The experts: who do you trust?
I don’t put much trust in experts’ prognostications, and haven’t for a long time. I think it began when so many failed to predict the fall of the Soviet Union. I was a Democrat back then, and I didn’t see the problem as linked to one side or the other. But it did teach me to take forecasts by experts with a grain of salt and then some.
It’s only gotten worse – much worse – in the ensuing years. At this point, I read every article with an eye to scoping out the biases of the author[s].
I have my biases, too, and I’m upfront about them. But I really truly do try to be fair, knowing that I won’t achieve absolute objectivity but nevertheless striving for it. Wouldn’t most “journalists” and “experts” (and even hard scientists at times, but I’m talking more about economists and psychologists and people in the “soft” sciences) say the same? And yet there are unconscious and/or conscious biases all over the place.
My reluctance to trust predictions has come to the fore on the subject of Trump’s tariffs, as I’ve said in several posts about that topic. Trump is an outside-the-box thinker, and his approaches in particular are hard to analyze and make predictions about, whether the person making the prediction is a Trump hater or Trump supporter.
I have noticed in the past that most of the horror stories about what will happen as a result of some action of Trump’s have not materialized. And some things have – so far at least – worked out very well, such as the reduction in illegal aliens pouring over the border. Tariffs make me especially nervous and I don’t have a good feeling about them. But as with so many things Trumpian, I know it’s best to take a “wait and see” attitude.
How do experts become experts? Isn’t it through the opinion of other experts, and the academy? How do expects get discredited? How about that guy who had a formula that had correctly predicted the last umpteen gazillion elections and then fell flat on his face in 2024 when he said Kamala would absolutely win? He’s not an expert anymore. But there are plenty of other experts who have been wrong over and over and yet continue in their lucrative gigs.
One expert I generally respect is Thomas Sowell, but he generally describes the past and present rather than predicting the future. He’s written about the failures of experts, especially in universities – “intellectuals” – in a number of books in which he states that a lot of knowledge in a narrow field, and success in a chosen profession, often give intellectuals the idea that they know a lot about a great many things of which they are ignorant (see this book of Sowell’s about the phenomenon).
I also happened upon a YouTube video that featured Sowell opining on Trump’s tariffs. Before I watched it, I assumed it was either from Trump’s first term (or even earlier about tariffs in general). But no; it featured the 94-year-old Sowell in what looks like a recent interview. He seems sharp as ever, although he finally has started to look somewhat old and his words don’t come quite as quickly and crisply as when he was younger. Here’s the video:
It’s easy to find those who say this will undoubtedly be a terrible disaster, and a little less easy but still possible to find those who say the opposite. I find Sowell’s statements convincing compared to most of them. He doesn’t try to read Trump’s mind, but offers various scenarios for what Trump is thinking and considers that the outcome will be based on how Trump uses the tariffs and decisions he makes around them.
And here’s Commerce Secretary Lutnick’s explanation for the policy, plus his prediction:
Lutnick mentioned the interesting point, that the current US trade actions are more about other country’s non-tariff trade restrictions than it is about their straight up tariffs.
I recall reading many years ago about how Japan has this strange regulation concerning the width or wheel track of imported autos. US autos tend to be wider than Japanese.
I guess I am a laggard. I stopped wildly trusting “experts” during Covid. I had some distrust before that for some experts. But now, don’t believe them if they say the sun comes up in the East (which it doesn’t really).
On April 1 (not a joke) I paid my Federal Taxes. This year I had a good wack to pay, my Investment company said I had a lot of Capital Gains. Guess, so far this week, I will have Capital losses. I am not overly concerned. I am sure a lot it will come back.
I am a cautious investor. A large chunk is in Money Markets. At my age, not concerned about making a lot, just keeping what I have. Seems wise right now.
My view remains that an “expert” is no real expert without actual accountability. In other words, if a so-called expert makes predictions that fail to come true time and again, they aren’t really an expert in whatever topic they claim to be an expert in. They’re just useful idiots at best and outright propagandists at worst and therefore should be ignored by the public at large.
As an example:
“The growth of the Internet will slow drastically… By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine’s.” – Paul Krugman, circa 2005 I believe?
