The problem is that policy makers still listen to economists. It seems like a dream gig, make predictions based on shoddy models and when you are wrong -- you still get to keep your job.

This wouldn't matter so much if their theories only stayed in their publications and classrooms, but they're used by people to govern the flow of commerce and the exchange of money.

Bernanke, a classic economist-turned-Federal-Reserve-Chairman (former), is famous for a few things, most notably for testifying that the economy was sound and due for more growth -- right before the housing collapse in 2008.

If the ivory-tower PhD's can't see it coming, what chance does anyone else have?

There has to be a better way. Embracing economics as a cure-all for monetary policy (if it was that effective, we shouldn't have depressions and frothy bubbles -- but yet we do), is a prescription for further frustration.

Cryptocurrencies are a potential shelter from this misguided academia-experiment, and may prove pivotal in the trend to purge the whole middle-man parasitic financial "services" industry.

There's a distinct feeling that we're nearing a critical point, that if we don't make it through this one -- we're facing a large reset that will take generations to recover from.