I received several comments about a line in my Brunswick News column yesterday about when I started with the Jobs Board Secretariat in 2015: “I was surprised to find that a lot of bureaucrats in government at the time seemed to be settling into this new reality of population and economic stagnation. There were indeed ongoing discussions about school closures, streamlining public services and other ways to manage in a time of economic decline.”
Predicting the future is a matter of coincidence. Extending trend lines is the only tool we have unless we're clairvoyant. What we can ssay is this; "If we continue to do what we are doing, the present trend forcasts this future. But if we do that, the future will be this..." We naturally assume that if things are going badly, they will get worse, and if everything is great, the future is rosy. That's why few investors beat the S&P over the long term.
You are right. It's the job of our politicians' civil service advisors to present 'what if' scenarios so our politicians can decide what effect they want to have on our future. Of course, there are those unpredictable extraneous circumstances...the best-laid plans of mice and men...man plans, God laughs... But we must keep trying, no?
Predicting the future is a matter of coincidence. Extending trend lines is the only tool we have unless we're clairvoyant. What we can ssay is this; "If we continue to do what we are doing, the present trend forcasts this future. But if we do that, the future will be this..." We naturally assume that if things are going badly, they will get worse, and if everything is great, the future is rosy. That's why few investors beat the S&P over the long term.
You are right. It's the job of our politicians' civil service advisors to present 'what if' scenarios so our politicians can decide what effect they want to have on our future. Of course, there are those unpredictable extraneous circumstances...the best-laid plans of mice and men...man plans, God laughs... But we must keep trying, no?