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Larks comments on The Stable State is Broken - Less Wrong Discussion

57 Post author: Bakkot 12 March 2012 06:31PM

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Comment author: Larks 13 March 2012 09:49:57PM 1 point [-]

In practice, in the US, most advisors who are not also politicians are pitted against an equal and opposite party and then ignored.

You expect this in equilibrium regardless of how far you are from the counterfactual with no economists, so this is not evidence either way.

Comment author: [deleted] 14 March 2012 12:31:51AM *  0 points [-]

Not following you there. In a mostly functional government I would expect to see either politicians with additional domain knowledge and few advisors or pure government functionaries with many advisors who had significant sway in their area of expertise. The current situation seems indicative of a particular ideological influence combined with the aforementioned career politician phenomenon.

I am not asserting a lack of economists - just a lack of influence over policy-in-practice.