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Economists Get Some Crystal Balls
Because nobody wants to touch Trump’s old ones.
An announcement by the White House has economists scrambling for alternative data sources to do economic forecasting.
President Trump has placed Kellyanne Conway¹ in charge of producing all economic statistics reported by the Federal government. “She was the Queen of Alternative Facts during my first administration,”² said the President. “Now Kellyanne will be the Queen of Alternative Stats!”
Kellyanne’s appointment alarmed investors, corporate executives, and legislators who rely on Federal data to make financial, business, and policy decisions.
Fortunately, economists have identified nontraditional data that can be used to assess the health of the economy.
An example is the Underwear Index (UI).³ This is reported quarterly by HanesBrands®,⁴ a global manufacturer of innerwear such as Hanes® men’s undies and Maidenform® women’s shapewear. The Underwear Index tracks the sales of men’s skivvies. When the UI is up, men are buying new panties; the economy must be doing well. When the UI is down, the economy is down too, because men can’t afford new manties. Instead, they wear their tighty-whities ’til they’re neither tighty nor whitie. They wear them until all that’s holding them together is the skidmarks. And when their knickers finally fall apart, they shove an old catcher’s mitt in their crotch to cup their bat and balls.
Economists are also using the Family Furlough Rate (FFR) to assess the economy. Reported quarterly by the TikTok® video platform,⁵ the FFR shows the frequency with which parents are laying off their kids.
According to TikTok, “It’s ticked up a lot lately.” That’s not surprising. When parents need to cut costs, they regard kids as low-hanging fruit. So when the economy goes south, dependents get downsized. An example was posted to TikTok by Mason Pettigrew, an eighth grader in Dyersburg, Tennessee.
When my sister and I sat down at the supper table this evening, we expected our parents to ask what we’d done at school that day. Instead, Dad said GDP growth has slowed, manufacturing orders are off, consumer spending is down, and unemployment claims are up.⁶ “The economy’s in trouble,” continued Mom. “So we’re gonna have to let one of you go.”
Economists know the Furlough Rate is reliable only if parents use cost accounting methods for Consumables to estimate their savings. Consumables are short-term assets — e.g., items stocked for a short period of time. Examples are toothpaste, toilet paper, and Q-Tips®. Likewise, kids are considered Consumables if they’re stocked for no more than eighteen years.
The first cost accounting method is LIFO⁷ (last in, first out). LIFO shows how much parents will save if the child who was born last is kicked out first. That allows them to avoid spending ~$17,000⁸ per year to provide their future teenager with:
- PlayStations®, iPhones®, earbuds, Fitbits®, fidget spheres, and MegPads®;
- Air guitar, air drumming, and lip syncing lessons;
- Equipment and transportation to Competitive Cheerleading, extreme skateboarding, ultimate frisbee, and Quidditch tournaments;
- Concert tickets to see Bubble Puppy, Not Ur Girlfrenz, and 200 Stab Wounds;
- High school study trips to have wildlife encounters in Key West, do cultural immersion in Miami Beach, and study rainforest ecosystems in Las Vegas;
- Gap year education programs to do wizarding at Hogwarts, Lord of the Rings ring-questing in New Zealand, and Hunger Games paintball death matches in Panem (just outside Orlando); and
- Adderall® for Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, Xanax® for anxiety, Lexapro® for depression, and Xenical® to lose weight.
Parents use FIFO⁷ (first in, first out), the second method, to calculate the savings if they axe their eldest. Granted, they can’t recover the sunk costs. But they can cut their losses. That’s especially true when a teen assumes their entry-level job after college will:
- Pay a nosebleed-high salary;
- Immediately bestow high social status;
- Let them use AI to do research, write reports, create presentations, compose emails, concoct self-performance reviews, and pen thank-you notes;
- Offer access to an on-site gym, yoga studio, gaming parlor, and nap rooms;
- Provide concierge services to gas up their car, do oil changes, mail packages, and take the dog to the vet;
- Offer paid puppy leave, Botox® leave, and “snow days” to go skiing;
- Do pajama Mondays, cosplay Tuesdays, Netflix© binge watch Wednesdays, Gilmore Girls Thursdays, and beer-cart Fridays; and
- Have a work-life balance that doesn’t cramp their Instagram-worthy lifestyle.
FIFO is doubly applicable if the teen has LIPO (Low Income POtential). In other words, they’ll top out career-wise as a professional wedding guest, funeral mourner, line stander, or human statue.
Economists needed to replace data supplied by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). That’s because it ceased being trustworthy when Trump fired the BLS commissioner for issuing reports that proved that his policies are hobbling the economy.⁹
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Luckily, economists have identified two nontraditional stats that indicate weaknesses in the job market.
