Chad Orzel has a great idea on how to fix the economic mess we're stuck in: Physicists Can Fix This.
You should read the whole post, it's not that long. But this is the gist presented in Q/A format, with me providing the questions, and Dr. Orzel responding:
Q: What's your plan?
A: "fire them. All of them. Every trader who bought or sold a mortgage-backed security, every manager who signed off on the buying and selling of credit default swaps, every CEO of every company now in need of a federal bailout, everybody who ever shook hands with Bernie Madoff."
Q: And who should we hire to run things?
A: "I've thought of the perfect replacements: physicists."
Q: But won't physicists screw it up because they don't know about business and economics?
A: "the people who are pushing that line the hardest are the people who stand to benefit most from large windfall payments to the current financial industry. Which is to say, the people who have wrecked the economy by failing to understand the most basic facts of the underlying market. They have lots of experience, to be sure, but the bulk of their experience is in being wrong about everything. They lost billions to a Ponzi scheme, for God's sake. And, seriously, do you really think that these transactions are too complicated for physicists to figure out? We're talking about people who have spent the last several years thinking about folding and twisting strings in eleven dimensions."
4 comments:
I support this plan. Can we just also fire everyone in Washington that is also responsible for this mess? Then, I think we have a fighting chance.
You would.
Sabrina, No, we can't. And Clark we can't put the physicists in charge. So, let's take what we can get.
Not that this was meant to be a serious plan (on my part, or, I suspect, on that of the original author's) but to Ben I say: sure we can.
We won't, of course, but we could if we wanted to. There's nothing stopping us. Sabrina's idea of getting rid of all sorts of elected officials is a bit trickier, as they probably couldn't be moved out until they come up for re-election; I'm not aware of the constitution making any allowances for removing someone from office simply for doing a bad job.
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