Come to the Think Tank in the Co-op

[ 4 minute read ]

Not so long ago it would have been outrageous to point a crooked finger at the United States of America. Yet, now, it seems we can safely expostulate that Americaland might be responsible for some of the woes that afflict us on a daily basis. 

For a few years, and definitely more recently, I have been curious as to why there is a drive towards collecting information at the micro-level; individual person economics. When I read about who got the Nobel Prize for Economics, and for what, it became clear to me. Banks now need to know how the individual person spends their money, how they got to the shops and why they went anywhere. They use this information to soften the blow of macro-level events that could negatively impact on financial markets. This was a lesson in 'considering Black Swan events as probable' and now are only Grey Swans. (My downgrade of language and my upgrade of security status). Humans have been, to economists, notoriously irrational since forever. Not any more, it seems. By tracking my every move every bank in the world, with a subscription to whatever software it needs, can know exactly what I, living in the UK, will be likely to do if aliens glue up the San Andreas fault after it splits wide open and spews magma into the Pacific Ocean which affects the Humboldt Current off the Chilean coast and the price of Giant Humboldt Squid in fish-markets goes up and down in Peru.

Now we might think that it takes a fine mind to understand that large events affect how an individual might spend their money but it doesn't. In my local Co-op the sales assistant told me the same as the two Nobel Prize winners in economics have expostulated. I like a good chin-wag in shops; they are kind of neutral ground in which people have valid reasons to break off conversation; 'I must go, I sent the kids to visit their grandmother in the woods yesterday and they came back with some gingerbread and a glass slipper. I don't trust them any more. Bye!'

During our conversation I suggested that the Americans have a lot to answer for (I meant North America without Canada). Over a couple of years I have noticed a lessening resistance to considering any statement that blames Americaland for the worlds problems to be even partially valid. While some people will still instantly dismiss any anti-Americaland statement as poppy-cock and twaddle, putting Americaland, Russia and China in the same sentence as instigators of global and personal deterioration is finally acceptable and is considered to be worthy of some consideration, however fleeting. That is, many, many people no longer instantaneously remove the concept of Americaland being similar to 'known' threats such as Russia and China.

Of course, anyone who has read '1984' by George Orwell would realise that this week we are at war with Oceania while Eurasia is our friend, and next week it will be Eurasia we are at war with and always were, and Oceania has always been our friends. That is by-the-by though. How come a shop assistant in my village has the same simple idea as Americanese professors, that understanding macro-economics starts with micro-economics on an individual basis? Further, how come I have been saying that SmartPhones are bad for us for the last ten years and only now governments are considering legislating against their usage? Where are the shop assistants, and the public's shared Nobel Prizes?

       'Ladies and Gentlemen of a bygone era and the rest of you, It gives me no pleasure to express my disappointment in discovering that the Nobel Prize for excellence goes to two normal people. These two people, however, have generously donated the prize money to start a charity-fund for scientists and thinkers who have spent their entire lives working on problems that can be fixed by having a conversation in a supermarket with shop staff. The money shall be spent on normalising scientists and replacing lab-technicians with the nine-year-olds of today. From this point on... there shall be vocational training in primary schools that teach children to be sensible. Ladies and Gentlemen of the past and everyone else, I give you two average people who were properly educated to understand the world we live in!'

Of course, there are others who over-hearing my conversations in supermarkets believe I am a conspiracy theorist. Right next to the newspaper stand in the Co-op I was told by a different shop assistant to my fellow Nobel Prize winner, that the tills were not accepting debit or credit cards. I asked, tongue-in-cheek, if he suspected Russia as the culprit.

       'I doubt that! I don't believe in conspiracy theories!' he blurted. He might not understand the humour of the 'good old days' when Sherlock Holmes and Lieutenant Colombo asked seemingly innocuous questions. 'Just one more thing....'

       'Oh, you are no fun at all,' I said, 'You're a realist, aren't you?' He nodded. I thought he would be a great father but not much fun in a pub on a Friday night.

I couldn't help smiling as I left him. Right behind him the headline on one of the newspapers said that MI5 was warning us to be aware that Russia was using cyber-technology to negatively affect the UK economy. Actually, that was the subtext. Newspapers lie though, don't they? If that conspiracy theory works for him then he, I suggest, will never be worthy to imagine giving away 12,000,000 SEK (Swedish Krona) - ($1.2 million). 

I think it is fairly certain that my understanding of the world is not contiguous with everyone's else's understanding of the world.