Seeing the Future

So the raft was in the water, the rods were all strung up, and the gear was almost stowed. The sun reflecting off the diamond chop riffles made it seem like we were giant rock stars with tiny camera flashes bursting around us. The day was starting off well.


Me, Hippie Dave, and John the Baptist (my buddy, not the guy from the Bible) were eager to get fishing. Lugging the ice chest from the truck, I was the last one to the boat. As I walked through the knee-high grass, a swarm of grasshoppers parted before me like President Obama parting the Gulf of Mexico.

I took the first turn on the oars, which I didn’t mind because the fishing’s been slow first thing in the morning. Settling into a comfortable rhythm, I noticed there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.

From the seat behind me, Dave said, “Dude, the weatherman’s predicting that it’s gonna be a great day, and I’m predicting that we’re gonna boat 50 fish…at least 3 over 20 inches.”

We were wearing shades ‘cause our future was most definitely bright.

By the time we got to O’Brian’s Bar and Grill and ordered drinks, we’d caught 4 fish, none over 10 inches. The weather turned sour when a thunderstorm came in, bringing lightning and dangerous winds. A powerful gust sheared off the top a tall cottonwood, which nearly landed right on top of us.

After a shot of Jagermeister, I said, “Dave, I gotta say, you and the weatherman are terrible at forecasting. I wish there was some way to really predict the future so we wouldn’t have to spend another day on the river like that.”

“Actually,” said John, “there is.”

He went on to tell us about this company called Recorded Future that uses its Temporal Analytics Engine (sounds like something Spock might come up with in a “Star Trek” episode to explain how Kirk miraculously appears in time to save Scotty from the brain-eating weevils) to sort through real-time data on the internet to predict the future. They comb through tens of thousands of websites and find the hidden links to people, places and events to determine the momentum of each item in their index.

For a small monthly fee, you can use their tools to predict the future of anything you want. Their website says their clients include investment firms, marketing and public relations firms, and national defense and security agencies.

When I told John he was full of it, he said, “No, really. Google Ventures just made a big investment in the company, and In-Q-Tel, which invests money for the CIA in companies to develop new technology, is also a major backer. They must believe it works”

That got me to thinking.

You know who could use some help predicting the future…Vice President Joe Biden. His ability to forecast the economy and employment sucks.

According to TheNewAmerican.com, back on April 28 at a fundraiser in Pittsburgh, Biden gave a speech where he said, “All in all, we’re going to be creating somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 jobs next month.” And he continued with, “I’m here to tell you some time in the next couple of months we’re going to be creating between 250,000 jobs a month and 500,000 jobs a month.”

That was over 3 months ago, and Joe’s jobs are nowhere to be found. In July, employment decreased by 131,000. Private sector jobs increased by only 71,000, which the New York Times reported as being about half the number needed just to accommodate population growth. Last week, initial jobless claims totaled 500,000, and the trend is going up.

On February 25, 2009, the First Recovery Plan Implementation Meeting was held at the White House – the transcript is posted at whitehouse.gov. Talking about the $787 billion stimulus package, Biden said, “This is about getting this out and spent in 18 months to create 3.5 million jobs.” He went on to say that the spending “literally drop-kicks us out of this recession.”

The 18 months is over, and according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 3.3 million jobs have been lost and unemployment has gone from 7.7% to 9.5%. Department of Commerce statistics show that consumer spending is barely creeping along and personal income is flat. Someone should literally drop-kick some sense into the Vice President.

It doesn’t take a weatherman, a voodoo priestess or a CIA backed analytics firm to know that the economy is in the outhouse, folks need jobs, and companies aren’t rushing out to hire right now. Maybe Joe could improve his predictions by adding Dionne Warwick and her Psychic Friends Network to his economic advisory staff. It couldn’t hurt.

I don’t know, I guess I think too hard about these things.