Yet reasoning of this kind is increasingly used to explain how spendthrift countries get into trouble.
Ms. Yellen's lucidity is on display in her speeches, notably her November 2012 account of why central banks increasingly try to explain what they are doing and why.
But there was also a backdrop of nervousness, as existing particle theories have been increasingly unable to explain some recently observed cosmic shapes.
Yet, as inequality has widened and concerns about it have grown, the competitive school, viewing individual returns in terms of marginal product, has become increasingly unable to explain how the economy works.
To be sure, American leaders praise the heroism and sacrifice of those who defend the United States, but they are increasingly pressed to explain, and resolve, deeply troubling trends: levels of suicide among the troops and of post-traumatic stress that threaten to overwhelm the health care system.
But the more important spectacle is a government, in whatever-it-takes-to-survive mode, increasingly unable to explain how it will take care of the things Australians elected them to do – such as our healthcare, our kids' education, the elderly, the unemployed, our contribution to slowing climate change, our attitudes towards Indigenous Australians, our unity of purpose as a nation.
Some of King's most telling points are reserved for modern economists, whom he depicts as increasingly unable to explain why money exists, as baffled by the concept of trust, and as all too often naively wedded to the so-called "optimising" model in which people rationally weigh up the utilitarian options before deciding how to act.
Robert Giroux sent a copy of "Wise Blood" to Evelyn Waugh hoping for a blurb, and Waugh replied, "The best I can say is: 'If this really is the unaided work of a young lady, it is a remarkable product.' " One should pretty much ignore her own pronouncements on her art, though in her last years she increasingly endeavored to explain her intentions.
This is getting increasingly difficult to explain with "special factors".
Bioethicists increasingly want to explain why this is the case.
