As one who is about to retire (next week) with a small bank balance, a fully owned and well-valued house in Brisbane, and a managed portfolio that should be enough to live on quite well (but who knows?), I wonder if I'm just setting out on an unknowable journey that could in fact lead to nothing better than genteel poverty. The bankers, investment managers, politicians and other wheeler-dealers have my fate in their hands and none of them seem to have any idea of what's going on. And of the ones who say they do, I don't know who to trust.

There are huge threads on TV.com that discuss strategies for financial survival and prosperity in the global economic climate, but do those guys know any better?

I've read on several occasions since 2008 of how the economists have failed so badly, but we still listen to them. Why?

The Make Believe World of Economists

By Bill Bonner • August 21st, 2012 • Related Articles • Filed Under

In the years 2007-2012, Nobel Prize winning economists Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz — along with celebrity economist Jeffrey Sachs and practically all their colleagues — failed to notice the most- important thing to happen in their field.

But not noticing things came naturally, easily to them. In fact, you might say they had built their careers on not noticing things, especially the most- important thing in economics.

It was part of their professional training. It was what allowed them to be economists and to win coveted prizes and key posts in a very competitive occupation. Had they been more reflective...and more observant...they would probably be teaching at community colleges.

But that is just a part of our story. By the late 20th century, economists — especially leading economists — had ceased being useful. They had become a nuisance. They closed their eyes to what an economy actually is...and to how it works...and focused on their own world — a make-believe world of numbers and theories, with little connection to the world that most people lived in.

And now in the 21st century, they are up to mischief. And part of the mischief involves not noticing things that are right in front of their noses.

More at http://www.dailyreckoning.com.au/the-make-believe-world-of-economists/2012/08/21/

I liked the article, but it gave no clue as to the way forward.

My advice is to invest in a small farm, with river frontage.

You can then grow food, have a mill to grind corn and generate electricity, possibly sell surpluses. (If the world still uses money)

Enjoy your retirement, XSH. At least you're going to a country where those in power seem to have some clue about what is going on! Perhaps not too much, but some. I hope you don't get more floods/cyclones in Brisbane.

I have heard two economists on the BBC drawing completely opposite conclusions when presented with the same set of facts.