Lately it has become fashionable to say that a certain amount of inflation is good. Is that so? It doesn’t need to be true in order to be a useful comment. As long as it I said by someone with a PHD in economics, it is taken as a pillar of truth. Said by a Federal Reserve Open Market Committee member it is deemed absolute gospel.

Oddly, only rank armatures are ever asked to prove anything. The more credentials a person has in the modern world the less obliged he is to use the scientific method or to use verifiable experiments. Suppose an engineer designed an airplane and declared that it was safe just because he says it is safe? That doesn’t happen because folks can see the results the hard sciences generate. Economists don’t have that problem because it is so hard to relate personal experiences to government policy. The public still hasn’t figured out that they are being robbed blind.

I have to confess, I don’t attempt to prove anything I come up with. But, I am not doing experiments. I am making observations. I declare constantly that people’s behavior in the political system is determined by herding and other instincts. Can I prove this? That is like asking a weatherman to prove that it is raining. How does one know it is raining? One can look out the window.

With respect to human instinctive behavior, all one need do is look out the window and observe.