Intro

I studied a bit of economics in college and since then it has been a hobby of mine.  In pursuing my hobby I have  been constantly frustrated by economics as a Social Science.  Modern economics focuses undue attention on getting the right answers without knowing the right questions.

I had a graduate student instructor in one of my classes tell us that he had, along with a colleague, figured out why wages had been stagnating for the middle and lower classes in America since the 1970s.  He said that the statistics showed a strong correlation between the time spent in a job and wages.  Since the average amount of time that the less wealthy 50% spent in their jobs had been decreasing so had their wage growth.  I can't argue with the methodology of this study because I haven't looked at it but it seems obvious to me that it is
not a conclusion.  You would need to know why they had spent less time in the jobs they had.  If you discovered that they left there jobs you would have to know why and if you discovered that they were laid off you would have to know why. Even that might not be enough.  In economics it is virtually impossible to know whether you have actually identified the independent variable and much of the time the idea of an independent variable is meaningless.

This sort of thing has lead me to the look at asking questions as a way of broadening the perspective by which we look at economics.  I plan to ask questions and explain why they are important; I don't pretend to be able to answer them.  I think many of them are probably unanswerable.  But I think that by asking the right questions we can see which questions are the wrong questions and why.  After all it is more logically complete to prove something wrong than right and thankfully it is easier.  To paraphrase Taleb, taking away what is wrong is often more important than adding what is right.