Why the Economy Is As Undependable As the Weather
Isn't it interesting that the same people who laugh at science fiction listen to weather forecasts and economists?
- Kelvin Throop III, grandson of a likely fictional character of disputed origin, possibly Canadian (in other words, origin uncertain)
No matter where in the world people live, they all complain of the inaccuracies of their weather forecasters.
No matter where in the world people live, they are also feeling the effects of the economic downturn, despite the accumulated expertise of noted economists.
Why are weather forecasts so often wrong? In my country, Environment Canada (the government weather service) claims it is right 89 percent of the time. And it is, if you count only forecasts made within the previous three hours of any given time.
Weather and climate may follow general patterns, but they do not adhere to weather charts nor necessarily follow computerized climate models. As technologically advanced as we are in the 21st century, our meteorologists and climatologists know with certainty as much about the accuracy of their forecasts as doctors know about the human body. Which is very little despite their claims to the contrary.
Have you ever taken the time to watch dust moving around in a puddle or fog swirling on a summer morning? They defy accurate description. I have watched waves on the lake near where I used to live approach each other from opposite directions, then continue on by passing through each other as if the other weren't there at all. Shouldn't they cancel each other out? They don't. Waves are an effect of weather above them.
The economy of a country depends on so many factors that no one person or computer can keep track of them all. The current recession began when unethical bank officers granted mortgages to people who could not afford to pay them back, even though the interest rates were below the prime lending rate. The banks then sold these "loser" papers to other banks around the world, combined with good mortgage papers. Somebody had to pay. Turns out we all did.
Remember the dotcom collapses several years ago where internet startup companies collected fortunes with little more than a dream to sell? Or the Worldcom and Enron collapses (among others) where their executives stated profits and sales increases in the 30 percent range when they were only a fraction of that?
A great deal of the economy of a country depends on the honesty and integrity of those who move money around it. Stripped to its essentials, an economy functions on the greed and honesty of those with money. In the end, greed always dominates.
So weather forecasts are based on factors we don't even understand, while economic forecasts depend on the integrity of those with money. Is it any wonder that neither can be depended upon?
As for science fiction, some of it from the past may be seen in technology today?
Yet that's not the point of Throop's quote. His point is that many people will believe forecasts created by those who claim to be experts, while deriding technological and cultural forecasts from sources such as writers of science fiction. Science fiction writers don't claim to be experts.
Anyone who claims to have expertise in any subject will find followers provided that they can back up their predictions with good stories.
Weren't snake oil salesmen of the past successful because they told the best stories? Are our biggest advertisers today not successful because they tell the best lies that appeal to our vanity and need for social status? Didn't our ancestors believe the tribal chiefs and medicine men and women who told the best stories?
We tend to believe those who tell the most convincing stories, whether the stories have truth and validity or not.
So it rains on our parades and our retirement nestegg stocks tank. Our lives remain determined largely by our beliefs.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for teachers and parents who want to grow children who believe what they can depend on.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Showing posts with label economy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label economy. Show all posts
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Uncontrolled Capitalism Failed Us
We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.
- Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel laureate (1879-1955)
And yet we do. In general, the economic system practised in western countries follows the thinking of Adam Smith.
Smith said that the free market system where the wealthy are allowed to invest and make money to their hearts' content was the best system of capitalism. As the rich got richer, the poor would benefit because they would be needed to participate in a system that needed everyone to function. Tax moneys would be available for those who couldn't function comfortably.
Though no one was expected to compete on an equal footing with the rich, there would be equality among the general population because everyone would believe in the values of the system.
Happiness would be a natural benefit of Adam's economy because everyone would have enough money to do whatever they wanted. The pursuit of happiness was, in effect, the pursuit of money.
Unfettered capitalism has at its core the exploitation of greed. The greedier people are, the greater the chance that they will work hard to earn the money they want to make themselves happy by buying what they need and what they want. Those whose lives are less captured by greed would work less but still have enough to meet their more limited needs.
So how have we done? We don't have equality, as Smith promised, as most members of minorities will attest. That includes inequality for women who have to fight in many workplaces for equal pay for equal work.
People have the opportunity to work to earn a living. But some cannot work or cannot find work because they have problems that were created in the rush to get children brainwashed with the industrial curriculum that preaches that hard work and intellectual adaptation are the means to success in the working world. They "fell through the cracks."
We have come to accept that the homeless will always be with us, even in cities where nighttime temperatures go far below the freezing mark in winter and the homeless can't get social assistance because they do not have a permanent address. The homeless are the most obvious signs of the failure of the system.
