Having known several economists, I've always wondered why these guys aren't rich, or at least better off than they are.
Economists understand the theories behind money and wealth creation much better than us but--as far as I've seen--they aren't richer than average university-educated people.
> Economists understand the theories behind money and wealth creation
Isaac Asimov was trained as a chemist before becoming a science fiction writer. He relates the story where someone asked him what kind of glue to use for gluing together certain materials. Asimov said he had no idea, and the person walked away shaking his head and presumably thinking "some chemist this guy is".
Understanding glues and adhesion is at least one level of abstraction higher than knowing fundamentals of chemistry.
Richard Feynman also had a great essay about how understanding quantum physics doesn't allow you to figure out everyday physics questions (eg., At what temperature does gold melt?). In theory it should be possible to derive the melting point of gold from quantum physics, but it's impossibly difficult to do so.
Likewise, creating wealth (doing business, trading stocks, etc.) is probably several levels of abstraction higher than knowing the theories behind wealth creation.
Unlike physics or chemistry, which has a heavy empirical backing and a degree of rigor in the application of logic, economics is founded on many axioms and assumptions which usually don't hold up to scrutiny and undermine the field's ability to make accurate predictions. The entire finance market was an ediface built on theories with the the assumption that prices arrive to some analytical equilibrium and describes nothing of how prices change over time. And in order to price derivatives, the Black-Scholes model ignores any statistical moments other than mean and variance. These abstractions get shakier the higher you go up.
Building abstractions when your foundation is questionable is building a house a house on sand. Don't be surprised when it collapses, as it did in 2008, and the spectre of wealth you perceive reveals itself as an illusion.
Regarding Isaac Asimov was trained as a chemist before becoming a science fiction writer. From his wikipedia article Around the age of 11, he began to write his own stories, and by age 19, after he discovered science fiction fandom, he was selling stories to the science fiction magazines. It would appear that his chemistry career came later.
I know a few who fit this description. They have very cogent reasons as to why that describes the group, but not themselves as individuals. It gets meta.
Economists understand the theories behind money and wealth creation much better than us but--as far as I've seen--they aren't richer than average university-educated people.