At every discipline human beings have ever conceived, a fresh face or new look is almost always welcome whenever it reaches the inevitable sticking point or true rough patch. We have a word for such people in the 21st century, as an entire industry of consultants has sprung up to provide just such an outside perspective to organizations or endeavors facing grave difficulties. It’s so simple, yet often incredibly hard made so by more than anything institutional inertia.
Even the government will look to these people (not all of them are cronies, though it’s really impossible to tell just how many might be). Those on the inside often have interests that prevent them from seeing anything other than those interests. The whole problem then becomes inexorably linked to something like a determined status quo, at least until the issue becomes big enough to break through the ideological bubble.
“When crisis strikes consultants are called. Consultants thrive on chaos,†says Tom Rodenhauser, managing director at Kennedy Consulting Research & Advisory, which tracks the industry. “When a municipality is facing huge budget issues, and they can’t solve the problem themselves, they’ll call in consultants and make the tough choices that either politically or practically elected officials can’t make.â€
Why can’t Economics ever seem to change to fit the actual circumstances? Noted earlier, Economists keep beating their dead horse of interest rates have nowhere to go but up even as the market for yet another year vehemently disagrees (yield curve shape more than anything else heading into 2018). The implications of that disagreement are extraordinarily profound.
The answer to the above question is awfully simple. In trying to figure out what’s wrong, Economists turn to – Economists. It has evolved into this weirdly insular process whereby there is nothing other than a positive feedback loop from which the discipline just will not be able to escape. Any system caught in such a self-reinforcing mess requires heavy outside influence to get out of it, which is often where the consulting business comes in.
