On Feb 18, 2008, at 1:56 PM, Jim Devine wrote:
The ECONOMIST once said that when one forecasts, one can say what's going to happen or when -- but not both.
Yogi Berra might as well have said, "When you come to a choice between what or when, take it." The Uncertainty Principle rears again its ugly head. I was once in a band called Top Quark. Our line was, "We are postulated, but undiscovered." The Top Quark, the subatomic entity, was finally discovered, but our band dissolved. My Dad, now deceased, was an Iowa farm boy. His father was able to keep the family farm during The Great Depression by striking a deal with the farm's note holder. My grandfather would pay the taxes until the depression was over and the note holder would hold off on demanding payment. People lost farms all around my family's farm, but my family didn't . And the note holder was eventually paid. My Dad told me years ago that another Great Depression was coming, but that unlike the last one, when you could get a bowl of soup for a dime, this one would be an inflated depression. The $3 cup of coffee suggests to the truth of that assertion and I'm not sure that modern economics has room for my Dad's simple thought. In his end years, Dad suffered from Alzheimer's. My brothers and I were repairing his backyard fence and we dug up a boulder the size of a basketball. Dad picked it up and holding it in front of me said, from the depths of his illness, "Danny, look how big the sand gets around here." The point is, forecasts not only have a when and what element, there is also the element of perspective. Does the craft of economics, when it casts the future, dabble properly in perspective? Dan Scanlan