And that’s just one example of failed prognostication among many by the Krugster. Yet he was employed by the NYT for almost 20 years beyond that.
Legacy media trots out whatever experts will support Today’s Narrative. And too many experts are happy to trim their sails to that wind.
It’s not that Experts Are Bad or that there’s no such thing as expertise. It’s that we’re tired of expertise being prostituted and fake experts held up as real experts.
The mistrust of experts is a function of the degree to which higher education is now an apologetical exercise to replicate a particular worldview and the degree to which the professoriate consists of other-directed people preening in front of each other. The degree to which this corrupts what they say varies from one discipline to another. We learned in 2020 that ‘public health’ as a discipline is a latrine. Same deal with social work programs, teacher training programs, American history, sociology, cultural anthropology, swaths of psychology, swaths of climatology, the medical education cartel &c. Studio art is a clown car. Ditto library administration. Constitutional law is a fraud. Victimology programs never pretended to be academic. What’s left of geography is a mess.
Sometimes, reliance on Experts leads to a bad outcome because the expert focuses exclusively on one aspect of the issue and ignores those that are not within his purview. The response to Covid had a lot of this, with epidemiologists and public health people being the experts and insufficient attention to things like the impact on education and the impact on the economy.
Sometimes, the apparent expert is not the real expert…in the last days before WWI, the Kaiser asked von Moltke if it would be possible to call of the attack on France and Belgium and redirect the forces to the East. Moltke replied that the realities of railroad logistics made this impossible. When the *real* railroad expert, General von Staab found out about this conversation…after the war…he was highly incensed and published a book demonstrating that the redirection *could* have been done.
Sometimes, experts disagree, and the political leadership…which generally lacks relevant expertise..has to choose between them. This was the case in the secret pre-WWII British debate about air defense technologies. See my post Radar Wars:
https://ricochet.com/834816/radar-wars-a-case-study-in-expertise-and-influence/
And sometimes, even the most brilliant experts are just plain wrong. The great inventor and scientific administrator Vannevar Bush said in 1945 that intercontinental ballistic missiles would not be feasible for a long time and should not be considered a factor in practical defense planning.
Sometimes, reliance on Experts leads to a bad outcome because the expert focuses exclusively on one aspect of the issue and ignores those that are not within his purview.
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Your discussion refers to experts advising in good faith. One problem we have is that good faith has evaporated. Institutional configurations are run by villains.
@David Foster: the expert focuses exclusively on one aspect of the issue and ignores those that are not within his purview
That’s why we ideally don’t put them in charge of things.
Occasionally it will happen that experts will disagree on what to do, predicting disaster if their plan is not followed and one of the other experts’ plans is. Sometimes all of those experts are even right. Nonetheless, someone must judge between them and commit to action.
Legacy media does not approve of ordinary citizens doing the judging; they want the people in power now to have a monopoly on that.
I find Sowell persuasive, though I have for decades. That video was published yesterday so it is not clear whether it was recorded before or after Thursday. After Thursday, I think it is pretty clear that this is not what Sowell describes as potentially defensible – targeted tariffs to achieve particular changes in behavior from trading partners. It pretty clearly is what Sowell indicated would be disastrous.
Regarding experts, what do we know if the experts aren’t trustworthy? The answer is nothing. We know nothing. I think too many people assume that if the experts aren’t trustworthy, then the experts are always wrong. No so. It just means that we don’t know when the experts are right and when they are wrong. In other words, just because experts aren’t trustworthy, it doesn’t mean that every crackpot idea held by non-experts is correct.
Bauxite:
What you believe is clear certainly doesn’t seem clear to me. It will only become clear over time – or at least more clear.
neo – If shedding 10% of American market capitalization in 48 hours is the result of a negotiating tactic, it may be the single dumbest negotiating ploy in American history.
neo – If shedding 10% of American market capitalization in 48 hours is the result of a negotiating tactic, it may be the single dumbest negotiating ploy in American history.
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The single dumbest aspect of this discussion is your attempt to sell yourself as someone who understands capital markets based on retailing what TV news reporters say.
