is economics a science?

we needed banks to keep lending wisely for the good of the economy. to keep abreast of the situation we asked the banks for extra information to assist our monitoring. we wanted weekly data on their liquidity and their lending. they used to complain about the cost  of complying with regulation but now they were very co-operative.
p101 Crisis by Allan Bollard

donald Rumsfelds famous observation about fighting in Afghanistan seemed apt: it was not so much the known unknowns that worried us it was the unknown unknowns.
ibid p113

the select committees have strong powers- they can require people to attend and answer questions. I knew that I might be asked questions about exchange rates, foreign reserves, bank liquidity, and a whole range of topics on which straightforward answers could upset the financial markets.
ibid p121

economists cannot simply look out the window to see what the economy is doing on any given day. We use forward indicators, historical relationships and a a panoply of forecasting models, but we don't know for sure how the economy is dong  until we get official statistical data which comes through three to six months after the event. even then we cannot know precisely because statistical agencies regularly make statistical revisions which my be enough to change our view.
ibid 139`

we heard form many business. some were under real pressure, and there was a rising tide of anger towards the banks. not just from smaller fringe  firms but also from larger blue chip companies.
banking relationships that had been built up over decades didn't seem to count for much. I had an extraordinary conversation with one chief financial officer who vowed to get even with his bank no matter how long it took!
ibid 148

and if that was not enough we were now learning about the limits of market efficiency when under stress. times when prices are unreliable, asset quality is impaired, information is uncertain, liquid security's become illiquid,buyers go on strike and markets fail to clear at any price
ibid 158

there ya go mate!

and Radio New Zealand Mate.
Krump is back at it again.
tonight is George Berkely.
another disrupter with a barrow to push and to discombobulate people.
why not start with David Hume or John Locke?
no its Berkely.
bah humbug.
and 9-noone.
Kathryn Ryan still using interrogatives just because she can.
It doesn't matter that they are invalid, fallacious, dishonest and disrespectful, she just is too lazy to make the effort to sharpen up.
aren't they.
oh well I suppose its just the arrogance of the national culture that underpins the whole miasma of violence and bullying in this country but because it is on the wireless then its ok.
no.
the real problem with Radio New Zealand, Richard Griffin n.b. is that it is staffed with people who know how how to work the civil service connection in wellington and except for one or two have no real life experience and thats it in a nutshell.
hothouse flowers and puffballs with no core.

ps.
 years later
new zealand media in a dreadful hole
suffocated with money.
somehow this country has become and experiment.
a metric.
and we have to pay for it.
nuts
the meeja needs a rev up
it is tired tedious and the politics is irrelevant.
when the papers are full of personality assassinations instead of the problems that matter most then the press has abdicated its responsibilities.
dig.