When E.F. Hutton Talks

Two massive policies justified by economic science are actually political choices wearing a lab coat. QE and Obamacare tell people they don't know their own interests and that experts do. But when the same policy question gets two mathematically perfect but opposite answers from geniuses, what's really being sold is authority dressed up as objectivity.

• Economists used to be presented as wise leaders with real-world experience. Now they're presented as Wizards channeling transcendent economic theory. The shift happened in plain sight without anyone explaining why authority should flow from equations instead of judgment.

• The Samuelson and Kelly allocation formulas show two different answers to the same wealth question. Both come from Nobel winners and genius investors. Both are mathematically correct. And both can't be right for everyone simultaneously.

• It's not that one formula maximizes wealth better. Wealth maximization means something different depending on whether you're betting your life savings or a small bonus. Context changes what the "right" answer is.

• If government imposes one utility function for investment or healthcare on everyone, it guarantees that most people will be worse off. The policy that works brilliantly for one person's situation creates misery for another's. Science can't fix that.

• When you can't tell the difference between what's scientifically true and what someone decided you should want, you can't have an honest political argument anymore. And without that argument, you lose something it's very hard to get back.