”
It is change, continuing change, inevitable change that is the
dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made
any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is,
but the world as it will be.
”
– Isaac Asimov (1920-1992)
“It is change, continuing change, inevitable change that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be.” – Isaac Asimov (1920-1992)
According to an NPR story, 41 of 51 economists in a new Wall Street Journal survey say the recession is over and the recovery has begun. Well, thank God for that – I thought we were in real trouble there for a few months.
The fundamentals must have changed without me noticing; then again, I’m no Warren Buffet. Millions of people are looking for jobs or worried about keeping the ones they have. Older people can’t find anyone willing to hire them. Public debt has gone through the roof and the interest on that debt is going to cripple our national options for decades to come, but forget all that, the economists have spoken, so the recession must be over; but critically, the recession’s effects on the future are not over.
Perhaps the WSJ would have gotten a more accurate result if they had surveyed only unemployed economists. I have a good job for those unemployed economists; they can develop a better model to predict our economic future; then we might be able to avoid the next recession (if you believe this one is actually over). The technical definition of a recession is two consecutive quarters of negative growth in real Gross Domestic Product; the definition is strictly backward looking. It tells you you’re in trouble, but only after you’re there. I wish I could be paid a lot for “predicting” the past, how can you make a mistake? It’s like predicting yesterday’s weather.
After-the-fact observations are very interesting and useful, but I’m more interested in knowing where we are going than where we have been. It’s time to add a new measurement to our common economic lexicon – one that predicts real economic potential and includes everything that we know of that has a significant bearing on that future. Let’s call this new measurement, Growth Potential, or “GP” for short.
GP should be a weighted measure of our economic growth potential based on our national standard of living; will it go up or down in the future, how fast and how much? It should take into consideration all the physical, social, political and economic factors that influence how we live. Some effects are reasonably obvious. If we are producing a well educated, competitive, motivated workforce that’s a plus; on the other hand, if we are burdened with excessive debt, that’s a minus.
Having a GP that predicts the future effects of our current decisions would help us pick the right path and stay on it. It would also help stave off the constant demands for painless solutions and silver bullets. It would eventually identify the good long-term solutions that offer the best return on our national investment. On the other hand, I believe that it will show that many of the programs we now hold so sacred – like early retirement – are a waste of our most important assets, our human resources.
We live in a very complex world and it’s difficult for the layman to understand the interwoven relationships of every economic decision from education to investment to redevelopment. More than ever before we need good, honest, brains to give the public the information needed to decide and we must be assured that these evaluations are not driven by political philosophy, but by facts and hard-eyed scientific analyses.
“The future belongs to those who can see the future.” – Unknown.
Marty Richman is a Hollister resident. His column runs Tuesdays. Reach him at cw*****@ya***.com.
