As the status quo narratives and metrics lose their explanatory value, defenders of the status quo frantically leap into attack mode, declaring any skeptical inquiry as a “conspiracy” or “hoax.” A recent example can be found in that high-brow defender of the privileged status quo, The New Yorker.

(We can identify a new socio-pathological syndrome called The New Yorker Syndrome: if all is right on the Upper West Side, all is right with the world. In other words: since me and my top 2% pals are doing great, everything’s going great.)

The New Yorker writer defended the way the unemployment rate is calculated by saying “we’ve got top people on this–top people:” we should accept the official metrics as meaningful because they’re the work of PhD economists– you know, “top people” who are far above peasants’ non-expert skepticism.

The only problem with this “top people” defense is it is increasingly clear that the economic models that PhD economists claim are working well are in fact failing. They are failing for a number of reasons I list in my book Why Our Status Quo Failed and Is Beyond Reform, one of which is: the current metrics are answering the wrong questions, and as a result they’ve lost their explanatory and predictive value.

Since we optimize what we measure, the “top people” are trying to optimize increasingly meaningless metrics–GDP, unemployment, etc. The only possible output of optimizing meaningless metrics is economic stagnation and failure:precisely what the real-world economy is experiencing.

Numbers like gross domestic product (GDP) and the unemployment rate no longer provide insight into how our economy is changing. The Keynesian Cargo Cult’s insistence that “aggregate demand” is the key to “growth” and widespread prosperity, and that “aggregate demand” is a function of monetary policy, no longer tracks the real-world economy.