• Home
  • About
    • About Competitive Futures
    • About Eric Garland
    • News
  • Case studies
    • Competitive strategy
    • Economic development
    • Opportunity assessment
  • Services
    • Research
      • Technology foresight
      • Future customer profiles
      • Competitor positioning
      • Investment due diligence
    • Training
      • Future Intelligence course
      • Real Forecasting
  • Media
    • Best practice reports
    • Books by Eric Garland
    • Articles by Eric Garland
    • Podcast episodes
    • STEEP Reports
    • Presentations
  • Blog
  • Contact

And they mock FUTURISTS for bad forecasts…

Tuesday, 25 August 2009 09:29 Last Updated on Tuesday, 25 August 2009 09:32 Written by Eric Garland 4 Comments

This morning I awoke to the news that Obama will be nominating Ben Bernanke for another turn at the helm of the Federal Reserve.

My only commentary would be that if you are a self-described futurist and misread the most basic economic trends for your clients, you won’t be called up for more fame and success. At some point, your bad forecasts need to call into question your methodology, and indeed, your competence.

I would say that the reason we don’t replace Bernanke despite his malpractice is that our current crop of leaders are defending our current institutions at all cost, and Bernanke plays well at that game.

Leaders need to ask themselves, do they want institutions that thrive in future realities, or ones that exist DESPITE those realities? Only our most senior leaders can make such a choice, and right now they are choosing the latter.

Tags:  Ben Bernanke, forecasts, The Fed
This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 25th, 2009 at 9:29 am and is filed under Economics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
  • jlswanson

    Oh good lord, where to even begin with this one.

    I think we covered a lot of this in the infrastructure discussion you had posted before, but how much more energy are we going to put into “staying the course”?

    Is the lesson learned here is if you have billions or trillions of other people's money you can keep guessing till you get it right?

  • http://www.competitivefutures.com/blog ericgarland

    I think what I've learned is that the “leaders” of our institutions are protecting the institutions and not the nation they purport to serve. I have nothing against banks, agencies, even the Fed itself. It's just stunningly clear that their leaders have confused the financial success of a few private firms with the health of the entire society.

    The lesson is for other leaders who may not have the same number of powerful lobbyists working on their behalf. THEY will really need to pay attention to reality, as the federal treasury is only writing blank checks to a select few. The rest of us still need to forecast the petroleum spot markets, plan for the Boomer retirement, and choose solid business strategies.

    Otherwise, as a futurist, this kind of thing is galling just because I feel BAD if I'm this wrong, just on principle!!

  • jlswanson

    Oh good lord, where to even begin with this one.

    I think we covered a lot of this in the infrastructure discussion you had posted before, but how much more energy are we going to put into “staying the course”?

    Is the lesson learned here is if you have billions or trillions of other people's money you can keep guessing till you get it right?

  • http://www.competitivefutures.com/blog ericgarland

    I think what I've learned is that the “leaders” of our institutions are protecting the institutions and not the nation they purport to serve. I have nothing against banks, agencies, even the Fed itself. It's just stunningly clear that their leaders have confused the financial success of a few private firms with the health of the entire society.

    The lesson is for other leaders who may not have the same number of powerful lobbyists working on their behalf. THEY will really need to pay attention to reality, as the federal treasury is only writing blank checks to a select few. The rest of us still need to forecast the petroleum spot markets, plan for the Boomer retirement, and choose solid business strategies.

    Otherwise, as a futurist, this kind of thing is galling just because I feel BAD if I'm this wrong, just on principle!!

About the blog

This is the official trend blog of Competitive Futures, a management consultancy that provides trend research and analysis for business and government around the world. Here, we update you on interesting trends we see as part of our work for our clients.


For managing partner Eric Garland's new author and speaker blog, please consult and bookmark http://www.ericgarland.co

Get trend updates sent to your mailbox

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

Sign up for the CompFutures Trend Report

Trends we’re tracking

Tags

agriculture analysis bailout bailouts banking banks business development business models California China competitive intelligence debt disruption Economic Development Economics economy education Energy Entrepreneurialism Facebook finance financial crisis forecasting forecasts foresight future Futurism Greece healthcare intelligence leadership Media mergers mindsets music oil petroleum psychology publishing Retail scenarios social media social networks strategy urbanization
Podcast powered by podPress v8.8.10.12