Bleak Future

News, again. Well, just a little bit. I'll try to think about something funny later to compensate, or at least post a few pictures of half-nude men... or something to get you back in the "right mood".

My mailbox continues overflowing with mails and mails of newspapers. Though I used to look at them annoyed, now I look at them with a certain sense of nostalgia. Hyne knows how long will we have the priviledge of getting the news for free before selfish imperialist pigs such as Mr. Murdock starts robbing our cents and turning information into a luxury commodity (which, btw, will finally destroy one of the milestone conditions that support the "free market" model upon which all those incredibly STUPID liberal, neoliberal, neoclassical and monetarist "economists" base their "theories", and therefore their "politics").

Among the news, there was this one in CNN about the bleak future the Fed was forecasting for America. Rounding up the figures, 10% unemployment and 3% fall on the GDP. For the non math-speaker, one out of ten people who could work will be unemployed. Also, from each $100 of goods produced last year, this year only $97 will be produced.

Now, if you do the maths, it's funny, because you lose 10% of the potential working force, but lose only 3% of your outputs. Okay, maybe we should see how many people were unemployed last year and take that percentage from the current 10%, but either way, even though the output is reduced, it is expected from the remaining labor force to suck it up and put in for the lay offs. (That, or "hopefully" the amount of costs cut off with the lay offs will hold up that much.)

Well, either way, figures are not looking quite Sexy. Then again, wake up and smell the coffee if you haven't: the world is neck deep in a crisis. It's time again for Al Capone and Charlie Chaplin movies. However, before you panic and let your eyebrows and mustache grow to Chaplinesque or Pattinsonesque proportions lemme introduce you to a few interesting facts known only to those properly initiated in the secret and dark arts of "Economics", a powerful and secret Covenant ruled by deep mysticism. I know, witches and wizards are childplay and goofy stuff compared to our monstruous Craft.

First of all, you must know that we are always right. As it is known, the job of economists is divided in two very important and corelated tasks: the first task is to forecast what will happen in the future. The second task is to explain why things didn't happen as we said they would. So, before you go counting your workmates and try to calculate who among you will be laid off, who will have to suck it for the extra work and smash your little head trying to figure out how to survive with no job, Mortgage-zilla breathing down your neck, Card-zilla around the corner and cuts in gas, coal and nuclear energy killing you softly, you must ask the Fed's Council of Evil, what was the base for the calculations. Oh, and don't let them impress you with fancy names and waving of banner-like databases you can't actually catch a glimpse of.

First of all, anyone can "fancy-speech", it doesn't mean they know. As a matter of fact, a lot of dunderheads use fancy speeching to conceal the fact that they know absolutely nothing about anything, less about what they are supposed to be talking.

Second, check the way the indexes and the numbers were calculated. No, you don't need to have a degree in Advanced Maths or Nuclear Physics, for fuck's sake, you are calculating how many people will lose their jobs, how much less will be produced, not splitting the atom or making anti-matter! Sure, there are all kinds of wicked formulas and ways to get around things, BUT the milestone behind forecasting is:

1. What has happened before? How people/enterprises/global economies reacted? Take the "effect" and apply it to the current situation.
2. What things exist now that didn't then and how could they react?

Look, the calculus itself is really fun. It's like playing that game "The Serf": you have a nice little "town" with a way of doing things and then you suddenly add this "happening" and things start changing, so you calculate how will they affect the town. Now, since you have to harness it somehow in a math formula, because that's the toys we play with in this game, you have to come up with a few suppositions and then try and guess stuff based in some kind of "notion". Well, ask the Fed Council of Evil, which kind of suppositions and notions did they use and why. Did you know that if you change those suppositions and notions, the results could change? Oh yeah. Can become worse, can become much, much better... and then, all the little bits and thingies they threw into the big math pot. Some are very insignificant, others are very important... who decides which are which? Who decides which things (variables) go in and which go out? Go and ask them.

Look, we all know that things will go pearshaped, and truth is that if the Fed goes saying stuff like that, it will become worse, because people will think THEY are that 10%, or they will be part of that 10% and enterprises will think that THAT falling out 3% will be them, so, with that in mind, they peobably will try less harder to keep the head above the water, will get depressed and give up at the first sign of problems. And all for what? For some crunched up figures that might or might not be right?

Crosscheck the numbers, question, investigate, undust your calculating machine and make your own figures. See who is right, and don't let them beat you down.