| Labour isn't working ? 12:58 - Feb 19 with 3527 views | OldFart71 |
Looks like the current policies of Labour are having an adverse effect as inflation has hit 3% and will probably continue to increase as fuel bills are increasing by 5% in April and given that they have increased the costs to Industry by raising N.I. these costs will be passed on to consumers. If the BoE do what they are supposed to do and that's to keep inflation at 2% this will mean either an increase in interest rates or the 3% target will take much longer to achieve. |  | | |  |
| Labour isn't working ? on 12:23 - Feb 20 with 451 views | Herbivore |
| Labour isn't working ? on 11:18 - Feb 20 by Trequartista |
Yep. What is the point of forecasting inflation if it's consistently wrong. Wait for the real figures. Have a bit of patience. |
With inflation alone I take your point, figures come out month by month so it's not like we'd have no idea what's going on if we didn't have projections. That said, these month by month projections will form part of longer term economic forecasts that may then need to be revised based on what actually happens and these are important for all kinds of things (e.g. setting interest rates).
Stuff like COVID is also a bit different, if we didn't model what might happen with the spread of the disease without any mitigations then we wouldn't know what mitigations might be needed. Those kind of projections are necessary to help inform action. They end up looking inaccurate precisely because action is taken to prevent the scenarios being predicted. It's never going to be an exact science with that kind of stuff but that's not to say it has no value. If we'd just waited to see what actually happened with COVID, we'd have ended up with a lot more people dying. [Post edited 20 Feb 12:30]
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| Labour isn't working ? on 12:37 - Feb 20 with 414 views | Trequartista |
| Labour isn't working ? on 12:23 - Feb 20 by Herbivore |
With inflation alone I take your point, figures come out month by month so it's not like we'd have no idea what's going on if we didn't have projections. That said, these month by month projections will form part of longer term economic forecasts that may then need to be revised based on what actually happens and these are important for all kinds of things (e.g. setting interest rates).
Stuff like COVID is also a bit different, if we didn't model what might happen with the spread of the disease without any mitigations then we wouldn't know what mitigations might be needed. Those kind of projections are necessary to help inform action. They end up looking inaccurate precisely because action is taken to prevent the scenarios being predicted. It's never going to be an exact science with that kind of stuff but that's not to say it has no value. If we'd just waited to see what actually happened with COVID, we'd have ended up with a lot more people dying. [Post edited 20 Feb 12:30]
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the covid models were wildly inaccurate simply because there were too many unknown variables. they were talking about a million people contracting the delta variant on christmas day or something very close at one point
i was talking mainly about inflation though and admit i was being a bit flippant when listing other things - they are not that important in the grand scheme of things |  |
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| Labour isn't working ? on 12:40 - Feb 20 with 414 views | Trequartista |
| Labour isn't working ? on 11:51 - Feb 20 by CoachRob |
There are two things here; firstly, you are right about Neoclassical economists being consistently wrong about inflation. The reason behind this is because the assumptions in their models are wrong and don't remotely reflect the real world. This makes them beyond useful and they should be discarded. The Bank of England currently has Ben Bernanke (the guy who completely missed the 2008 GFC) conducting a review of its inflation forecasting methodology and it won't improve as a result.
Secondly, as George Box said, "All models are wrong, but some models are useful" and if we use the correct techniques such as we have done with climate models (we have accurately predicted the near linear change in temperature/CO2 concentrations to this point). A colleague of mine who works at the London Mathematical Laboratory wrote a book about the problem of modelling. It is called Escape from Model Land by Erica Thompson and goes into the problems associated with complexity and nonlinear systems. |
yeah as posted elsewhere i was being a bit flippant here. my sensible take is that models are very useful if the input variables are known, and not when they aren't, and maybe we put too much value on predictions when not enough variables are known [Post edited 20 Feb 12:41]
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| Labour isn't working ? on 12:55 - Feb 20 with 393 views | Herbivore |
| Labour isn't working ? on 12:37 - Feb 20 by Trequartista |
the covid models were wildly inaccurate simply because there were too many unknown variables. they were talking about a million people contracting the delta variant on christmas day or something very close at one point
i was talking mainly about inflation though and admit i was being a bit flippant when listing other things - they are not that important in the grand scheme of things |
Which ones are you referring to regarding COVID? As I mentioned, most of the modelling was done on the basis of different scenarios and the headline grabbing figures tended to be forecasts based on just letting the disease spread with no mitigations. Naturally, those forecasts were way off in hindsight because mitigations were taken to reduce the spread.
I tend to worry about the creeping anti-expert sentiment we have in society that were hinted at in your initial post (which I know was somewhat flippant). Expertise doesn't mean always getting everything right, particularly in environments of high uncertainty. But we need experts. Even the best doctors will have got diagnoses and prognoses wrong in their careers, it doesn't mean we shouldn't bother with doctors. | |
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| Labour isn't working ? on 13:39 - Feb 20 with 344 views | buoyant |
| Labour isn't working ? on 12:02 - Feb 20 by NthQldITFC |
...is the only sane answer.
Along with weaning ourselves of the concept of perpetual growth which is a lunatic's idea of a modus operandi on a planet which is finite in its ability to provide raw materials and more importantly in its ability to absorb 'waste' products and energy and its ability to cope with an increasing population which dim-wittedly feels a wilfully detached entitlement to an increasing average consumer footprint. |
Agreed. We are heading into an economic implosion at some point in the not too distant future, when we will then have to look at how we can sustain our existence with local resources. I don't think this is many generations into the future and likely to be accelerated in the next few years the way the US is heading.
It’s proven that chasing growth has only served to make the rich few even richer whilst billions are made poorer across the planet and to an extent here in the UK.
Surely there is no better time to look to invest in our industry, or what’s left of it, to become more self-sustainable in the next few generations. |  |
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| Labour isn't working ? on 13:47 - Feb 20 with 322 views | Trequartista |
| Labour isn't working ? on 12:55 - Feb 20 by Herbivore |
Which ones are you referring to regarding COVID? As I mentioned, most of the modelling was done on the basis of different scenarios and the headline grabbing figures tended to be forecasts based on just letting the disease spread with no mitigations. Naturally, those forecasts were way off in hindsight because mitigations were taken to reduce the spread.
I tend to worry about the creeping anti-expert sentiment we have in society that were hinted at in your initial post (which I know was somewhat flippant). Expertise doesn't mean always getting everything right, particularly in environments of high uncertainty. But we need experts. Even the best doctors will have got diagnoses and prognoses wrong in their careers, it doesn't mean we shouldn't bother with doctors. |
might have been this which was omicron not delta
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/14/uk-omicron-infections-one-million-
omicron described by chris whitty as a very bad news despite the optimistic data from south africa promptly before omicron ended the pandemic.
i am always determined to put truth above political allegiances and approach with an open mind, so you don't need to worry about me becoming a conspiracy theorist. | |
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