That's a key insight Helen.  We need a generation of political actors that are extremely sceptical of this kind of 'expertise'.

Ireland was the most egregious case of this, and arguably the blanket Irish bank and bond guarantee in 2008 was the decisive initial act in ensuring the 'no bank left behind' policy at the expense of misery for the citizenry of the entire Eurozone.

I was not blaming the politicians, regardless of the contempt in which I hold their "leadership". Rather I was describing the sad situation and the path out of it. It is not necessary for political leaders to be "experts" in economics to lead their counties out of darkness. It is necessary that they realize, in Mig's words, "Economics is politics by other means", and to realize that being accessories to the looting of the people they are supposed to represent is unacceptable.

Economics is the problem, not the solution. The solution is to realize clearly that economics must be subservient to the political needs of the nation rather than to the interests of finance. When we grant TINA we fundamentally corrupt judgement. Judgement is based on emotional responses: this is food -- yum! this is a predator -- flee! We have allowed that judgement to be made by a tiny group of banker predators and the rest of society is, to them, just food. That is why policy is so confounding to the majority. They don't understand that the reference for judgement is not their broad interests.

I cannot complain too much about having allowed the disastrous developments of the last forty years. While I suspected and then believed that the policies being pursued were wrong-headed I did not understand why. That has made it difficult to mount a cogent critique. It is easier now that the system is destroying itself, but still far from easy.

As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."