Monday, November 18, 2013

Just say "I don't know"….


A week ago 51 economists "surveyed" by the Bloomberg organization got the monthly jobs "forecast" spectacularly wrong. Off the mark by 50%. Wrong ballpark.

The U.S. economy added 204,000 jobs in October—the collective guess of the clueless wonks was 120,000.
Notice I said "guess," although Bloomberg called it a "survey" and the (always unnamed) economists called it a "forecast."

The economists are always wrong. Their average guess is always wrong. Individually, they're always wrong.

Why do Bloomberg and the news media and the cable TV talking heads keep reporting the useless advance guesses of the 51 guessers who are always wrong?

What's the fascination with trying to know the number one week or one day or one hour before the official report, when we all know that it's impossible to reliably forecast it?

Why do we want to keep fooling ourselves that we know it in advance?

We turn now to a Bloomberg panel of 51 eminent psychologists and sociologists….



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