The State of Macroeconomics

I've been following the debate about Macroeconomics triggered by the Subprime Mortgage Crisis and Paul Krugman's OpEd piece in the NY Times. An interesting rejoinder to Krugman's critique of the profession was posted by David Levine in the Huffington Post. One of Levine's comments "I feel a little like a physicist at the cocktail party..." caught my attention. I realize that some economists view themselves as physicists but Krugman seems to be talking about what happens when economists enter the policy debate or apply simple models to real systems. It brought to mind both Nassim Taleb's comments on "econophysics" and its role in the Subprime Mortgage Crisis and the role of neoliberal economic policies in the IMF Austerity Programs. There is certainly much to critique here...