Economic Surveys

Since we don’t know which factors and aspects have been included and also how they have been measured and interpreted we may proceed with the assumed methodology considered to be usually applied for any macro-economic surveys.

Most indexes are supposed to factor in on priority basis two sets of rather over generalized items considered vital measuring tools for modern life.

1.              Basic necessities for living like food, shelter, affordable education, health care, employment               opportunities along with public transport and infrastructure.

2.            Additional expenditures  on various entertainments, resource utilisation , earnings and certain             items not necessarily universally considered necessities [like automobiles, laptops, air conditioners        etc]

     So, obviously when these two are clubbed together there may be more anomalies than uniform j         justifiable standards.

On lighter vein sometimes some of the pungent remarks made by Nassim Taleb regarding economists seems worth looking into.

An economist is a mixture of 1) a businessman without common sense, 2) a physicist without brain, and 3) a speculator without balls.

Those with brains no balls become mathematicians, those with balls no brains join the mafia, those with no balls no brains become economists.

Discussing growth without concern for fragility: like studying construction without thinking of collapses. Think like engineer not economist.

Success in all endeavors is requires absence of specific qualities. 1) To succeed in crime requires absence of empathy, 2) To succeed in banking you need absence of shame at hiding risks, 3) To succeed in school requires absence of common sense, 4) To succeed in economics requires absence of understanding of probability, risk, or 2nd order effects and about anything, 5) To succeed in journalism requires inability to think about matters that have an infinitesimal small chance of being relevant next January, ...6) But to succeed in life requires a total inability to do anything that makes you uncomfortable when you look at yourself in the mirror.

A trader listened to the firm's "chief" economist's predictions about gold, then lost a bundle. The trader was asked to leave the firm. He then angrily asked him boss who was firing him: "Why do you fire me alone not the economist? He is too responsible for the loss." The Boss: "You idiot, we are not firing you for losing money; we are firing you for listening to the economist."

To have a great day: 1) Smile at a stranger, 2) Surprise someone by saying something unexpectedly nice, 3) Give some genuine attention to an elderly, 4) Invite someone who doesn't have many friends for coffee, 5) Humiliate an economist, publicly, or create deep anxiety inside a Harvard professor.