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A helicopter pilot was flying outside of Seattle on a very foggy day and got confused about where he was. As he approached an office building, the co-pilot held up a sign for the people in the office building to see, which read, “Where are we?”

The people in the office building grabbed a piece of paper and wrote, “In a helicopter.” When the pilot saw the note, he immediately navigated over to a landing pad nearby. The co-pilot asked, “How did you know where you were based on their response?”

The pilot said, “When I saw that the message was accurate but useless, I knew we were at Microsoft.”

It’s an old joke, but it reminds me of modern reporting about economics. I’ve always known that economics was too complex to get right on television, but there was a day when print reporters could be expected to get the basics right. (The example in the graphic above makes it clear that it hasn’t always been the case, though.) It’s gotten to the point that the things I read in most stories dealing with economic issues are accurate in the technical sense, but provide so little context that they’re useless.

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We hear it all the time now from mainstream economists. No one could have predicted the economic crisis. No one could have predicted that the various “stimulus” programs would fail. And no one could have predicted that all the fake money the Fed has pumped out wouldn’t jump-start the economy.

There’s only one problem with that. Economists of the Austrian school predicted all of the things that the neo-Keynesians now say weren’t predictable. So why is it we aren’t turning to the Austrians for guidance about how to get out of the mess the Keynesians have created?

Jeffery Tucker has a fantastic article today giving specific examples of things that Austrian economists have said in the past few years. I highly recommend you read it and then think about why politicians and bureaucrats keep following the idiots who have been wrong over and over so far.

When I was a kid, I was taught to respect and obey police. I was taught that they were my friends. They were clearly the “good guys.”

I don’t always feel that way today. I know there are still many police officers who are decent people who are trying to do the right things — and many of those still believe in police as the “good guys” — but the police culture is coming to be dominated by thugs in the service of an increasingly coercive state.

I was reminded of the difference between how I grew up and how today’s kids are growing up when I heard from someone who read Wednesday’s item about the “lemonade bust” in Iowa. Michael wrote:

“I told my daughter (age 7) about the story on your blog and the lemonade stand. She became upset and wondered if the same thing would happen to her when she noticed a police officer drive by her own unlicensed lemonade stand. She was lucky. He didn’t come back, but now she must spend a lifetime looking over her shoulder for the long arm of the law.”

At some point, the people serving as police officers have to ask themselves whether it’s ethical to continue to serve a state that uses force to act as they’re required to act. The excuse that, “I was just following orders,” doesn’t work for ex-Nazis and it shouldn’t work for cops who are terrorizing families today.

I hate it that kids are learning to be scared of police officers, but it’s the realistic thing to learn.