I didn’t think Trump is one to fall victim to the sunk cost fallacy. I suspect if he thinks of something isn’t working as intended, he’ll move on.
I am also not one of those people who thinks he’s beyond brilliant — but he definitely is one to look at multiple sides of something to see how it might work.
The “expert” neo referred to who predicted every election except for the most important one is Allan Lichtman. He has a Harvard Ph.D. (as one does).
His Wiki entry also notes that he won some track event for his age group some years ago, but was the only entrant in his age group. It also notes his foray into politics, running 6th in the Democratic primary (hey, better than Kammy did).
Experts are right until they’re wrong, but, in politics and academia, they are still experts.
Here’s the think about tariffs: we have a number of trading “partners” who’ve not exactly been partners. US goods shipped and sold in some of these countries, including Canada, already have tariffs slapped on them. China employs labor practices that are almost like indentured servitude.
We’ve been footing the bill for the world since WWII ended. Isn’t it time to take care of OURSELVES?
take stieglitz, for one example, he vouched for fannie mae, for the Venezuelan central bank the obama stimulus, I suppose that with each iteration he lost credibility, but thats not necessarily so,
You have Democrats like Schumer and Pelosi who were all for tariffs in the 90s, yet when they
ended up in power,
conveniently, opposed any reciprocity on China, hypocrisy
perhaps, but one should keep that in mind,
Experts, oh how I love them, to have that dark path illuminated, and you can have as many “experts” as you have money to buy. Is it the right path, who knows but it’s illuminated!!
When I was first building my house in the ‘00s, the state removed the dikes on one of the rivers that empties in front of me. The local yokel building the new channel told the “experts” that it was not big enough. The state experts had flow meters in the river and insisted the channel was big enough. Until it overflowed and flooded the road. Local upon building the bigger channel warned them that it still was not big enough. It was, until it wasn’t. There is about a two foot dike along the road now. The local guy gave me 30 loads of removed river dike for cost of fuel to get it to me.
well first of all, removing the dikes seems a foolish notion, whether it happens in california, Valencia Spain or Colorado if memory serves
Some people seemed obsessed with US not having steel mills. Producing steel does not require high skilled or sophisticated workers. There is no way the US could mass produce steel and pay it’s workers a middle class wage (middle class for the US) and compete with third world countries paying it’s workers a 3rd world middle class wage, which would be a fraction of what the US would have to pay.
I only hope this is a negotiating tactic, but it doesn’t appear to be.
Victor Davis Hanson’s usual level headed take on tariffs
https://www.dailysignal.com/2025/04/04/donald-trumps-trade-parity-golden-age-explained/
“ But here’s my question. China has prohibitive tariffs, so does Vietnam, so does Mexico, so does Europe. So do a lot of countries. So does India. But if tariffs are so destructive of their economies, why is China booming? How did India become an economic powerhouse when it has these exorbitant tariffs on American imports? How did Vietnam, of all places, become such a different country even though it has these prohibitive tariffs? Why isn’t Germany, before its energy problems, why wasn’t it a wreck? It’s got tariffs on almost everything that we send them. How is the EU even functioning with these tariffs?
I thought tariffs destroyed an economy, but they seem to like them. And they’re angry that they’re no longer asymmetrical. Apparently, people who are tariffing us think tariffs improve their economy. Maybe they’re right. I don’t know.
The second thing is, why would you get angry at the person who is reacting to the asymmetrical tariff and not the people who inaugurated the tariff?
Why is Canada mad at us when it’s running a $63 billion surplus and it has tariffs on some American products at 250%. Doesn’t it seem like the people who started this asymmetrical—if I could use the word—trade war should be the culpable people, not the people who are reluctantly reacting to it?”
Read the whole column.
I thought tariffs destroyed an economy, but they seem to like them.
I am really disappointed that Victor Davis Hanson is stooping to such blatant strawman tactics, but he is a classicist and perhaps he’s just confessing to being out of his element by ruefully referring to his gross misunderstanding.
