Today must borrow nothing of tomorrow. German proverb (Nuttall’s) An earlier column looked at some aspects of the American economic predicament and the role of economists who managed (mismanaged) US national finances up to September 2008 and another set of economists who supported President Barack Obama administration’s policies, which would cause the national debt to exceed US$13 trillion (RM44 trillion) before end-2009.Following the economic chaos, policy confusion and difficulty in digging out of the morass, the whole economics discipline had been tarred and feathered. Can political leaders and the general public depend on economists to manage the economy?To my mind, two main problems beset the economics profession. First, economists are overly ideology-biased. At one extreme, there are the rightwing-Chicago school free-market worshippers who want zero-economic regulation since market forces through the price mechanism will solve everything. Then there are the leftist-liberal,
IT IS a monumental endeavour - the biggest lexicographical project the country has ever known. It took more than 30 years, starting in 1990, to complete.
I AM 67-year and 113-day old today. My next birthday will only be in November. I am just in the mood to do some arithmetic, considering there is not much else to do, being “caged” under the movement control order.
The last time I wrote something about my age was an article “I am a full-fledged senior citizen today” published on my 60th birthday in 2013.
Ironically when I started writing for a column that lasted 13 years in another newspaper, the first piece was titled “Pain of aging and fast becoming the yesterday man”. I was 48 when I wrote that article, published in January 2002.