When people aren’t talking about the Olympics, they’re likely talking about the Political Scandal du Jour, the Election, the Price of Gasoline, or the Economy.
The Economy is hard for most of us to understand, though, because the explanations usually involve arcane numbers like the Federal Reserve rediscount rate, the core inflation rate, the relative value of our dollar, manufacturer orders for durable goods, etc. — that is, numbers that don’t seem all that connected to what we see around us.
Over the years, I have noticed some correlations between what I see and what I read of economic conditions, and I suspect that a clever economist might make a name for herself by working with some of these statistics:
• Dead tire census. When times are good, you seldom see tire detritus along the highways. These days, you see plenty of peeled treads, shredded sidewalls and the like.
I suspect that this is because most people think the same way I do: If you’re pinched and need to defer a purchase, tires are an easy one to postpone. After all, your car still runs on the old ones, no matter how bald they are, so you can still get around.
The result is that more tires fail on the road. I’m sure we’d have a better fix on our economy if the Colorado State Patrol issued reports like “During the week of Aug. 3, state troopers counted 497 new fragmented tires along state and federal highways. This compares to 378 during the preceding week, and 291 during the same period a year earlier.”
• Deferred home maintenance. This works like tires; it’s something you try to put off. So every town should keep count of houses with tilted sidewalks, peeling paint, flapping shingles, weedy yards and the like.
• Cold call count. When times are good, I hardly ever get unsolicited telephone calls from people trying to sell me something.
Before 10 a.m. yesterday, I had three. One was from a friendly fellow who wanted me to invest in oil and gas prospects. Another was from an aluminum-siding salesman who knew my street address, but did not know that the house is brick and more in need of tuck-pointing than new siding. The third caller was hustling health insurance.
When business is slow, you have to hustle. If we could count these annoyances and compare the results over time, we’d have a better sense of the economic trend.
• Camp-site duration. My daily dog strolls often take me through BLM land between the railroad tracks and the Arkansas River. There are no designated campgrounds on this stretch, but people often camp there anyway. When times are good, they’re there for a day or two. These days, some camps last for weeks, and look more like squatting than camping, what with the clothes lines, generators, territorial dogs and sun porches made from scrounged plywood.
If we had a number for “average length of stay on public land,” and could compare something like “7.8 days in the summer of 2008” to “3.8 days the preceding year,” then we’d know even more than what we learn from figures like home-foreclosure rates.
There are, of course, many other economic factors we could observe. Roadkill, for instance, tends to remain in good times, and vanish quickly when there’s a demand for easy meat and peltry. Those kinds of things would likely tell us a lot more about our economic conditions than the bizarre statistics, disconnected from daily life, that the professional economists insist on using.