One is the Diploma Factory Return Rate (DFRR). Published quarterly by DeVry University®, a for-profit college, the DFRR reports the numbers of:
- DeVry graduates who moved back in with their parents because they couldn’t get a job; and
- Parents who charged DeVry a re-stocking fee¹⁹ for having to take back their kids.
The second job market indicator is the Return-To-Nest (RTN) Rate. This is issued semi-annually by Park-O-Meter (POM)¹⁰, America’s oldest parking meter manufacturer. It reports the number of meters purchased by parents, then installed beside the beds of Boomerang Kids¹¹ to remind them that their sleeping arrangement is temporary.
Economists have found a substitute for the housing market reports¹² produced by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Those are considered dodgy because Trump’s HUD secretary¹³ was an executive at a homebuilding company which routinely stiffed its construction workers.¹⁴
Economists instead use a statistic called the Cardboard Box Benchmark (CBB). The CBB is released quarterly by Custom Boxes Now¹⁵, a sixty-year-old corrugated box manufacturer. It reports orders of cardboard sheets cut and creased to be folded into single-family residences.
Increasing numbers of people are using them, according to the CBB. Cardboard was already cheaper than traditional housing materials. It’s even more so after Trump’s tariffs on imported lumber, gypsum, steel, and aluminum increased the cost of a typical new home by $10,900.¹⁶ And people don’t need to hire tradesmen to build a cardboard home. They can do it themselves with a box cutter and Duck Tape®.
Finally, economists are using an economic indicator published by the largest retirement community in the nation, The Villages®¹⁷ in Florida. It’s the Kick the Bucket Benchmark (KBB). It shows the frequency with which residents decide they’ve had enough of Village living and self-deport to the Promised Land.
Unfortunately, the KBB is questionable. It may indicate a weak economy if seniors take the ultimate afternoon nap because the cost of living is too high. On the other hand, oldsters are cheap. They may “go toward the light”¹⁸ just to pull the cord to turn it off.
[1]: “Kellyanne Conway”, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kellyanne_Conway
[2]: “Conway: Trump White House offered ‘alternative facts’ on crowd size”, CNN, https://www.cnn.com/2017/01/22/politics/kellyanne-conway-alternative-facts
[3]: “The underwear theory of economic growth”, Bikash Kampo, https://bikashkampo.com/the-underwear-theory-of-economic-growth/
[4]: “fact sheet”, HainesBrands, https://newsroom.hanesbrands.com/corporate-fact-sheet/default.aspx
[5]: “TikTok,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TikTok
[6]: “The Conference Board Leading Economic Index® (LEI) for the US Declines in August”, The Conference Board, https://www.conference-board.org/topics/us-leading-indicators/
[7]: “8 Inventory Costing Methods for Effective Stock Valuation”, lightspeed, https://www.lightspeedhq.com/blog/inventory-costing-methods/
[8]: “How Much Does It Cost to Raise a Child?”, Northwestern Mutual, https://www.northwesternmutual.com/life-and-money/how-much-does-it-cost-to-raise-a-child/
[9]: “Firing BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer”, Economic Policy Institute, https://www.epi.org/policywatch/firing-bls-commissioner-erika-mcentarfer/
[10]: “History”, POM Inc., http://pom.com/our-history/
[11]: “Boomerang Children: Meaning, Impact, Around the World”, Investopedia, https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/boomerangs.asp
[12]: “National Housing Market Summary and Data,” Department of Housing and Urban Development, https://www.huduser.gov/portal/ushmc/quarterly_commentary.html
[13]: “Scott Turner”, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Turner_(politician)
[14]: “San Diego Construction Company Fined For Wage Theft Violations”, Patch, https://patch.com/california/san-diego/san-diego-construction-company-accused-wage-theft-violations
[15]: “About Custom Boxes Now”, Custom Boxes Now, https://customboxesnow.com/about-us/
[16]: “How Tariffs Impact the Home Building Industry”, National Association of Home Builders, https://www.nahb.org/advocacy/top-priorities/building-materials-trade-policy/how-tariffs-impact-home-building
[17]: “Learn About Us”, The Villages, https://www.thevillages.com/about-us/
[18]: “‘Go Toward the Light’: The Science of Near-Death Experiences”, Psychology Today, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/extreme-fear/201004/go-toward-the-light-the-science-of-near-death-experiences
[19]: “What is a Restocking Fee, And Alternative Options”, Cahoot, https://www.cahoot.ai/what-is-a-restocking-fee/