Everyone still seeks happiness, but so many do without it that they are no longer certain what happiness is. They seek it in thrills and prescribed and illegal substances as well as other forms of activities that can become addictive. Happiness has not visited capitalist societies, let alone come to stay.
The gap between the rich and the poor has widened so that the two sides no longer recognize each other. The once mighty middle class dwindles as it separates into the two options as some get richer and others lose their jobs, their families, their self respect and their grasp on life.
But the rich are delighted at what capitalism has given them. They are richer than any previous generation, they control the advertising that teaches everything from morality to fashion, governments pass laws that make their fondest business wishes come true and children consider few other options than conforming to the dictates of industry as to how a society should be run.
Even our societal morality is that of industry, not of religion as in the past.
It is not the purpose of this article to offer up a solution that will be open to criticism by those whose fondest wish is to kowtow to industry. Rather it is to point out that the out of control capitalist system continues to function and gain more power because school curricula teach exactly what industry wants kids to know to become industrial workers within a few years.
The first step is not to think about how to change. The first step is to accept that change is needed.
The process of change can only begin what it will be most effective, in the teaching of children. Those children will within a few years be leaders of industry or followers of its demands.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to show not just the degree of decay in western society but to offer solutions that are workable and will not cause revolution in any country.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel laureate (1879-1955)
And yet we do. In general, the economic system practised in western countries follows the thinking of Adam Smith.
Smith said that the free market system where the wealthy are allowed to invest and make money to their hearts' content was the best system of capitalism. As the rich got richer, the poor would benefit because they would be needed to participate in a system that needed everyone to function. Tax moneys would be available for those who couldn't function comfortably.
Though no one was expected to compete on an equal footing with the rich, there would be equality among the general population because everyone would believe in the values of the system.
Happiness would be a natural benefit of Adam's economy because everyone would have enough money to do whatever they wanted. The pursuit of happiness was, in effect, the pursuit of money.
Unfettered capitalism has at its core the exploitation of greed. The greedier people are, the greater the chance that they will work hard to earn the money they want to make themselves happy by buying what they need and what they want. Those whose lives are less captured by greed would work less but still have enough to meet their more limited needs.
So how have we done? We don't have equality, as Smith promised, as most members of minorities will attest. That includes inequality for women who have to fight in many workplaces for equal pay for equal work.
People have the opportunity to work to earn a living. But some cannot work or cannot find work because they have problems that were created in the rush to get children brainwashed with the industrial curriculum that preaches that hard work and intellectual adaptation are the means to success in the working world. They "fell through the cracks."
We have come to accept that the homeless will always be with us, even in cities where nighttime temperatures go far below the freezing mark in winter and the homeless can't get social assistance because they do not have a permanent address. The homeless are the most obvious signs of the failure of the system.
Everyone still seeks happiness, but so many do without it that they are no longer certain what happiness is. They seek it in thrills and prescribed and illegal substances as well as other forms of activities that can become addictive. Happiness has not visited capitalist societies, let alone come to stay.
The gap between the rich and the poor has widened so that the two sides no longer recognize each other. The once mighty middle class dwindles as it separates into the two options as some get richer and others lose their jobs, their families, their self respect and their grasp on life.
But the rich are delighted at what capitalism has given them. They are richer than any previous generation, they control the advertising that teaches everything from morality to fashion, governments pass laws that make their fondest business wishes come true and children consider few other options than conforming to the dictates of industry as to how a society should be run.
Even our societal morality is that of industry, not of religion as in the past.
It is not the purpose of this article to offer up a solution that will be open to criticism by those whose fondest wish is to kowtow to industry. Rather it is to point out that the out of control capitalist system continues to function and gain more power because school curricula teach exactly what industry wants kids to know to become industrial workers within a few years.
The first step is not to think about how to change. The first step is to accept that change is needed.
The process of change can only begin what it will be most effective, in the teaching of children. Those children will within a few years be leaders of industry or followers of its demands.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to show not just the degree of decay in western society but to offer solutions that are workable and will not cause revolution in any country.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Thursday, April 05, 2007
Dead-Ends of Society Are Drowning Us
Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.
- Edmund Burke, statesman and writer (1729-1797)
"I don't vote because my one vote won't make any difference." Yet the whole process of democratic government is founded on the collection and sorting of those single votes that "don't make any difference." It's what democracy is.
"I don't contribute to cancer research because my few dollars wouldn't make a difference between solving the mystery of cancer and not finding the solution." Yet every cancer researcher depends heavily on small contributions from individuals who don't have much to give. Solutions are coming, but slower than cancer victims and their loved ones would hope.
