Published in the Charleston Regional Business Journal
Making
sense of the dismal science: disasters, fast food and slow bridges
By Shelia Watson
I’ve been thinking a lot about the economy lately, especially after finding out that economics, also known as the “dismal science,” is simply the study of wealth. Heck, if I’d known that’s what it was all about, I wouldn’t have dozed through Econ 101.
One thing I discovered is that economists do a whole lot of guessing about things like the stock market, which is where they stage fights between bears and bulls owned by some guy named Dow Jones, who is, apparently, the same Jones everybody is trying to keep up with.
Another thing they guess about is supply and demand: When one thing’s up, the other’s down; when the first one’s down, the other’s up. Economists make predictions based on this see-sawing, although my prediction would be that when the big kid sits on one end, the little kid on the other end is going to go up. How hard is that to figure out?
For some reason people pay attention to this guesswork. Whereas once we tracked the stars and consulted oracles to tell us the future, nowadays we listen to economists, who spend a lot of time staring into their crystal balls and speaking in tongues.
When I found out that economics is “the painful elaboration of the obvious” (and that it doesn’t require any heavy lifting), I decided I’d try out for the job. With my proficiency in exotic languages (I’m among the few people able to understand Strom Thurmond), I prepared my own theories for macro-economics (“buy more elbow macaroni”) and micro-economics (“don’t cook popcorn for more than 2 minutes in the microwave”). Painful elaboration of the obvious follows.
Disaster relief
The upcoming hurricane season provides a good opportunity to demonstrate supply-side economics in which the person delivering the most cans of tuna and bottled water wins. Or try out the pre-hurricane economic model of venture capitalism (or is that “adventure capitalism”?), with hot dog stands and port-a-potties alongside I-26.
Building bridges … slowly
As a Johns Island resident, I share my fellow islanders’ deep reverence for the oldest things (which, by the way, keeps Thurmond in office), even if the reverence is for outdated bridges. While we wait for the fixed span to make its way out to “God’s country,” let’s flirt with a few economic development opportunities at the foot of the Stono and Limehouse. I’m thinking drive-through photo labs, car washes, video stores and stress management booths while we wait.
256K baud rate food
I swear I saw a friend pacing in front of a microwave the other day, barely able to wait the minute it took to heat her coffee. We’re all so busy surfing the Web that none of us has time to cook. My forecast is that the next big thing will be fast food delivered right to the keyboard. Especially if we can order it online.
Since one part of economic development is eliminating waste, I have a recommendation: Combine controversies for more efficient news reporting. Here’s how it’ll work. Hold a lottery to see which news item will lead off, then mention them all in the same segment: “Here we are in front of Charleston County School District’s Taj Mahal, scene of last night’s meeting in which they voted to tax the caps worn by the Port of Charleston’s Union soldiers, who are trying to convince the state legislature that the Confederacy conceded long ago.
“Plans are underway to make a movie about these Lowcountry struggles, to be filmed in Savannah unless the downtown residents lift the ban on dirt-laden streets and badly imitated southern accents. Back to you in the studio.”