The need for investors to do more and look behind the 'economic noise'

Headlines exaggerate reality

Many academic economists are too focused on discovering 'universal truths', rather than trying to understand economics in a social or cultural setting.

The biologist Edward O. Wilson noted in his book, Consilience, that given all the billions of dollars that have been invested in economics, there has been a remarkably poor return. Nonetheless, he observed, we should continue to invest, because the potential benefits are so great. I think economics suffers from a fundamental problem: that many in the profession would prefer to see it as a quasi-natural science, rather than a social science. Thus, many academic economists are too focused on discovering universal truths, rather than trying to understand economics in a social or cultural...