Strategic Forecasting Changed

In my last point I talked about the use of statistics in fighting crime.  Here is a link to an article in The Atlantic by someone who is leaving the industry of strategic forecasting because it has become corrupted by customers only wanting to hear what they want.  Worse, consolidation and government regulation have combined to distort market trends.

There is no good way to reliably predict the future in these markets anymore, except maybe by being privy to the desires of an ever-decreasing number of centrally connected power players. Companies still need guidance, but if rational analysis is nearly impossible, is it any wonder that executives are asking for less of it? What they are asking for is something, well, less productive.

I quickly picked up on the point of the author, Mr Eric Garland, that increased Government Regulation, amongst other things, was distorting the markets.

Good luck to us with that.

Our form of government works on the idea that the crowd, over time, is smarter than any one individual (and the fact that by giving people a vote we get their buy-in for decisions taken by those elected).  Markets work the same way.  You may think hula-hoops are dumb, but the customers liked them and thus some respect needs to be given to them.

Regards  —  Cliff