"I don't save money in the bank (or under my matress) because I can only put away a small amount each week and that way would take forever to build up. And banks don't give you much interest anyway." Yet the same person will borrow on a 30 year mortgage to buy a house or a long term loan to buy a vehicle. Contributing, one way or another, a little bit each week.
"I don't coddle my child too much because I'm trying to make him independent, to help him learn that he will have to make his way alone in the world as an adult." Yet young children desperately need that cuddling and coddling while they learn the skills, knowledge and ways of the world that will allow them to cope with the downturns of their lives and to excel when they have the opportunities. Too many children grow up to be like trees that lack enough roots to provide the security and nutrition the part above ground needs to survive.
"I don't read magazines and books because no one can keep up with how fast new information is being revealed these days. And beside, my school days of book-learning are over." They likely didn't read a book in school either, except to fake the odd book report. With the rapid increase in knowledge, those who don't try to keep up enclose themselves in a bubble that gradually rolls them into history long before their time on earth is up. They become living anachronisms who increasingly hate the world as they age.
"I don't help those homeless people on the street because it just encourages them to not get jobs where they could afford their own homes." Yet many of those homeless people were so neglected in their childh0od development that the adults in their lives never realized that they had learning problems, coordination problems, physical weaknesses, genetic diseases that would not show up until they were adults or a learning problem similar to a runner "hitting the wall" where everthing taught beyond that point will be missed and most of what went before will be lost. On the street, as begging adults, they're just failures.
In a world of 6.5 billion people, no one person can make a huge difference. Indeed, our design as social animals demands that the only way we can be successful at building rather than destroying our culture, at improving our people rather than harming them, at creating peace rather than sinking again into war, is to work together.
Social animals can survive alone, but they can't grow, can't improve, can't do what our species has the ability to do together.
Failures in life are not those who do not try. Those who do not try are a waste of natural resources. The real failures of life are those who are picking themselves up and looking to how they can build themselves into something new. That kind of failure is temporary. The never-try variety are the dead-ends of our species.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to gather people together to eradicate those problems that the dead-ends claim can't be solved. They can if we work together and have the right tools and methods.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Edmund Burke, statesman and writer (1729-1797)
"I don't vote because my one vote won't make any difference." Yet the whole process of democratic government is founded on the collection and sorting of those single votes that "don't make any difference." It's what democracy is.
"I don't contribute to cancer research because my few dollars wouldn't make a difference between solving the mystery of cancer and not finding the solution." Yet every cancer researcher depends heavily on small contributions from individuals who don't have much to give. Solutions are coming, but slower than cancer victims and their loved ones would hope.
"I don't save money in the bank (or under my matress) because I can only put away a small amount each week and that way would take forever to build up. And banks don't give you much interest anyway." Yet the same person will borrow on a 30 year mortgage to buy a house or a long term loan to buy a vehicle. Contributing, one way or another, a little bit each week.
"I don't coddle my child too much because I'm trying to make him independent, to help him learn that he will have to make his way alone in the world as an adult." Yet young children desperately need that cuddling and coddling while they learn the skills, knowledge and ways of the world that will allow them to cope with the downturns of their lives and to excel when they have the opportunities. Too many children grow up to be like trees that lack enough roots to provide the security and nutrition the part above ground needs to survive.
"I don't read magazines and books because no one can keep up with how fast new information is being revealed these days. And beside, my school days of book-learning are over." They likely didn't read a book in school either, except to fake the odd book report. With the rapid increase in knowledge, those who don't try to keep up enclose themselves in a bubble that gradually rolls them into history long before their time on earth is up. They become living anachronisms who increasingly hate the world as they age.
"I don't help those homeless people on the street because it just encourages them to not get jobs where they could afford their own homes." Yet many of those homeless people were so neglected in their childh0od development that the adults in their lives never realized that they had learning problems, coordination problems, physical weaknesses, genetic diseases that would not show up until they were adults or a learning problem similar to a runner "hitting the wall" where everthing taught beyond that point will be missed and most of what went before will be lost. On the street, as begging adults, they're just failures.
In a world of 6.5 billion people, no one person can make a huge difference. Indeed, our design as social animals demands that the only way we can be successful at building rather than destroying our culture, at improving our people rather than harming them, at creating peace rather than sinking again into war, is to work together.
Social animals can survive alone, but they can't grow, can't improve, can't do what our species has the ability to do together.
Failures in life are not those who do not try. Those who do not try are a waste of natural resources. The real failures of life are those who are picking themselves up and looking to how they can build themselves into something new. That kind of failure is temporary. The never-try variety are the dead-ends of our species.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to gather people together to eradicate those problems that the dead-ends claim can't be solved. They can if we work together and have the right tools and methods.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
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