Economic illiteracy

Matt McCarten admits himself that he is not into economics, saying “Economists are a secular priesthood, where they speak their own gibberish, and we hope they know what they’re talking about.”

But even with this disclaimer, he should know better than to write:

But when I read this week that Warren Buffet – one of the richest men in the world – made more than NZ$150 million just by speculating on our dollar from 2003 to 2006, I know something very, very bad is going on with our economy. This year alone, our exchange rate has soared to 27 per cent. The mind boggles how much extra money he and other foreign speculators have been skimming off us in the past six months.

The notion that gains made by currency traders is somehow at the expense of taxpayers is just simply economically illiterate.