Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Please, Just Go Away.


A group of economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal are giving President Obama and Treasury Secretary Geitner a failing grade for the Administration's handling of the economy.  The WSJ article goes on to say:

The economists, many of whom have been continually surprised by the depth of the downturn, also pushed back yet again their forecasts for when a recovery would begin. On average, they expect the downturn to end in October. Last month, they said the bottom would arrive in August. They estimate that U.S. gross domestic product will continue to contract in the first half of this year, with slow growth returning in the third quarter.

Can we be done once and for all with surveys of economists?  Does anyone care what they think?  Their "analyses" and "forecasts" from 2006, 2007 and 2008 were so embarrassingly awful and wrong (with a few notable exceptions) that it seems almost indecent of them to still be answering the phone.