We need warning signs placed on academics

Sir Devesh Kapur is perfectly right pointing a finger at academics for their not having been able to produce anything useful that could have helped to avoid the current crisis. Never have so many of those who were supposed to perform societal oversight done (and still do) so little. “Academics have more to declare than their genius” June 24.

But the real fundamental problem is not necessarily with the academics per se but more with those of them who venture into public life selling or allowing themselves to be sold as experts. Academician should be the first to know that at least in social sciences there are no real experts, just as there are no credit rating agencies that can guarantee a consistently good result. Therefore academics should at least come with a warning sign that reads “Believing an academic to be an expert could be extremely dangerous for the health of your portfolio.”

Americans, how sure are you it is not Mr. Jones that you should blame?

The fundamental driver of the unease with globalization is the reduction of the share of decent salaries paid in the gross global production (GGP) and since “decent salaries”, whatever that means, has almost exclusively to do with the developed world, there is a growing grumbling in the western world that this globalization thing might not have been such a bright idea after all.

Clearly, if an American holds that the world has to stop growing, immediately, so that he can go back to his 2 dollar per gallon of gas, he has a point, though he would also have to explain what to do with a paralyzed world.

Devesh Kapur, Pratap Mehta and Arvind Subramanian, “Is Larry Summers the canary in the mine?, May 14, worry that American liberal intellectuals might now team up with Lou Dobbs and produce a pure local US knee jerk reaction, which would be both dangerous and unproductive for the whole world, instead of teaming up with them in finding some valid solutions for all. They are very right about that.

Americans should know that when you build an isolation wall the worst part is how difficult it is to be 100% sure that you got stuck on the right side of it and so, before shutting themselves out, they would de well trying to get at the root of who are really capturing a larger share of the GGP, since besides from those obviously benefiting from the commodity boom, one of the culprit might even be their next door neighbour, Mr. Jones.