I Hate Economists. Don’t You?
I always encourage people to put a positive spin on a bad situation. If it’s something you’ve got to learn to accept then why not embrace it and move on? When life hands you lemons, make lemonade. And so on and so forth.
But it’s an entirely different thing altogether when you lower your expectations so much that negatives become positives. That’s just counter-productive. You can’t set your sights so low that anything is considered good because that’s just selling yourself short. Let me give you a quick example from housing and you’ll see what I mean.
Here’s a quote from the Capital Economics: “Housing still won’t contribute much to GDP growth over the next few years, but at least it will no longer subtract from it.”
That’s fine if the guy is just reporting on the facts. But he also said, “It is clear that housing recovery is now well underway.”
It seems like he’s just lowered his definition of recovery to such a level that he’s complacent. Well, I’m not! A recovery means serious growth in my book. A recovery is able to deal with the looming shadow inventory, with the fact that 31% of properties were picked up solely by investors and not residents, that 32% percent of sales in December were distressed homes.
These numbers aren’t recovery. These numbers mean a tough uphill climb for people. So don’t downplay how tough our situation is. Especially if you’re just an economist who doesn’t actually contribute to the solution but just reports on it. If you want to make lemonade, you need to squeeze something. If you want to find the silver lining you need to be out there like me and my proteges making it happen.
Are you with me? Have you seen a recovery? Or are you making a killing off the slow pace of growth and bringing about some real change?
-
Brian
