... and especially if you confuse statistics with the development of scientific cause and effect explanations, that will cause problems.

I mean, suppose that a year in advance we couldn't predict to the day when the financial fragility would collapse.

But the fact that the financial sector was in a state of financial fragility was straightforward, from historical comparison with the states of previous financial systems prior to serious financial collapses, and the fact that sooner or later a financial system in that state is going to have a breathtaking collapse that threatens to seriously damage the productive sector of the economy is straightforward from a cause and effect explanation of how a financial system is exposed to collapse when it is in a financially fragile state.

And after all, that's what makes his turkey example a turkey. In the US, there is a strong spike of demand for Turkey in November and again in December. Therefore, the chance of a turkey surviving the fourth quarter of a year is not something to judge based on that individual turkey's success in surviving quarters 1 through 3. Its something to judge by looking at past fourth quarters, expected rates of Turkey sales, supply of Turkeys being bred for slaughter, and evaluation of where that Turkey stands in the queue for slaughter this year.


I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.