There Is One Thing More Annoying Than an Economist — the French‑Trained One
Last night I was watching Bloomberg, and they were rolling out the usual suspects from the big banks to explain how the latest tariff changes would ripple through the global economy.
As always, the predictions were delivered with great confidence, and as always, most of them will probably be wrong. I’ve long suspected that the 20% of economists who sit outside the consensus are the ones who actually get it right, but that’s a theory for another day.
After the German economist and the English economist had their turn, along came Lionel.
Lionel is French‑trained.
And Lionel arrived with the unmistakable aesthetic of the Parisian intellectual tradition: immaculate grooming, a suit jacket that somehow hangs off the frame with effortless precision, and a posture that suggests the world is lucky to hear his thoughts.
His casual disdain for the Anglo‑Saxon pragmatism of his German and English peers left no doubt that he believed his economic reasoning operated on a higher plane.
The French Intellectual Style
Lionel radiated absolute confidence in abstract theory. His training would have been heavy on mathematical formalism and elegant models — the kind that can explain a market failure with the same tone a sommelier uses to describe a Burgundy and how it pairs with rare eye fillet.
His predictions were served with a philosophical flourish. Only someone shaped by the French academic tradition can turn a supply‑and‑demand curve into a meditation on human freedom, Rousseau, and the tragedy of modernity.
He was unmoved by the fact that the last round of U.S. tariff changes coincided with the Dow hitting an all‑time high. In Lionel’s worldview, that was merely an aberration — perhaps the result of New York traders who don’t wear ties and insist on pinning little flags to their lapels.
For Lionel, tradition isn’t a flag.
Tradition is intellectual combat — a duel of ideas where the conclusions are so esoteric that there are no winners or losers, only perfectly delivered arguments.
The Pompous Certainty Cycle
The part that fascinates (and irritates) me most is what I call the Pompous Certainty Cycle — a behavioural loop common among economists shaped by this particular academic culture.
1. Operatic Confidence
They don’t say things.
They pronounce them.
Every sentence lands like a decree from a mountaintop. There is no “I might be wrong,” no “this is one model,” no humility. It is pure, distilled certainty — the kind that comes from a tradition where intellectual dominance is a craft, not a personality trait.
2. The 24‑Hour Pivot
This is where normal humans short‑circuit.
Within a day, they can:
• reverse their position
• contradict yesterday’s gospel
• adopt a new model
• and deliver it with the exact same unshakeable authority
No acknowledgement.
No transition.
No “given new data.”
Just a clean pivot, as if the previous stance never existed.
It’s not hypocrisy.
It’s style.
Ideas are outfits: today’s suit is perfect; yesterday’s suit is irrelevant.
3. The Cultural Engine
The French academic tradition trains economists like philosopher‑mathematicians.
The goal isn’t accuracy — it’s elegance.
Debate is a national sport.
Changing your mind isn’t a flaw — it’s the next round.
Why It Irritates Me
Maybe the problem is me.
Here’s my street‑level theory, served without any philosophical garnish.
I work from:
• observable reality
• system behaviour
• pattern stability
• accountability
They work from:
• theoretical purity
• rhetorical dominance
• intellectual theatre
So when they pivot with the same operatic certainty, it violates my internal doctrine:
If I change my position, I acknowledge the shift, accept the downside, and say, “I stuffed up.”
They don’t.
They glide.
About Jason Bresnehan
Jason writes in a modular, mind‑drift style that moves between business, recovery, faith, anthropology, and the oddities of everyday life without warning or apology. His work blends operator‑grade clarity with sideways narrative turns — the kind that start in a boardroom, drift through Scripture or Tasmanian riverbanks, and land in a piece of doctrine you didn’t see coming.
He has spent years helping organisations and people get unstuck, and his writing reflects the same instinct: take something messy, name it cleanly, and make it usable. His pieces — whether on addiction, Catholic symbolism, business operators, or human quirks — aren’t lectures. They’re field notes. Observations. Fragments designed for real people in real moments, including the tired executive delayed in an airport lounge at 11:45pm.
Jason publishes micro‑chapters as he writes them — standalone pieces that don’t follow a cadence or a theme. They accumulate over time into a larger body of work, shaped by curiosity, faith, operator discipline, and a refusal to perform — just get outcomes.
Founder of the Hadspen Foundation, Jason is committed to building frameworks for spiritual recovery that are both repeatable and personal. His writing is guided by discernment, narrative cadence, and the belief that doctrine should support—not overshadow—the human story.