For example, most of modern economists are dead wrong about how an economy works. They think it is a simple machine; all they have to do is to adjust some knobs and levers to make it run better. If it runs too hot, they turn down the dials on fiscal and monetary stimulus. It if sputters and coughs, they turn them up But what really happens? They misinterpret...they wait too long or act too soon...and they invariably make the situation worse by sending the wrong signals at just the wrong time.
Most modern economists think the key to economic growth is consumer spending. This is obviously wrong too. It's not spending that causes prosperity, it's saving. Spending is the result of economic progress, not the cause of it. Still, they think that if they can just get the American consumer to spend money he doesn't have on things he doesn't need, somehow, the world will be a better place. The real problem now too much private sector debt in the anglo-saxon economies. But economists think they can solve the problem by adding even more debt in the public sector!
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