Sometimes it is best to admit lack of certainty, collective wisdom is often better than that of the individual

Barack Obama, Christina Romer and Lawrence Summers
 during a news conference in Chicago, November 24, 2008.

I recently heard Ron Suskind talking about President Obama's advice from his economic policy team in 2009. He described Obama as using his considerable skills unsuccessfully in an attempt to obtain a consensus from the very capable economists. If economists of that quality could not agree on the details of a policy that would be both feasible and useful, what do you think is the likelihood that any of the lawyer-politicians now running for office has the right answers for the economy based on thorough understanding of economic theory, historical data and professional modelling and analysis? Right! Probability vanishingly small!

What then are the Republican candidates doing? They are pretending to know more than they do, and they are playing to the prejudices of the factions of their parties that they need to secure the party nomination. This probably tells us more about the failings of our popular democracy than about the politicians themselves.

Image Source: Frugal Cafe

Clearly we need to get people back to work, increase the rate of growth of the economy, reduce the federal debt, improve the balance of international trade and payments, and deal with the aftermath of the housing bubble and with the personal debt crisis. Clearly it is going to take time to get out of this mess.

Clearly the international context counts. The European politicians seem far to likely to screw up the economy of the Euro zone and lead the world into another depression. The Chinese, Indians, Brazilians, Russians and other nations are seeking to increase their economic productivity and are likely to succeed and in doing so to change the balance of the global economy.

The last thing we need is for a repeat of the debacle of the Congressional debate on the debt limit increase of last summer. I think it is time for the politicians to admit that they might not individually have the right answers to the world's economic crisis and begin to negotiate in good faith to find some kind of balanced approach. It is probably more important to act than to find the best solution. The ideal is the enemy of the good. It is certainly important for our political leaders to show that they are cooperating to find a good path through the economic thickets, and thereby to build public confidence in the economic future. Lack of confidence can be self-fulfilling.