| ▲ | claw-el 4 hours ago |
| The tricky thing about predictions made by public entity or persona is that, the fact that they are making public predictions creates a major influence on the outcome itself. People react to predictions made by them. |
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| ▲ | Spooky23 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| The thing with the Economist is that they have a style that’s like an erudite version of the old Time magazine — that is stories written to say what the editors want. Except the economist is way more dogmatic. I used to read it regularly. I can’t imagine anyone looking to them for predictions, as even a casual reader could probably outline the magazine’s views on most any topic. Let me skim 4-5 recent issues, and I could probably replicate anything they would predict with like 85% accuracy! I will say that my favorite part of the magazine was the wacky ads for big shots working for African countries, various UN things, NGOs, etc. |
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| ▲ | Joker_vD 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Yep. That's why predicting the future of a system you're a part of is sometimes literally impossible; it boils, fundamentally, to the fact that logical negation doesn't have a fixed point. |
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| ▲ | drdeca 25 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | If your prediction is a probability distribution, rather than a discrete outcome label, then, assuming the distribution over the future depends continuously on your action, there should be a fixed point, I think? Like, if you output a probability distribution among n options, and then there is a continuous map from the probability distribution you describe in your output, to another probability distribution over those options… Err, hm, maybe you need a stronger hypothesis on the continuous map? If it is contractive then it will definitely have a fixed point. I don’t remember the hypothesis needed. | |
| ▲ | ngruhn an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | That's a beautifully simple characterization. I've never heard of of that. What keywords do I need to find more on this topic? | | |
| ▲ | eru an hour ago | parent [-] | | Just copy and paste the sentence you admire into your favourite LLM and then ask the question you had? |
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| ▲ | CGMthrowaway 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| A major reason why the new Fed chair is refusing to provide forward guidance, in a major departure from all(?) previous Fed chairs and will likely require textbooks to be rewritten. |
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| ▲ | jjmarr 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Alan Greenspan (fed chair from 1987-2006) was famous for deliberately confusing forward guidance. Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen are the historical anomalies for clearly communicating their intent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fedspeak Quote from Greenspan himself: > As Fed chairman, every time I expressed a view, I added or subtracted 10 basis points from the credit market. That was not helpful. But I nonetheless had to testify before Congress. On questions that were too market-sensitive to answer, 'no comment' was indeed an answer. And so you construct what we used to call Fed-speak. I would hypothetically think of a little plate in front of my eyes, which was the Washington Post, the following morning's headline, and I would catch myself in the middle of a sentence. Then, instead of just stopping, I would continue on resolving the sentence in some obscure way which made it incomprehensible. But nobody was quite sure I wasn't saying something profound when I wasn't. And that became the so-called Fed-speak which I became an expert on over the years. It's a self-protection mechanism ... when you're in an environment where people are shooting questions at you, and you've got to be very careful about the nuances of what you're going to say and what you don't say. | | |
| ▲ | mrandish 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | I think the better Greenspan quote is from one of his earlier congressional testimony sessions: "Since becoming a central banker, I have learned to mumble with great incoherence. If I seem unduly clear to you, you must have misunderstood what I said." |
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| ▲ | claw-el 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Yes, one can see it this way, therefore they don’t want to provide forward guidance. One can also see it another way that ‘their job’ is to purposely use forward guidance to impact direction. Not sure which is the right way. | | |
| ▲ | doctorpangloss 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | imo, its purpose is to be independent, because raising rates (combating inflation) is unpopular. otherwise, its job is pretty simple, it does't take much expertise, gravitas or technology to choose the number or to say no to the president. |
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| ▲ | reenorap 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | No, only since Bernanke. So it’s very recent and not something that was historically done by Fed chairs. | | | |
| ▲ | VladVladikoff 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Strange to eschew the only actual power they have. Interesting times. |
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| ▲ | Mistletoe 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| I don’t think The Economist has that kind of power. More likely that when they make covers like these every normie feels that way and it’s going the other way soon, as it has exhausted every buyer or seller and it has reached the ends of your earth and your Mom and Dad even feel that way. https://www.readtrung.com/p/the-economist-cover-curse-explai... |
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| ▲ | junkaccount 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | It does not by itself but it is often just siding with a narrative that lot of other media houses and political parties are supporting as well. | |
| ▲ | CursedSilicon 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Sorry, but ...Normie? What does that even mean in this context | | |
| ▲ | allthetime 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Someone without a deeper understanding of markets who is just reacting superficially to news, headlines, mainstream information etc. |
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