What. In. The. Hell. Have. We. Come. To?

One woman thinks she can predict the future of the economy based on Ben Bernanke’s moon sign. (On a related note: What the heck is a moon sign?) She predicts that Bernanke will have great success sometime in the late summer/early fall, though this might not necessarily have anything to do with the economy. Maybe he wins a free ocean cruise vacation or something. And by October Bernanke is “really, really happy.” Well, that settles it, then. Show’s over, folks, you can all go home! The Fed Chairman is scheduled to be really, really happy in about four months’ time, so you have absolutely nothing to worry about!

What’s particularly hilarious about this segment is how seriously Taylor seems to take this subject and how she tries to talk about serious economic subjects with individuals who make a living making up random crap about people’s lives. Her attempts to discuss unemployment figures and the debt ceiling with psychics are about as useful as discussions of foreign policy with Call of Duty players.

Bang. Head. On. Desk.

I get the fun aspect of psychics, horoscopes, etc. I check my and my husband's horoscope in the paper. A psychic once told my husband that he would marry late in life and have two kids, which turned out to be true. But asking psychics to predict the state of the economy based on Bernanke's moon sign? OMG.

If I can get meta for a moment, I really think this is more insidious than stupid. The pundits that we see everyday on the 24 hour cable channels are no more qualified to predict the future of the economy than these psychics. Really, what special knowledge does Bill Kristol or Pat Buchanan have that qualify them?

But there's a subtle message by relegating discussion of the economy to psychics that economic recovery is something that is up to chance, or the stars, or Providence. That it's something that takes a special sense to understand and that is just frankly b.s. of the highest order. Economics is not that mystical, nor is it that difficult to understand. But as long as the media keeps it something beyond explanation, you foster a sense of hopelessness and helplessness among the viewers, which makes them far more dependent upon experts.