The way high government officials trip over themselves to give sage and courageous advice about the economy reminds me of the advice of wise men of all times. That is, sage and courageous advice by wise men is often of the post-facto and hindsight variety.

One is reminded of Nebuchadnezzar’s parcel of prophets and counselors whom he summoned to interpret his disturbing dream (Daniel 2). They were all too happy to do that—until the king slyly decided to test their mettle by insisting they not only decipher his nightmares but also first tell him what they were! (I don’t know why every king didn’t weed out the charlatans that way; any old fool can make up an interpretation and diagnosis of the problem once the problem is plain.) His prophets were, of course, horrified, being the incompetent frauds they were. They hemmed and hawed and stalled for time, and would have all been sent to the lions had the true prophet Daniel not saved the day.

Alexandr Solzhenitsyn commented on a similar phenomenon in his Harvard commencement speech many years ago when he talked about the spurious “courage” of politicians who latch on to a conviction that is supposedly daring and bold when they can see that it is actually the up-and-coming trend and soon-to-be popular thing:

“The decline in courage, at times attaining what could be termed a lack of manhood, is ironically emphasized by occasional outbursts of boldness and inflexibility on the part of those same functionaries when dealing with weak governments … or with doomed currents which clearly cannot offer any resistance.”