Poor countries need economists because scarcity is still a real problem. Rich countries, on the other hand, do not need economists because abundance is their problem. Yet, in rich countries economists still find work, teach at universities, and influence domestic and international policies. Why is this the case? Why does the US, for example, not see economists in the same way it sees horses—as something that's completely useless. To turn to an economist for ideas about how to manage wealth is much like the USPS turning to horses to deliver mail. A possible answer? People who call themselves economists are not actually who they say they are.

My meaning: The famous Chicago School did not produce a new generation of economists but instead replaced real economists with stock market analysts, portfolio managers, and risk mathematicians/magicians and called these men economists. But in fact, the US has not had real economists doing anything serious for the past 30 years. You can't say a person who designs models that will lower risks on investments is actually an economist, and yet look at who has been running the Federal Reserve since Volker, the last economist. (Wikipedia actually calls Ben Bernanke an American economist, yet his dissertation was about how investors can make a penny into a dime—"Long-Term Commitments, Dynamic Optimization, and the Business Cycle.")

Know what an economist is. He/she is not about maximizing returns on investments. An economist deals with the alleviation of scarcity from a society. And if a society has accomplished this, has nothing but abundance to deal with, then there is no need for economists but instead a system or computer that equitably distributes the wealth for the whole. Indeed, it is this very role or opening that the followers of the Chicago School filled—but instead of managing the wealth for all, they directed it up to the highest classes and produced an imaginary scarcity for the rest.