The rage over economic rationalism and the campaign against Australian economists. In the past decade, Australian politics has been haunted by two words: Economic Rationalism. They were burnt into the Australian mind in a fire that is still well alight. Exasperating Calculators is a withering new critique of this conflagration. The authors argue that the alarm over Economic Rationalism was a case of a moral panic: a group of persons were identified as a threat to society, and the moral barricades were then manned by editors, bishops, politicians and right thinking people in an attempt to denounce and root out those purportedly engaged in undermining society as we know it. Exasperating Calculators is a critical account of how the fire was lit, how it was fed, and how it was fought. It looks at the protagonists and the targets; the arguments and the facts; what was said and done and what should have been said and done.