With financial markets sharply glued to the “dollar’s” renewed mischief, that means everything lies at the feet of the global economy. The US economy is supposed to be the one colorful and lively example in that otherwise souring picture, even if it has been temporarily pushed from ideal. In fact, despite all that has happened this year, and “unexpectedly” continues to happen, there are those still welded to the idea of “overheating” as the largest risk. That is, of course, the remnants of last year’s idealism in but a few highly adjusted figures.

In September 2014, just as the “dollar’s” full weight and fury was being lined up for the first time, Jared Bernstein argued this dichotomy in the Washington Post.

Which do you think is a bigger problem facing the U.S. economy right now: a) inflation, or b) unemployment? Do you think wages are growing: a) too quickly, or b) too slowly? Which is the bigger threat to the economy: a) that it overheats, or b) is undercooked?

I’m going to make the bold assumption that most of you answered “b” on all of the above. And in a moment, I’ll provide the data to confirm your gut. What’s unsettling, and in need of explanation, is why so many influential voices, from the punditry to the markets, answer “a.”

As for “why” highly respected economists were certain of overheating, the answer lies in the fact that economists, respected or not, are not anything like economic experts. They are, almost in total now, simple mathematicians and statisticians. Their world consists not of flesh and humanity, but of overly simplified, though elegant, regressions and equations that are supposed to represent the impulses of shorn human behavior. Thus, their correlations especially of the past few decades have forced an attentive drift away from the direct focus upon wages and productive investment and into asset prices and financials because that is what their numbers tell them has been driving wages and productive investment.