It’s not “other countries” that like their tariffs: it’s the people with connections who can rig the system for their benefit who like the tariffs. Canadians in general don’t benefit from paying 25% more for milk than we do; they know it too because they stock up when they cross the border. The tiny percentage of Canadians who run dairies like it just fine, sure.
N.C
“it’s the people with connections who can rig the system for their benefit who like the tariffs.”
What Marxist claptrap. Do you mean the farmers, and the loggers in Canada are the people with “connections” who can “rig” the system?
The Donald’s tariff decrees from on high have erased SIX TRILLION DOLLARS capital in a speedy jiffy. The same result could have been achieved in increments over months, since Trump retains that power until end of his POTUS term. Instead, he has hammered the lower and middle classses, who will, I aver, not recover for a longish time, if ever.
And JD Vance can forget about succeeding Trump. Our next POTUS will be a Dem. Thank you, Trump.
Meanwhile I’m wondering … is this a good time to buy Nvidia? They make the gold standard of AI chips.
https://search.brave.com/search?q=nvidia+stock+chart&source=desktop&rh_type=st&range=ytd
Down from a peak of 150 in January to 95 today.
Hmm…
_____________________________
Talk about your plenty, talk about your ills
One man gathers what another man spills
–Grateful Dead, “St. Stephen” (1969)
Nvidia designs the chips but does not manufacture them; they’re made by Taiwan Semiconductor Corporation.
I have some NVDA stock and at the moment not either selling or buying any additional.
The veracity of an expert is easily determined by whether the Left endorses what they have to say.
I don’t know if Trump’s tariffs will be successful or if they are a “good idea.” Call me a Trump Cultist if you like (I’m not), but I say why not give tariffs a chance? I don’t think the results could be worse than the rubbish served up by Obama-Biden-Harris and their controllers, who seemed to be intent on destroying the USA. In contrast to them, Trump loves the USA and all its people.
One thing that concerns me is that the left-wingers have an added incentive to destroy the country, because they could blame any failures on Trump.
Put gas in my car tonight, and someone had put a sticker on the pump with a picture of Trump and the caption “My tariffs did that.” That didn’t take long. I have read comments that the higher prices are due to the summer formula of gasoline being rolled out.
I scraped off the caption but left the picture of the Orange Tyrant to inflame the left-wingers.
Reading the tariff discussion last night, I had the same question as neo — which experts does one trust? Experts haven’t been looking all that good in the past 20 years.
Take Paul Krugman — please!
A Nobel Prize winning economist, lauded by many, loathed by some, with a stable perch as a columnist at the New York Times. After Trump was elected in 2016, Krugman intoned:
___________________________________________
It really does now look like President Donald J. Trump, and markets are plunging. When might we expect them to recover?
Frankly, I find it hard to care much, even though this is my specialty….
Still, I guess people want an answer: If the question is when markets will recover, a first-pass answer is never.
Under any circumstances, putting an irresponsible, ignorant man who takes his advice from all the wrong people in charge of the nation with the world’s most important economy would be very bad news.
–Paul Krugman, “The Economic Fallout” (Election Night, 2016)
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/opinion/election-night-2016/paul-krugman-the-economic-fallout
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Well, we all know what an economic disaster the first Trump administration was. Thank Cthulhu that Biden won in 2020. No doubt to Krugman’s satisfaction.
Yesterday Krugman was in high dudgeon again with another such TDS warning:
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America created the modern world trading system. The rules governing tariffs and the negotiating process that brought those tariffs down over time grew out of the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act, devised by FDR in 1934…
Yesterday Donald Trump burned it all down.
–Paul Krugman, “Will Malignant Stupidity Kill the World Economy?” (Apr 03, 2025)
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/will-careless-stupidity-kill-the
___________________________________________
Clearly Krugman is the cool, dispassionate, accurate expert I’m looking for.
@Bob in NC:Do you mean the farmers, and the loggers in Canada are the people with “connections” who can “rig” the system?
The people who own the companies that are the market makers for their log and farm products are the people with connections who rig the system.
You think Ottawa runs things for the benefit of the little people any more than Washington D. C. does?
You think Canadian Content laws are for the benefit of singers in garage bands and kids putting on high school plays?
