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Mar 27, 2020
9:35:50am
MyTwoCents Walk-on
Because experts are too often wrong, especially during the Great Recession

Some of us vividly remember Bernanke in 2007 saying that subprime mortgage losses could be as high as $50 or $100 billion, but those kind of losses are nowhere near big enough to cause a recession so the Fed's big fear is inflation.  

Yeah.

How about Treasury Secretary (and former Goldman Sachs CEO) saying that Fannie and Freddie were totally safe, a month before they went into receivership?

Or for that matter, who about the World Heath Organization (WHO) tweeting out in Jan that preliminary research by Chinese scientists showed no proof of human to human transmission of the 'Rona?  

Of course we should listen to what experts have to say.  But we should recognize they are experts, not Gods, and are wrong, so we should engage our critical reasonsing skills to evaluate the strength of their arguments.

Just am importantly, "experts" don't all agree with each other.  Some experts think our current level of lockdown is too tight, and others think it is too loose (others think it is just right).  So if you accuse someone of ignorning "experts", usually what you're accusing them of doing is listening to different experts than you're listening to.

MyTwoCents
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MyTwoCents
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Mar 27, 2020
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Apr 18, 2024
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Jeb
3/27/20 11:58am

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