Where did we go wrong?

Common sense economics provides a way to know such things as what should the government do with respect to economic policy? What should citizens do with respect to the government? Ivy League economists answer these questions constantly and folks are forever confounded as to why nothing ever gets better. How could such smart educated people be wrong with so many forecasts and implement so many failed policies? Being smart is no advantage when ones basic assumptions are misguided.
Economics as a discipline along with all of the other social sciences makes fatal errors in the very beginning. The wrong assumptions guarantee mostly bad outcomes. A few positive outcomes occur as a result of luck. Economics assumes people make unique individual decisions. Economics assumes people are genetically identical. Economics assumes all incentives that affect markets are pecuniary in nature. All Ivy League economic models take these assumptions as given but none of them are true. So, if Ivy League Economic Models turn out to be accurate, which they never do, it is by coincidence.
Common Sense Economics makes no such fatal reasoning errors. Common Sense Economics studies society and markets in terms of the true nature existence. So, what is so special about that approach? Happiness and truth turn out to be incompatible. To make life bearable human beings define themselves, institutions and all they encounter with euphemisms. Each person is assumed to be a special creature, independent, freedom seeking and almost divine in nature. Intellect of mankind is treated as so advanced that instinct if any is unimportant. These notions are completely wrong but without them people in mass would be depressed and suicidal.
In reality instinct is with few exceptions is the cause of human behavior. People are not independent. Very few even have original thoughts. The mind records what it hears and sees, then treats that as unique and personal. The freedom one is born with is bartered like an asset for comfort. The positions in life people occupy are highly influenced by genetics and personality characteristics. A small number are born with leadership personality characteristics which are similar to those of a sociopath. Only sociopath types are ruthless enough to rise to the top in politics and business.
Because the very subjects of study are wrongly identified, Ivy League Economists have no chance of being right, unless by luck.
To be right all of the time all one needs is an understanding of basic economic ideas, like those of Adam Smith and the ability and willingness to discard society’s euphemisms long enough to piece together what is going on in the world.
Suddenly we discover that although the United States is defined as a republic, it functions as something entirely different. Common Sense Economics studies politics in terms of the actual political system in operation which does not qualify as a republic. Citizens actually have no representation in congress. Ivy League Economics expects outcomes that a republic would produce and that is not the outcome they get. Common Sense Economics studies what we have, not what we think we have. Humans are assumed to behave with autonomy, but their herding instinct is overwhelming. Elected leaders represent voters only when and if they are forced to. Elected leaders are sociopaths holding office for their own benefit, and usually an insatiable thirst for power.
Put together a mental model that is free of euphemisms, and get it right every time. Ivy League Economics is like the study of alchemy was during the middle ages. The smartest people in the world worked as alchemists. They were highly respected but they had no utility to society

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