Lessons in Economics and Theft (#2 of the Pride Series)

Part Two of My Christmas Series ‘Pride, More Pride and Quite a Lot of Extreme Prejudice’ (See Part One Here):

“Exact numbers are all calculated alike; every inexact number is miscalculated in its own way.”  Such is the motto of the Department of National Statistics.

The problem, it seems, lies in numbers and Frussterer struggles with numbers.  You can’t trust them.  They will always betray you.  They’ve never betrayed him this much before.

To explain his looming crisis, Dear Reader, we must consider the meaning, use and widespread misuse of numbers.

You will understand, of course, that exact numbers are rare – pi, the speed of light, the constant in the system of Naperian logarithms – whereas the number of inexact numbers multiplies exponentially as humankind tries vainly to understand the world.

You will also understand, I’m sure, how these more-flexible numbers offer much political opportunity.  That’s why the official Overestimators and Underestimators have long been esteemed employees of the aforementioned department.  They are the great experts.  Their techniques of enumerating innumerable quantities are constantly discussed at international conferences.  Each has its function, but the only thing they agree upon is the immensity of the other’s misestimation.

It’s barely a secret that successive Presidents (numbered 1 to 44) have manipulated misestimation to their advantage.  But turning into a new century, twenty going on twenty-one, the judicious management of misestimation became paramount.  The Internet and Social Media made that certain.  It is now a cornerstone of political power, necessary in an age when so much ‘information’ is freely distributed.  It’s a shame Frussterer hasn’t quite mastered it, though admittedly recent events would have made it hard for a Pythagorean mathematician to keep control.

Let’s be clear, back in the 1800’s, it hardly mattered that Abe Lincoln was a lawyer with no more arithmetical ability than a $3 pocket calculator from Wal-Mart.  It was irrelevant how many Irish peasants expired in the great potato famine, or how many fingers were lost by textile workers in Manchester looms, or whether more acres of Canadian forest were desecrated this year than last.  Even if attempts to enumerate such quantities were accidentally accurate, the networks for distributing the measurements to the general public were poor.  No one knew and, as with all unknowns, no one cared much either.

The 1900’s saw the development of radio, telephone and television.  These were forms of limited distribution, vehicles perfect for a President with numbers that sent a happy message.  Any negative truth that happened to leak out could be easily reevaluated and countered, confronted and denied.

This was the golden age of politics, a liar’s paradise.  That’s why Nixon got elected.

Then, at the end of the century, came this something called the Net.  The Net threatened to give plebeian citizens instant access to any measured or estimated quantity they desired, and the power to publish their own.

In the early years of Century 21, the masses started demonstrating about damage to the planet’s environment and the injustice of wars they would normally have fought without question.  It was clear there was an epidemic of public awareness.

Frussterer’s wrong-headed predecessor had pursued a policy of overwhelming choice, based on the theories of a certain Professor Daville, a Harvard alumnus.

Stated succinctly, Daville’s theory was as follows:

“A growth in available information produces the illusion of knowledge.  Knowledge is power.  People feel good about power.  Therefore, a growth in available information makes people feel good.”

Of course, a growth in available information only produces real knowledge if all of the information is accurate.  Therefore, when governments release two or more estimates of the same quantity, it makes people feel good, while preventing an increase in public knowledge, and in the best of cases, may even destroy unhelpful knowledge that already exists.  Even a befuddled Republican could grasp the obvious opportunities. 

Consequently, the government encouraged the growth of television channels, multiplying them ten-fold in the mistaken belief that a hundred people knowing a hundred different facts was less dangerous that a hundred people knowing the same fact.  At the same time, viruses were introduced to stem the expansion of public computer networks, much as myxomatosis had been used to curb the population of rabbits.  We’ve all seen how successful that was.

Frussterer inherited a time bomb.  In the apocalyptic first 90 days of the new President’s American nightmare, it seems the bomb has exploded.  All it took was one fact that can’t be denied.

The President repeats the ‘How?’ question, asking it again and again as he tries to assess the disaster.

Nayshore has run out of uncertainty.  The Yeses still can’t offer anything.

“I should throw you guys out.  She makes more sense,” says Frussterer, pointing at the Intern, who is, by now, reduced to a seat in the corner, legs crossed à la Sharon Stone.

It should be said that Frussterer is, at this point, still a bull with virility intact, still divinely inspired, and it behoves a man in such a position to notice the tightness of a young maid’s blouse, the curve of a breast, the line of a leg in a tailored skirt, even as the world hurtles towards its end.  Whether it is her wisdom or other more physical parts, he seeks at this point, I shall leave you to judge for yourselves.

The Intern smiles.  To the question of ‘How?’ she imparts the following intelligence: the estimation requests were filed in the normal manner.  That was over a year ago, on the previous guy’s watch.  Somehow the assignments got switched.

“We think someone dropped the in-tray over at Statistics,” she says.  “That’s why we were surprised by the snow at the Summer Olympics.  People are calling it Global Warming.”

“Global warming?  I thought you said it snowed?” says the President.

“Global warming apparently doesn’t always mean having warmer weather,” she suggests.  “Sometimes it means colder weather.”

“Warmer?  Colder?  What do I care?  That one sounds easy enough to deny,” Frussterer concludes.  “I’m sure we could put this to a scientific committee of experts and have them report that no action was necessary.”

“We already have that in hand, sir,” says Sicanto.

The President nods in satisfaction.  The Intern knows she should point out that having one room full of liquid nitrogen and another full of boiling oil may mean that the average temperature has not changed, but it doesn’t mean that the house is conducive to human habitation.  She decides to pass for now, because she knows the oil question is by far the harder.  The heartlands of America might be expected to ignore the rise of the sea and the creep of the African desert; they will surely notice the occasional lack of gas at the local filling station and increasingly black ‘brownouts’ in the electricity supply.  Telling them it’s all going to be OK and that they should put their money back on Wall Street is not going to be easy with those visual clues on display.

                                    < ….. to be continued: Part 3 on 16/12/2015 at 1400 GMT>