They Don't Make Them Like They Used To! Why even the best post-war analytical economist ended up a tragic figure

Previously I have written about the Econobubble (the handmaiden of the “real” Bubble) and the toxic theories of economists who were very recently rewarded with the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics.  Following those tirades, a number of colleagues (and students) put it to me that economics is not what it used to be.  That once upon a time, they suggest, economists were giants whose intellect informed the public and who would have reined in the current crop of mindless hacks whose inane creed took over the great Economics Departments sometime in the 1970s. In this article (just published in Monthly Review’ MRZine) I beg to differ: The sad truth is that the malaise that is  today’s vulgar economics was founded on the analysis of some of the brightest and best minds. Click here for the article which uses the great Paul Samuelson as a case in point.