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One of my New Year’s resolutions is to blog more about the general lameness of the economics profession when it comes to energy and climate issues [Note to self: How about losing a few pounds?].
I was in the midst of putting this resolution off for a few weeks when I saw a quote by Robert Stavins that seemed to sum up the value-subtracted that economists bring to the world.
In an otherwise excellent New Yorker article on Van Jones’ efforts to push a green jobs agenda, which I will blog on separately, Elizabeth Kolbert feels compelled to “balance” Jones with some people who don’t think it’s a good idea to simultaneously address the climate problem and the poverty/jobs problem. Who else could a respectable journalist turn to than an economist, a profession that arguably has cost the country and the world more jobs than any other?
Indeed, I remember Bill Clinton opining at a Georgetown conference in 1997 on why he ignored the advice of Administration economists, like Larry Summers, who urged him not to adopt a serious greenhouse gas emissions target at Kyoto. Clinton said his economic team had assured him that his balanced budget plan would be a job killer, so he pretty much took everything they said from that point on it with a grain of salt. But I digress.
Kolbert manages to elicit this amazing response from one of our leading economists:
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