Experts admit they're clueless

bigfreddiel

BoE admits it's economic experts are totally clueless.

"The Bank of England’s chief economist has admitted his profession is in crisis having failed to foresee the 2008 financial crash and having misjudged the impact of the Brexit vote.
Andrew Haldane, said it was “a fair cop” referring to a series of forecasting errors before and after the financial crash which had brought the profession’s reputation into question."

But don't let this admission put you off taking professional advice. If you can afford it, don't have the time or inclination to plan your financial future you must e ply an IFA.

You should pay at least £300/hour for advice, any less just would not be worthwhile.

IFAs have a vast amount of knowledge on current rules regulations that will maximise your hard earned dosh.

Just leave it a good IFA to setup and manage your portfolio, and relax while your pot builds up and pays you a nice little income, hopefully tax free.

Hood luck everyone fj

Glen_Clark

Hired by politicians to present house price inflation as 'Growth' and 'Recovery'

veryintrigued

The sub forum link below contains the views of more experts you can shake a stick at!

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/forumdisplay.php?f=149

jimjames

Funny how you can twist an article about the BoE into another anti-IFA tirade yet again. I'm afraid you're the clueless one if you think an economist and an IFA are the same occupation.

Glen_Clark

jimjames wrote: »

Funny how you can twist an article about the BoE into another anti-IFA tirade yet again. I'm afraid you're the clueless one if you think an economist and an IFA are the same occupation.

Aren't they supposed to be Financial Advisors to the Government/BOE? Whether they are independent of the politicians who hire them is another matter.

AlanP_2

Glen_Clark wrote: »

Aren't they supposed to be Financial Advisors to the Government/BOE? Whether they are independent of the politicians who hire them is another matter.

Not really no.

Have you ever been employed by someone?

Were you independent of the person / people that hired you or did you just perform the "Yes Man" role like you seem to imply the BoE economists are?

bowlhead99

IMHO the rise of populism and the castigating of experts and specialists as 'not knowing any more that the rest of us' is a negative thing for society ; it makes some people feel good about themselves because they feel that they are just as good as all the leaders in the specialist fields, so they do not aspire to actually improve their own understanding of the world.

I don't believe for one moment the BoE 'admitted its experts were totally clueless'. The chief economist noted that some models were fragile and not fully equipped to make sense of behaviours that were deeply irrational. So they have a central case but there can be a wide range of potential outcomes and uncertainties around it. In the world of big freddie, we do not need to bother with a central case because anything can happen so screw it, don't use experts.

It just goes back to the chip on the shoulder he has about IFAs and about anyone who last summer resisted the idea of a Brexit by presenting logical forecasts. Wants to seize any opportunity to write them off as idiots. In the same way Glen Clark wants to bash politicians of every creed. As veryintrigued pointed out, there's an entire board dedicated to such debate ; the debate the economy board. Or the 'pub' board.

“I think, near-term, the data, the evidence we’ve been accumulating since the referendum, has surprised to the upside. [There’s been] greater resilience, in particular among consumers and among the housing market, than we had expected. Has that led us to fundamentally change our view on the fortunes of the economy looking forward over the next several years? Not really. This is more a question, I think, of timing than of a fundamental reassessment of the fortunes of the economy."

So says the BoE chief economist. Doesn't really sound like he is saying he and his fellow forecasters are clueless does it.


At the bottom of the article which contained your quoted text, there was another insight:

Haldane said: “I’ll give an example of where Britain is punching well below its weight and that’s in core numeracy skills. There are 17 million people who have levels of numeracy that are no better than those expected of primary age children. In a recent OECD study that looked at numeracy as it applies to financial literacy, the UK came 17th, just above Albania, on questions of financial literacy.”
He added that the UK’s lack of numeracy skills across more than half the working population was a key reason for its lack of productivity growth since the financial crisis.

Whereas in freddie's world there is no point getting educated, obtain expertise etc, as if you put a single foot wrong (or even appear to have put a single foot wrong, when viewed from the bird's eye view of a sensationalist newspaper headline), you are fair game for ridicule. You might as well just plod along knowing very little and then make occasional sarcastic comments on a web forum in the hope of gaining a fanbase.

AlanP_2

Personally the fact that people get stressed over experts who sometimes get their predictions wrong amazes me.

Very few subjects or fields allow for 100% certainty about the future and similarly trained experts will often arrive at similar conclusions from the evidence they have. Sometimes they will be wrong.

The mid-20s child of some friends was diagnosed with a very aggressive cancer just before Christmas. The experts give her a 1-2% chance of surviving more than a few months.

I hope they are wrong, but if they are I am sure there will be somebody standing by to criticise them for being clueless if they say "we were wrong, sorry you have managed to survive for more than a few months".

DiggerUK

jimjames wrote: »

............I'm afraid you're the clueless one if you think an economist and an IFA are the same occupation.

How could anybody confuse the two.....An economist usually knows nothing about economics, and a financial adviser knows little to nothing about the economy.
All the same, it's an understandable mistake..._

JohnRo

Economists are to the economy what astrologers are to astronomy.

Glen_Clark

AlanP wrote: »

Not really no.

Have you ever been employed by someone?

Were you independent of the person / people that hired you or did you just perform the "Yes Man" role like you seem to imply the BoE economists are?

I was employed as opposed to bribed because I was paid a lot less than they are.