Death Wave

Ok, look at this story…

I was sitting at my laptop writing today with this on the coffee table staring me back in the face.

UCLA forecast: DARK DAYS

Then the byline went on to say that unemployment is going to be just terrible. (that’s how it came across to me)

I read part of the article which quoted the prestigious Anderson School of Business who said that the this would be a slow economic recovery with massive unemployment - This is despite the recent bit of Wall Street recovery.

That’s about when I stopped reading. That’s about when my stomach started to turn thinking of those dark days ahead.

Still, I kept looking back at the business section haunting me as I was trying to write. And, that’s when I saw the second sentence of the byline. “But policy changes hamper predictions.”

Hamper predictions? What the hell does that mean? So if there’s good policy that sparks economic growth then your prediction will be hampered? Sorry to cramp your style Anderson School. We wouldn’t want to get in the way of your forecast.

And, how do you exactly quantitate a “Dark Day“? - other than an eclipse. I’m very sure there isn’t even an astronomer alive who would make that part of their scientific jargon. Sorry to pull rank here but I have a degree in physics. I know science.

Now maybe business is not a science. That is clearly borne out from our misunderstood and poorly run economy of recent where there doesn’t seem to be an economist alive who can understand it.

So if this is true, I’m not sure economists are allowed to make any kind of forecast whatsoever. Especially not the emotionally charged one like: “Dark Days”.

Ok, in economic terms what the hell is a dark day? I know that meteorologists call the worst tornado a category 5 and not “whisk your sorry ass 300 feet in the air and impale a 2×4 through your chest while you tumble to your bloody death.” (do they?)

Or maybe it wasn’t Anderson at all. Maybe it was The LA Times reporter who knows that fear sells stories almost as well as Octomom or Britney but is somehow more believable. Somehow more adult and worthy. Somehow should be more acceptable to business section readers.

Or maybe not.

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