bintananth
behind a desk
Misread the Friedman you were referring to ...Wrong Friedman. Milton Friedman is the economist; George Friedman (no relation AFAIK) is the guy who founded Stratfor and is a specialist in geopolitics. And his track record is actually pretty good.
Edit: I will look into the economics side, I got some lessons on Keynes and Galbraith, enough to convince me no one side has all the answers.
As for Galbraith. The plot of his novel Tenured Professor: an econ professor manages to outsmart Wall Street with a homemade "Index of Irrational Expectations" so good that he's accused of insider trading when he was doing no such thing because insiders were tracking his trades and using that information to make their own trades.