College, Canterbury, he graduated from Magdalen College...
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We’re not alone in individually and collectively screaming at the TV when we hear Labour stooges trumpet the mantra that ‘cuts now would be irresponsible until the recession is over’.
They MUST know we’re talking about WASTE and why would its elimination slow Britain down? The very opposite of course as well as the therapeutic benefits for all of us to be seeing and DOING something constructive.
They say that ‘the Tories want cuts now’ – scream again…Conservatives won’t be in office for months yet and does Labour not believe their recession will be over by then?
Having never worked in a business themselves they don’t realise just how long it takes to turn around an ailing enterprise, particularly one that has been so appalingly managed for over 12 years.
It’s even worse with the new TV technology – we can now see the lies and ignorance escaping their lips in High Definition!
Oh to have real inter-active television so our frustration could be piped into the studio!
Shouldn’t we be getting rid of the real problem, politicans?
Nick
Presumably every empire building department has its own tame economist writing reports about how the national interest demands that department get a bigger budget.
Perhaps they are more propagandists than economists in the strict sense, searching for localised good news for the PM and the Beeb to spout i.e. on Wednesday afternoon, Mrs Miggins pie shop saw a 40% increase in turnover showing clearly the government’s zillion pound injection of cash has saved the world and the tories would jeopardise pie consumption and jobs etc etc
Are they all scratching their heads and adjusting their– er – specacles, anxiously watching the pound fade away?
For a more balanced set of forecasts, equip each economist with a pair of dice and a pack of tarot cards.
Just as every Minister needs a fully functional moral compass, these could well become the new tools of their trade.
Well, their conventional methodology didn’t work….
A case of too many chefs…
I wonder how many people have been put on the government payroll in advisory positions as part of the apparent culture of passing the buck.
The more “experts” who provide advice prior to a decision being taken, the more easily an error by a decision-maker can be blamed on others. They, in turn, can pass the buck to other “experts” whose input was allegedly flawed. And so the merry-go-round spins, with no one actually being accountable for anything.
In the real world we know that all advisors are a cost to business and are kept to a minimum. For small and medium-sized businesses very few, if any, advisors are on the payroll. In extreme circumstances freelancers are hired for a particular task, but even then the cost is a significant factor in deciding whether additional “expertise” can be justified.
One can but dream that Prudence will cast her fairy dust over this part of our national bureaucracy.
Mark Reply:
September 25th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
In my experience consultants and advisors are usually hired to justify the prejudices of those in charge – whether of a company or a government department. The other circumstance when they are taken on is when the organisation is in deep trouble: legal advice, takeover defence, etc.
Now, if the economists were economisers, identifying how things could be done at lower cost or with more beneficial results for the same cost, we might all be cheering. However, we know that they follow in the tradition of the 364 taken on by Harold Wilson.
Depressingly, I found a poll on The Tribune’s site which shows that by about 2:1 their readers think that government shouldn’t cut expenditure before the election (and probably, although that wasn’t asked, after it either).
words fail me! I mean don’t we just need the “saviour of the world” Gordon Brown? Then again maybe if they hire enough economists they might find one to back this crazy governments policies. Next thing they’ll be hiring afganistani election officals…
alan jutson Reply:
September 25th, 2009 at 1:23 pm
Jim
That is exactly what they are doing, keep hiring poeple until they find one which agrees with them.
Problem is they forget to sack the others.
Most us us know that the more people you ask to a meeting/discussion, the less is resolved, because the result/consensus is always diluted.
Same as all of these G20 conferences, they all agree on the least disagreement statement.
Nick has a point, the more the politicians have interfered over the years, with anything, the worse everything seems to get, and the more we all pay.
Yes very suitable. Since virtually every government employed economist has been utterly wrong about everything perhaps we could do without 100% of them. A quick trawl on the internet will provide a list of several informed individuals that predicted the crash and it’s attendant problems. Surely we should listen to people that have been proven right on at least one forecast. The great mass of “formal” economists have trouble predicting christmas accurately. A case of too much education, too little experience of ordinary life?
“A suitable case for savings?”
Yup!
More generally, why is there the asumption that cost cutting is going “to involve difficult choices”. Doesn’t look too difficult to me. Could even be fun.
Its the way Labour “measures” its achievements and its how the Quangos defend their massive salaries. The economists come up with a model and say x million has been added as value so the person is worth y.
Its all imaginary of course as most of it involves customers who have no money at all and receive it all from the Govt. Its an imaginary economy.
I am just reading about an astrologer who was invited to foretell the future of the Emperor Tiberius. He climbed the rocky and very dangerous path to the top of the mountain where the Emperor lived, did the requisite readings and then, very carefully, began the tricky descent.
He was, of course, pushed off into the abyss because the Emperor did not want anyone else to know his future.
The Emperor joked later that a person who could foretell the future might not have climbed the path….
So where can we invite all these brilliant foretellers of the future to congregate with their expertise? How about the Observer just before it goes bust? Or maybe New Labour just before the election?
Err, how many Tory politicians does it take to create a recession – and not just “any old recession” but (1981-83) the sharpest fall in output and employment at any time (until then) since the Depression of the 1930s? The literal decimation of UK manufacturing – which has never regained the lost market share.
And how many times has John Redwood criticised the wilful destruction of so many British companies, the devastation wrought upon communities the length and breadth of the country… Err, I am still waiting. As the late Sir Edward Heath put it, it was akin to improving the batting average by shooting the tail end batsmen. So much for Tory economic literacy.
Reply: I was a critic of the policies which led to that recession, as I am of the policies which created this current bigger one. You may recall the Labour inflationary policy which led to the damage.
Adam Collyer Reply:
September 26th, 2009 at 11:12 am
Anthony, you may be interested in this article: http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/quarterlybulletin/qb060303.pdf. The figures there are from 2006.
You will see that UK exports as a share of world exports remained roughly constant over the 1980s. They then dipped sharply at the end of the 1980’s, and then went slowly up again until 1997.
From 1997 to 2006 our share plunged by 15%.
So your statement about lost market share simply isn’t true. Under Labour from 1997 to 2006, we lost three times as much world market share as we did under the Conservatives from 1979 to 1997.
Just thought you would enjoy these!
1) Given 1000 economists, there will be 10 theoretical economists with different theories on how to change the light bulb and 990 empirical economists laboring to determine which theory is the *correct* one, and everyone will still be in the dark.
2)Q: How many economists does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: Eight. One to screw it in and seven to hold everything else constant.
3) NATURAL RATE OF UNEMPLOYMENT: Newlan’s Truism: An “acceptable” level of unemployment means that the government economist to whom it is acceptable still has a job.
Are banker economists? They are of course sitting in their drawing rooms tapping their pencils and telling us that it is all to complicated for us to understand. They often reply that they are not being asked the right questions. What’s your favourite pudding? Is that a bit easier for you.
Any economist who thinks you can create credit out of thin air, lend money at a 10 : 1 deposit ratio and then create whole industries selling on these debts/ loans and keep all these plates in the air indefinately is not what I would call an economist.
Illusionists more like.
Bazman Reply:
September 27th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
The problem with lending money is that on the ground, how do you get it back? If someone does not want to pay or cannot pay and have a hardcore attitude, then in reality little can be done. A basic fact that was forgotten by many institutions. The boys are very expensive these days. A fact that could be used by any future government in relation to debts and expenses. Lets face it many of these cheats ripping off the taxpayer deserve a bit of their own medicine.
I’ve heard that many of these future city types are getting ideas above their station in wanting to run their own whelk stands.