If one takes the simplest possible proposition—say, that the raising of the debt ceiling by an August 2011 deadline would serve to stave off a disastrous financial crisis and employment contraction pursuant to a technical default of the U.S. Treasury on part of its debt—then it was a snap to get 162 economists, including two Nobel winners, to sign a statement denying that proposition. Or take that larger and more contentious issue, the question of whether there was a bubble in housing prices by 2006, and why so few economists were willing to sound the alarm. There is retrospective evidence that a few prominent economists had warned the New York Fed of a housing bubble as early as 2004; in response to one such presentation, Timothy Geithner removed Robert Shiller from the Fed advisory board.

Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis …, loc. 532