By William J. Holstein, Editor in Chief, Chief Executive magazine

Every morning on the drive to work, I listen to the radio and hear economists speaking very earnestly about the American economy. They react to each of the latest statistics coming out of the U.S. government, and financial markets leap and fall in response.

But doesn’t anybody know that economists don’t know what they’re talking about? Why are we listening to them?

Here are my pet peeves about economists. I hope that you, our readers, and I can guide them down the path toward obtaining a better grip on reality.

Pet Peeve No. 1: The practitioners of econometrics, within the economic profession, argue that they have built “models” that can predict the course of the U.S. economy. This is just preposterous. The U.S. economy is far too large and far too sensitive to psychological variables. In fact, I’d argue that over time we have become an even more psychologically driven economy. Fueled by CNBC, the Internet and so many other communications channels, confidence rises and falls each day. The economy is less predictable than ever.

Pet Peeve No. 2: Economists, whether econometricians or not, don’t have an understanding of the U.S. economy in a global context. We’ve reached the point that goods, services, people, money and technology are whizzing across our national borders at a dizzying rate (foreign exchange trading has now reached nearly $2 trillion a day, for example), yet economists seem to believe that the economy stops at the water’s edge. Again, preposterous.

Read about the other Pet Peeves with Economists HERE