Let He Who is Without Blame Cast the First Stone

Economists must therefore think they are in the clear.  

Economists blame the financial industry, the government....

I think there is plenty of blame to go around.  But I think it's high time that mainstream economists recognize that they are perhaps the most guilty of all.

Since the time of Adam Smith( with brief breaks during the Keynesian revolution) to today's classical counter-revolution, economists have been preaching about the general perfection of markets, the general quick-adjusting expectation of inflation and wages and prices, the general smooth operations of our financial markets.  They, in spite of evidence and theories to the contrary offered up by post-keynesians and others, stuck to their overly simplistic textbook models.  They not only stuck to their own models, but they virtually ignored any input or warnings offered by other schools of thought.  Instead of offering up reality, they offered up a lot of math-based models riddled with unrealistic assumptions - form over function ruled the day.     This lesson was learned by today's financial leaders.  This lesson was wrong.  

Let's hope the next generation is taught a little more reality.