WHO DO WE LISTEN TO? NOT ECONOMISTS, WASHINGTON BELTWAY OR WALL STREET THAT IS FOR SURE!
Having attained most of my education in the real world from the school of hard knocks I was amazed and absolutely confused today when I read an article on page two-section one of the Wall Street Journal which stated of the 51 economists they surveyed, 27 of them (whom I would declare are either intellectual snobs or complete morons) are now convinced America and the world is out of recession. What boloney! As general education has dumbed down the masses over the past twenty five years an intellectual elite who do nothing but play around feeding bullshit into computers and coming out with all sorts of nonsense has taken over the world. When it comes to measuring the economy every day we are told the financial markets are awaiting news of some about to be announced report. These much “sought after” reports can be on subjects such as the future trends in the price of pork bellies, housing sales, wholesale inventories, machine tool orders, whether the Fed will adjust the prime rate, purchasing orders, treasury auctions, the list goes on. This is what happens when intellectuals who have nothing better to do than dream up manufacturing more nonsense out of nonsense all the while spinning and making it sound so cerebral, so dumb fools like us really believe we are village idiots!
I liken it to how our industry: once universities saw an opportunity to become involved we were “morphed” from being simple freight forwarders moving boxes from point A to point B to where today just about every forwarding company has the word logistics in their company name! Warehousing and distribution which perfectly describes its purpose has for the last twenty years been known as 3PL or 4PL! I am not denying technology has made transportation a little more sophisticated from those not so long ago days when all the forwarder needed to be in the business was a small warehouse, a truck, forklift and a pokey little office, with a couple of phone lines, desks, a telex machine. The only difference today; the computer and all its accoutrements!
Thirty years ago the measuring rods for determining the state of the economy were pretty simple. First and foremost were the unemployment numbers, secondly international trade, thirdly savings and maybe fourthly inflation. Today’s economists claim we have mastered the ability to contain inflation (over the last fifteen years lower wages for the masses and cheap junk from China) so that no longer becomes a factor, in-balance of trade has become no concern for economists even though our trade with China is 6-1 in their favor, economists today care little about more consumer debt created by unbridled spending, leaving only unemployment as a factor of old in measuring the state of the economy.
Here is my list of indicators that I believe matters in knowing where the economy stands;
• Unemployment
• GDP growth
• Airline passenger numbers
• Hotel occupancy rates
• Home foreclosures
• Retail sales
• Advertising sales
• International trade by volume and value
• Car sales
• Bank lending
The above is pretty basic stuff and if those ten factors were used to determine the state of the nation then the simple answer to, “Are we out of the recession yet?” would be an unequivocal “NO!” When will we ever return to the good old days? Not for many years to come is my prognosis. But who am I? A simple bloke who managed to finish high school, failed at University and has spent a lifetime trying to succeed but never being able to declare himself a winner.
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