[MarcusBrutus]

Economists started using mathematics purely out of Physics Envy. I am obviously not talking about financial products which require some statistics and complex probabilistic models due to the way they're structured.

All the great economists of the liberal tradition up to and including Von Mises wrote monumental works without the need for equations. It was Keynes who first used mathematics both as a quest for respectability (Physics Envy) and as a way to convince credulous politicians like FDR that this stuff is complex and best left at "experts". The disastrous results are still with us today. And no, Keynesian politics did not end the Great Depression, they actually prolonged the misery and it took WWII and the destruction of all global competition to end it.

Not to mention that what passes as "mathematics" among the economists is laughable among mathematicians. Latin was employed towards similar ends by the Roman Catholic Church (although a plausible defense could be mounted that a standard language better preseved the Doctrine against heresy). Ditto for the complex models sometimes employed by astrologists.

A con game, 'nuff said.