Such are the paradoxes of modern life, the kind of thing that makes life difficult for machines trying to pass a Turing test, such as the fact that being 'hot', 'cool', or 'warm' are all compliments. Similarly, experts are supposed to tell one what to do, but in practice they merely help rationalize whatever one wants to do. Expert opinion usually spans the space of conceivable opinion. To wit, the WSJ has an article on the current economic mess, and interviewed several well-known economists. Here's their advice:
Barry Eichengreen: $300MM for banks, $800 fiscal stimulus.
Ken Rogoff: more inflation
Robert Hall: sales-tax holiday paid by the Federal government
Robert Shiller: subsidize financial advice (here here!)
Alan Blinder: Infrastructure spending stimulus
Anil Kashyap: shut down ‘bad’ banks
Jeremy Stein: audit banks
Adam Posen: shrink the banking sector
Douglas Diamond: convert bank long-term debt issued after the TARP to equity, make it easier to wipe out equity shareholders
Markus Brunnermeier: put in a new regulator framework for banks
So, give money to the banks, shrink them, extinguish debt or equity in banks, regulate them or audit them--perhaps all of the above! Also, give out tax rebates and spend more. In other words, whatever the Federal government can do, it should do, say the experts
The point is that expert opinion does not focus, but from a meta perspective, merely rationalizes. Thus, it means almost the opposite of what a single expert does. The paradox is like the way diversity, in practice, is license to insularity. A thing in practice is the opposite of what it is in theory.