I don’t know who we can trust, but I know who we can’t: entertainers and sports stars.
And Paul Krugman.
And Dr. “I am science” Fauci.
This list could be longer, but it’s late.
“And JD Vance can forget about succeeding Trump. Our next POTUS will be a Dem. Thank you, Trump.”
Remember 1982 when the economy was in the toilet and Reagan didn’t have a prayer of being re-elected? Or the 1987 crash when the Dow lost over 20% in a single day? Good times, good times.
After what has happened and I’ve seen over the last several years, it is very plain that none of what pass for “authorities” these days can be trusted–not governmental authorities, not the medical, legal, academic, or scientific communities, and most certainly not the media.
For the most part, they’ve all revealed themselves to be self-interested frauds, presenting us with lies and half truths disguised as objective analysis and fact.
Let’s face it, we’re on our own, these days, and have to figure things out for ourselves, without much, if any, recourse to supposed “authorities.”
We produce in order that we can consume. Trump’s actions will drive up prices of those things and simultaneously reduce choices. I have always fervently opposed actions that reduced individuals ability to engage in legal economic activity, with the sole exception relative to matters concerning actual national security. Trump is determined by his actions to wake the Democrats from the dead.
• 100% agree – and the same can be said for many members of team.
• I’ll add that I learned very early in my career to clearly define what the actual boundaries are before negotiations, etc. start.
• And to this day I am still amazed by how often folks construct a “box/ restrictions” that are primarily based on conventional wisdom, “labels”, peers/ competitors, etc.
• One aspect of Trump’ position on tariffs is that he has clearly defined what the actual boundaries are in the negotiations: Both have tariffs v. Neither have tariffs.
• Still, many are relying on conventional wisdom & how traditionally discussed/ debated; which is part of the challenge and why his administration circles back to the ‘Both v. Neither’ point so frequently.
• An example of conventional wisdom & how traditionally discussed/ debated is Gun Control/ Ownership, most frame the boundaries as: Restricted (cannot own a gun) v. Right (can own a gun). The actual boundaries are: Restricted (cannot own a gun) v. Required (must own a gun). Which makes 2A the middle ground ^^. Yet conventional wisdom concedes half of what could be negotiated from the very start – boxes in only half, and leaves much outside-of-the-box.
^^ = Even though most do not consciously think of 2A as the middle ground, they do intuitively understand that it is the middle ground; which leads to majority support for 2A
Trump has been very clear that he wants to change the thinking about global trade from “free trade” to “fair trade”; and encourage U.S. self-sufficiency when it comes to advanced manufacturing, especially in military-related applications (which, yes, includes steel, shipbuilding); tech; pharmaceuticals.
No question countries such as India/China/Vietnam can “win” on the cost of middle class wages. However, the US can “win” in other ways, based on currency value, legal security, energy costs, raw materials sourcing (which we are also bad at exploiting given environmental laws), defensive capabilities (see Ukraine, Taiwan vs. Poland), innovation mindset, etc. where other countries are far less stable comparatively than US markets. Tariffs and the trade leverage it provides can be used to smooth some of that wage angle out when the reason for it is not “fair” – eg because you are using slave labor. Then the other items become more attractive long-term.
The other intangibles that result from trade protectionism also should not be overlooked. Ever tried to manufacture pharmaceuticals in Japan as a US company? You can’t. Japan regulatory requires their pharmaceuticals to be home-grown or at the very least manufactured by/with/through a Japanese partner. That retains intellectual know-how for Japan, which they have leveraged to their R&D benefit. In the U.S., yeah, companies have some R&D, but for the most part, their small-molecule/biologics development has been outsourced to universities. You can’t let your “essential” economy know-how become fully offshored; in the long run, you have less home-grown innovation.
