is that economics is a human activity, it is how we organize our financial and commercial transactions, which are social institutions, modified by psychology and culture. It cannot be totally reduced to simple laws and graphs and equations. Economic theory is also highly influenced by ideology. To a very great extent, it doesn't just express how economies work, but it also tells us a lot about how we WANT them to work, or how we think they SHOULD work. That is why there is no single unified theory on economics, there is nothing comparable to the Standard Model, or Relativity, the Periodic Table or the Hertzprung-Russel Diagram.

Economists rarely agree about anything, and they entirely dismiss entire schools of economic thought because they conflict with their own prejudices (and superstitions). Why are there conservative economists, liberal economists, Ayn Rand economists, Marxists? Even individual schools are infinitely subdivided. What about supply side, Keynesian, or any of the other schools so commonly bandied about? Academic economics always has an ideological slant, it always reflects somebody's opinion on how society should be organized, and that usually means it favors the interests of one economic class, social caste or political party. And the training of young economists is generally geared in indoctrinating the student into a particular political philosophy, disguising it, of course, as a sober, objective "science"; lots of statistics and graphs and equations. Could this be why you are so passionate about this? Have I threatened some of your fundamental world-views? And by the way, you never did answer my original post, a response to a question by RobVg, the one that started off this entire debate. The on-topic of discussion, before you so abruptly changed the subject, was whether businesses use windfall profits, savings or credit to finance expansion? You never even bothered to comment on that.

In our country, the primary guiding philosophy is "Don't send the bastards to prison, they're only obeying immutable unchanging economic laws written down by God. Leave them alone, they know what they're doing and what's best for us." The anti-trust laws and consumer, worker, and environmental regulation weren't simply added to our politics as a minor course correction. They were bitterly and violently resisted by the 'economists' of their time. And by many of the economists of our time, too.

By the way, have you read Thomas Piketty, "Capital in the 21st century"? And he's not even a Marxist.