… is from the late G. Warren Nutter, a University of Virginia economist who from the late 1960s through the early 1970s served as Assistant Secretary of Defense:
In the academic world, you think now and decide never; and in the government, it’s just exactly the other way around.
Explains a lot.
Nutter here is quoted in the fascinating paper by William R. Allen (of Alchian & Allen fame), “Economics, Economists, and Economic Policy: Modern American Experiences,” History of Political Economy (Spring 1977), Vol. 9, pp. 48-88. This Nutter quotation is found on page 51.