Figure 1

This is a schematic which shows why one would expect the personal saving rate to rise during recessions and fall during recovery. Economic theory requires the reversal of this most fundamental relationship in macroeconomic theory. In particular, if the premise of policy is based on economic theory and reverses this relationship, the scientific expectation is that policy, rather than solve economic problems, would make them worse. This explains why U.S. economic policy has been associated with progressively worse economic problems since 1964.

This Figure may be described as follows:

187 different historical periods are classified on the basis of whether the historical evidence validates the policy prescription of economists or the alternative policy prescription of system scientists. 66 periods validate the prescription of economists, and 121 validate the prescription of scientists. The prescription of economists is also validated by the data for the 1930s and therefore increases the unemployment rate and poverty with reduced productivity that increases the inflation rate as well as federal deficits. Policy prescription of scientists reverses these processes. However because economists report only relationships validated by economic theory, one finds only reports consistent with these 66 cases in the literature.

Nowhere in the literature will one find reports of the policy prescription offered by scientists. This figure also appears on p. 16 in Glenn E. Burress, "A More GENERAL Theory of the Short Run Consumption Figure and Recent Data", Nebraska Journal of Economics and Business, Autumn 1973, Vol. 12, No. 4; as well as on page 1068 of Glenn E. Burress, "A New Approach to Forecasting...", Testimony in hearings on the 1975 Economic Report of the President, Joint Economic Committee, U.S. Congress, March 12, 1975.