Not the economics department, though. That’s definitely real science and is not an indoctrination program.
Now you know how everyone making under half a million a year in 2007, anyone making minimum wage, and everyone with student loan debt feels like. Economics isn’t a science, anymore than marketing or the law is. It is the art of using the givens about human nature and convincing people that your employer is correct. A lawyer is to be a zealous advocate for their client, an economist is to be a zealous advocate for their client.
There is a reason why economists agree that the Wall Street bailouts were a great idea while student loan amnesty is a bad idea and minimum wage increases create unemployment. No one is paying them to say the opposite.
No I am not bitter. You people are doing the job you are paid to do. Just like any influencer, lobbyist, marketers, or oil company climate researcher.
I am curious if you have ever studied economics, or just parroting what your social circle repeats. There is a very good reason you don’t discuss politics, economics, abortion and religion in polite company - people can’t remove what they were raised with and emotive response from logic. Economics isn’t just money either, it’s just the easiest way to introduce it to students - Economics is about efficient allocation of resources.
You are correct, economics isn’t a science anymore than finance or psychology. But there are well established theories, laws and cause/effect relationships that can be relied on and its an entire model where changing one has flow on effects to soo much else we can’t pin it down exactly.
Screw wall street investors, but keeping financial markets alive and reliable is a key pillar of our society - as an example how many of those students who had loans would never go to uni if they couldn’t access credit? How many would never buy a house, or become homeless if they lost their job?
To go into deeper theory, look into your basic and complex multiplier and how they work in a recession. Forgiving a student loan doesn’t increase consumption, just reallocate it. It looks bullshit because the rich get a payout and the middle class suffer, but there is reason and theory behind it.
That can’t be true. If targeting you was a rational decision someone else would have targeted you a long time ago.
Maybe I just went below the indifference curve and was worth the cost to target.