Don't Trust Economists, Financial "Experts", Bankers, Et Al

American economists, financial "experts", stock market analysts, and bankers (to name a few) have been paid (on average and throughout the years), significantly more than American workers that have commensurate experience and education but are employed in other professions. Yet economists, financial "experts", stock market analysts, and bankers (to name a few) are not held to the same strict standards that, virtually, all American workers are held to. Indeed, it appears that economists, financial "experts", stock market analysts, and bankers (to name a few) can get away with virtually anything as evidenced by  the fact that a substantial portion of the government bailout money, doled out to those financial and banking institutions deemed "too big to fail", wound up in the pockets of "too big to fail" workers in the form of bonuses and raises. Economists, financial "experts", stock market analysts, and bankers (to name a few), indeed, have a good thing going while many Americans (those that still have a job) live pay-check to pay-check and struggle to make ends meet.

When a structural engineer signs off to a bridge design, he or she knows full well what the consequences will be if the bridge collapses. And when a civil engineer signs off to a dam project, he or she knows that an entire region can be flooded  and that many lives can be lost if there's  a single flaw in the design. And when a soldier, policeman, nurse, doctor, mechanic, plumber, carpenter, electrician, or any other American working man or woman  screws up, they know what the consequences will be. 

Not so with economists, financial "experts", stock market analysts, and bankers (to name a few).They are a protected species--exempt from the economic foibles that they've subjected their fellow countrymen to. They are merchants without a country. They are government sanctioned scam artists. They are corporate welfare recipients and the  biggest welfare cheats of all. They sit at their desks and hunt and peck at their keyboards and torture the statistics until the statistics confess.