Anti-disinflationary inflation spiral to deflate global economic balloon, soon

Is this brutal?

I have taken it that economics is a science in the eyes of its high priests. Since science is the process of testing hypotheses by way of making falsifiable predictions, economics should be reluctant to show its face in public.

A debate rages about inflation and deflation. What is coming, which will it be? How high, how low? How quick, how slow? No one seems to know, and a deep ideological divide separates the opposed camps. Even within the camps agreement on the details bedevils the fragile harmony. How can this uncertainty be? How can there be so much opinion about something as fundamental as price?

I shall be cruel. Economics is not a science. It is a jargon factory whose sole purpose is to squirt the black ink of complex mathematical equations into the eyes of inquiring minds, so as to keep the Oz wizard hidden from view for as long as possible. Economics is the art of obfuscation.

Any other discipline incapable of predicting direction would be laughed from the room. It is only money’s central role in society that keeps economics central. Demote money, demote economics, demote the high priests.

Or am I brutally ignorant?

I am. And I therefore want to see the base tenets of economics proven:

1. Rational market actors
2. Perfect information
3. Perfect competition
4. Scarcity (infinite wants versus finite resources)
5. Greed and selfishness as primary motivators of market participants

Anyone?