Authority-based, and feudal? James Surowiekci in his excellent book The Wisdom of Crowds points out how abysmal practicing economists (vs. just those who pontificate) are at actually predicting the market. He discusses how 90 percent of mutual-fund managers and 95 percent of bond managers (most of them with PhDs in economics) routinely and consistently underperform the market (page 33). (Andrew Leonard, “Economists to bloggers: shut up, fools,” Salon, 28 June 2010) I think economic phds are used to hearing this sort of criticism, backed up by terrific evidence, but still are unmoved in their sure knowledge that no one else other than them is to be trusted. I wonder if it's not just that they suspect the evidence against them is hogwash, but that they understand that measure of achievement mostly now rests not in later evidence, but in the particular manner in which one's role / duty is executed. You can't get at professional journalists, economic phds, simply by ...