It's easy to criticize. It's hard to come up with better solutions.

The first half of the essay describes hard problems, and makes easy complaints about the way people have tried to approach these problems.

Say you had to come up with the figure for damages caused by poor medical treatment leading to the death of a mother. That's not easy! Whatever you do, someone can complain that your number is wrong, and you are evil for putting a value on human life.

Say you have a million dollars to spend to make the world a better place. You can install carbon sequestering filters on a factory to reduce the risk of climate change in the future, or you can save about 300 children from malaria today. That might be a hard decision for some people!

The second half of the essay describes the ways in which deceitful people can use complicated models to argue for any conclusion they like. This can happen on both sides of any debate, and it's not a fair criticism of tools like economic modelling to point out that they can be misused.

There is a role for economists, and economic modelling, in public debate. Its role should not be to limit the menu of democratic choices. Instead it should be to help explain the trade-offs.

Good modellers aren’t afraid of explaining their assumptions. The clients who pay best, however, don’t want the best modellers. They want people who can write a fat report to slam on the fucking table.

The lesson is to be skeptical and careful with models or any other kind of evidence, to be humble and reluctant in drawing conclusions, and not to blame the spreadsheets.