Attention To Detail

In section VI or 4 Hayek tackles the question of when to pay attention to the detail. When should the people that watch over the economy stop trying to look into the future and SEE what is happening right before their eyes. I am under the impression for the most part that ecomonics is in seeing the big picture, but it also makes since too look at what is happen at the ground floor level and finding out if what is happening there reflects what ecomonics says should be happening. In H-2 of section for I found a section the sumed up to me one of the failures that took place to cause our current recession...

"The belief that changes, or at least day-to-day adjustments, have become less important in modern times implies the contention that economic problems also have become less important. This belief in the decreasing importance of change is, for that reason, usually held by the same people who argue that the importance of economic considerations has been driven into the background by the growing importance of technological knowledge."

Our recent recession as many of you would probably agree was a long time coming and in the last 20 years our technilogical dependence has increased so exponentially and still climbing! Where were the people that were keeping our machine of an economy in check!?

Many this Knowledge of detail isnt the kind of knowledge that can be protrayed in statistical form its out side the bounds of numbers so there is no way an economist can use it in their field.