Economics has an honesty problem. Financially motivated obfuscation is a problem in other sciences: global warming denialism, sponsored studies claiming that cigarettes aren&#x27;t carcinogenic, all manner of food health and safety claims, and so on. Generally the evidence is overwhelmingly against them and the battle is mostly over PR and communicating to the public.<p>Economics is different; arguments that are very convenient to people who are wealthy under the status quo are very difficult to challenge, resulting in failed austerity programmes, &quot;trickle down&quot;, and so on.