I desperately wanted FG-Lab to win the last election, but their craven and stupid ceding of the economic management ground to FF - a party clearly managing the economy very poorly - smacks of broad incompetence. All the same, I still want to see them in government. FF have ballsed up the boom, and thry mist go. FF off, FF.

As regards the notion of “genetic commentators”, it’s actually the case that just like in economics, 95% of the reportage on science in the media is utter bilge written by dullards and vested interests.

However, it seems from my limited knowledge that it provides the means to understand a very complex system, one that although it can often go beyond everyday understanding still has such a significant effect on the quality of everyday life. It’s also rigorous enough to be considered as much more than codswallop.

I agree that every seems interested in money, and are watching and discussing the latest trends, Fed interest rate cuts etc with a usurers’ keen eye. They imagine that such news will automatically have an effect on their own pocket. I find it is usually people who have a little money to spare – maybe not a huge amount but enough – who take the most interest in this. But it is almost superstitious.

What interests me most is how economics informs you about power relations, not if the latest fluctuations will force the ECB to shave a half percent off the interest rate and reduce your mortgage by 50 euros a month.

I robustly disagreed. Economics, or my favourite flavour of it, political economy is broad and deep. And it has intellectual rigour and great brains behind it. I cited the work of great nobel laureates such as Sen or the work of Galbraith, Phelps, Keynes, or even going back the that much misconstrued master, Smith. No, economics is solid enough. The trouble is this: what we hear 99% of the time (to steal the percentage) is not economics but is either an interest peddling an agenda (banks or estate agents) or so-called commentators who know how to say “GDP” or “stamp duty” but haven’t a fucking clue about economics and have no intention of learning. Their commentry is bereft of any rigour or intellectual effort. They are simply talking shite. The other view of economics we get is the best seller stuff. More horseshit.

All disciplines from physics to genetics have their disagreements, their weaknesses, their u-turns, and their brilliant thinkers. Economics too. But because our culture is so obsessed with money we are always talking about it and all consider ourselves experts. People at work talk about house prices all the time, about the latest fed move, about rogue traders, about inflation. Basically money has seeped into our capitalist bones and we are obsessed by it. In order to feed our apetite for more money talk we are bombarded by all this media poppycock which passes for economics.

We don’t come to work and talk about the latest particle accelerator or speculate about the lastest twist in genome theory. If we did, our media would be overrun by genetics commentators or pseudo scientists. But our favourite subject isn’t physics or genetics: it’s money. It’s all we want to hear about. And all we get is an unbelievably big load of bullshit - every fucking day.