The government sponsored ‘Round table’ starts next week.
It seems to me to be a sophisticated ‘balloon floating’ exercise by the government, one that should be supported, just in case it produces any useful outcome.
My expectation is that there will be a full range of balloons floated by all parties. The government can observe the public reaction without having the usually demanded ‘rule in or out’ commentary so hated by the Treasurer, and most sensible people.
One of the challenges for the public will be that the ideas floated will all be backed by extensive research and statistical models that ‘prove’ whatever outcome the proponents seek.
We humans like certainty, data that describes an outcome. Quantitative equals certainty: we are hard-wired to believe data.
It is a pity that the modelling will all be about the future, and frustratingly, there is no data that accurately describes the future.
Just because an economist, politician, business leader or self-serving shyster can produce ‘modelling’ that ‘proves’ an outcome, does not mean it will emerge. All it does is demonstrate they can create an equation that makes a + b + c + f = z. This does not prove z is an outcome of anything more than the equation.
The variables that will be fed into the various models touted as the bees knees, the teller of the future next week, will be a few cherry picked to deliver an outcome favoured by the modeller. In the event that the model spits out an outcome unfavourable to the proponent, no problem, fiddle with the variables until it behaves itself.
Given the above scenario, is it worth the time, effort and expense?
Absolutely.
You never know when and where a good idea will emerge.
You also must, if you are the government, put in place a process that ‘warms up’ the voting public to accept change, and change we must, or be left behind.
However, beware the stinking pile of crappy statistics spat out of dodgy economic models that will fill the news media next week.
We humans like certainty, data that describes an outcome. Quantitative equals certainty: we are hard-wired to believe data.
Frustratingly, there is no data that accurately describes the future.
This means that the output of economic models, no matter how mathematically sophisticated, are just that, mathematical outcomes.
Any similarity to outcomes emerging over a timeframe of more than a few months at most, are a function of luck, not mathematical foresight.