I suspect most of the benefits of improved advanced manufacturing at home on “big things” will benefit the red states. It already has – there is a reason why a Toyota will choose Indiana, Tennessee, Alabama or Texas versus an Illinois, Michigan, or Wisconsin – work rules. Will textiles and furniture return to North Carolina from India and China without tariffs? And there are other factors beyond mere wages that matter to business development. You want low humidity to build silicon chips; and Arizona has spent a lot on water purification tech; hence, Arizona is attractive to chipmakers who need to build on solid bedrock, have ultrapure water and low humidity. Datacenters can live with Illinois’ stupid union rules on building them because the state gives them a very preferential wholesale sales tax treatment and they can be run by nuclear power (80% of the Chicagoland area is powered by nuclear generators about 2 counties away from Cook, and that area has fewer tornado risks than Iowa or Kansas).
Etc.
No-one knows how it is going to shake out. But having the “know how” infrastructure better developed here is better for any country that wants to compete on innovation.
Here’s Bill Ackman on those tarifffs…but what does HE know…?
https://instapundit.com/712664/
+ Bonus:
“[The 10-Year Yield dropping] is arguably the entire point of the tariff move….”
https://instapundit.com/712683/
That Guy @ 1:55 pm:
Your comment on “thinking outside of the box”, and the limits (blinders) we put on ourselves when we don’t, is beautiful!
Conventional thinking, labels, restrictions … really do limit so many decisions & solution seeking.
Your text reminds me of my favorite professors, when they opened up new thinking to me.
Thank you!
I’ll be sharing that, okay?
Want to give a real name?
Former Legislature, @ 3:14
You end this comment with:
“No-one knows how it is going to shake out. But having the “know how” infrastructure better developed here is better for any country that wants to compete on innovation.”
Yes, yes, yes!! And your entire comment is full of “crucial points”!
Thank you.
What we pay for certain consumer products is not — or shouldn’t be — the “clincher factor” for such economic moves.
The nation’s well-being is so much more complex.
I believe Trump believes this all will lead to lower-income people rising to middle class, fewer people on welfare, … a better tax system.
Obviously: better national security!! Etc.
An all around better future for an America that the marxists within have been trying to conquer.
I am hopeful!
Many just need more deep breaths and patience.
Cicero, you’re not as smart as your namesake. Trump didn’t “erase 6 trillion”, he paused it, unless you’re stupid enough to sell now. It will come back in due time, possibly quickly when those who panicked realize they have to get back in.
And he didn’t rip off the lower class and middle class. But he sure scared the hell out of the upper income over-educated people who are now the mainstay of the democrat party. Like you?
@ Marlene
• Thank you for your kind words.
• One the reasons that I prefer blogs that permit comments is because of the exponential increase in the ideas/ thoughts shared, especially for the more challenging/ interesting topics – see steel-sharpens-steel – feel free to use whatever you find useful, I do – see cross-pollination.
• My nickname is Guy.
@ Marlene: For the sake of brevity, I did not include the following; however, some may find it useful.
• 100% encourage my staff to identify both ‘apple & oranges’ factors; but to try and not compare ‘apples to oranges’, unless it is necessary to use a proxy.
• In the Gun Control/ Ownership example the ‘Can own a gun’ (Right) is real – see 2A – and the ‘Cannot own a gun’ (Restricted) is not real, it is conceptual – see apple v. orange – however, another conceptual orange is ‘Must own a gun’ (Required).
• Another perspective on boundary setting is to think about the polar opposite objective – e.g., think of How to increase gun ownership versus How to decrease gun ownership – see Required – then sort out the ‘apples and oranges’ for purposes of defining negotiating positions.
Been said elsewhere (I think it was elsewhere) that the current stock market allows the rich to buy hugely and at a discount, riding the inevitable recovery to even more riches. So who’s winning/losing again?
Many years ago, listening to various stock market experts on the radio, I heard one say what they are not supposed to say. “…when this trickles down to the real economy.”
It is said that there are 22,000 doctoral dissertations on Shakespeare. One would think even a random collection of words might look like plagiarism…someplace in there. Is Shakespeare a dead end? A dissertation is supposed to break new ground or at least give us a fresh angle, right?
So…was Shakespeare trans?
My point is that a PhD in some area of science may see also a dead end. No conceivable utility, nor even curiosity to be addressed. Means no grant money. So, off to the classroom with the same outline every semester.
Is he an expert for hire? Or just for publicity which might help his career in one way or another? But we have to believe what he says, guys, he’s got a PhD.