October 3, 2023

I happened to see an article about Brit Prime Minister Rishi Sunak “watering down” the UK’s pedal-to-the-metal Charge of the Light Brigade towards Net Zero. So far so good. But the picture with the article had Sunak standing behind a podium that announced in all-caps:

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LONG-TERM DECISIONS
FOR A BRIGHTER FUTURE

And do you know what I thought?

I thought: No, Rishi! Whenever a government starts thinking long-term it makes a mess of it. Hello Stalin; hello Mao. And there is a simple reason for that.

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Politics is all about winning the next election. Government is all about ginning up the next war. After the election the politicians hand out the free stuff to their supporters, and after the war the government hands out a “Bonus” — maybe — to the surviving veterans. And then we all start over.

So to all you experts and scientists I suggest these two “real simple” rules.

Rule One: Humans do not have a clue about what is coming next.
Rule Two: Especially politicians and bureaucrats.

How yer doin’, Fauci?

That is why humans need soothsayers and prophets and economic forecasters. And even then, they get it wrong, most of the time. For instance, here is my chart of fearless inflation predictions from the federal budget, courtesy of the Office of Management and Budget. See my US Inflation Analysis page.

You can see where the “transitory” inflation Narrative came from. The OMB bureaucrats forecast no inflation until the FY23 budget. And since then, the OMB scientists and experts keep forecasting that everything will be back to normal in a year, two years max.

It’s odd, isn’t it, that the climate experts and scientists can fearlessly project global temperatures far into the future while the experienced OMB chappies — who have been around, fearlessly forecasting, since the invention of the Bureau of the Budget in 1921 — can’t even forecast next year’s inflation in the little old US of A.