Reporting the economy as if it’s a sporting competition is the ultimate own-goal
Most economics reporting is about things we can measure: interest rates, inflation, the All Ordinaries index, the unemployment rate, the way the economy is rated by various agencies like Moodies, consumer confidence indexes, business confidence indexes, the exchange rate, GDP, balance of trade and, of course, the deficit.
These inevitably become scoring mechanisms in the media, and journalists tend to cheer when, for example, the exchange rate goes up, or boo when growth comes down. A deficit is nearly always seen as bad and a surplus as good, and we hang breathless on what the ratings agencies say, no matter how discredited the agencies themselves are.
This is not to say that such measures are not useful or important in and of themselves, but it is to say that as ways of keeping ‘score’ they are hopelessly inadequate. Such reporting obscures as much as it reveals because it oversimplifies the hugely complex way in which a globalised economy like Australia’s actually works. Our reliance on them, along with our tendency to back our favourite teams — whether they be political parties or economic ideologies — blinds us to the fundamental shifts in economic and social practice that are disrupting some of our most basic relationships.
This sportification of economics, much like the horse race-calling that passes for political analysis, is of particular concern at the moment because the whole nature of economic activity is going through a once-in-a-hundred-year shift; if ever there were a time to step back and look at things afresh it is now.
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