What good are economists anyway?

Business Week has a cover story on the usefulness of economists.

"The rap on economists, only somewhat exaggerated, is that they are overconfident, unrealistic, and political. They claim a precision that neither their raw material nor their skill warrants. Too many assume that people behave like the mythical homo economicus, who is hyperrational and omniscient. And they take sides in quarrels that freeze the progress of research. Those few who defy the conventional wisdom are ignored."

ht: Levitt, who replaces the word economists by macroeconomists...