SEE FUTURTRS WHICH INCLUDES MUCH OF THIS STUFF. CHAPTER 8X FORECASTING THE LONG RUN: THE FUTURE IS A FIGHT ABOUT KOSHER DUCKS Perhaps it would be appropriate if the author of this book on thinking put himself on the line by exhibiting his own thinking on a very chancy and argument-prone subject - the long run future. So here goes a forecast. The Washington, D. C. Jewish community has been convulsed by a dispute about whether ducks sold in a kosher Chinese restaurant in Silver Spring, Maryland, were bought from a kosher wholessaler, or were instead bootlegged from a non-kosher Chinese duck dealer. The dispute, which involves Lenny Ung's Moshe Dragon, rabbis, community leaders and private detectives, has been fought out in the news and letters columns of the Washington Jewish Weekly. Some bystanders have been convulsed by laughter. But many persons and organizations have been convulsed with anger, causing damage to business as well as to mood. The kosher duck fight illuminates the future of the United States and the world. It also points to profitable investment strategy. Seriously. Notice how this incredibly legalistic issue could receive so much attention from the Jewish community and newspaper. The duck fight is the focus of the news because there is a dearth of other exciting news. In the same vein, Washington Post columnist Judy Mann complains about the difficulty of learning how to operate a new VCR and a microwave. And the Post's Tony Kornheiser complains about having to wait a long time in McDonald's and in a supermarket line. These complaints are our modern luxury, which our affluence affords us. A starving person has other complaints. One can predict with considerable confidence that the 1990s - and even more so, the decades after the year 2000 - will focus on more trivial news stories like kosher ducks and VCR instructions. This accompanies the forecast that economic problems of sustaining life and health, and creating a high and rising standard of living, will become less and less pressing. Natural resources will continue to diminish as a problem of humanity. The level of education will increase all over the world, and purchasing power along with it. The only impending shortage is a shortage of economic shortages. This implies that profitable investments lie in sectors that profit from affluence. Stay away from commmodities; their prices will fall, as they have been falling for hundreds and thousands of years. Sell marginal farm land; it will become less valuable as productivity per acre increases. Buy land that was waste in the past because it is mountainous or inaccessible; it will become more profitable for its recreational value. It is common to think that economists cannot predict the future very well. The Wall Street Journal's columnist Lindley H. Clark is typical: "Economists have a great deal of trouble predicting the future, and it's unlikely that this unhappy situation ever will change". And indeed, economists -- and everyone else, too -- cannot predict short-run trends of interest rates, exchange rates, and security prices. This incapacity is well-established scientifically. It is possible to forecast long run trends with great reliability. Of course this is contrary to all common sense and common belief. "If it's so hard to be right about a decade, imagine the howlers in store a century hence", says the Wall Street Journal. And the Journal quotes Martin Gardner, the famous writer about mathematical puzzles and scientific fallacies, as saying that prediction "is like a chess game. You can predict a couple of moves ahead, but it's almost impossible to predict 30 moves ahead." That may be true for some matters, such as the weather and politics. But this is not true for economics. Indeed, it is almost a sure-thing prediction -- subject only to the qualification that there be no global war or political upheaval -- that people in the future will live longer lives than they do now, with higher incomes and better standards of living, and the costs of natural resources will be lower than at present. These predictions are so certain because the very same predictions, made at all earlier times in history, would have turned out so. And sound theory explains these benign trends. Check for yourself: Though the stock market gyrates from day to day and week to week, its course from decade to decade is almost always upward. The story is the same in reverse with natural resources. Copper, iron, wheat, rice, sugar, and every other natural resource have fallen in price, and therefore risen in availability, throughout the two hundred years of U. S. history, and over the thousands of years of human history wherever records exist. This makes sense. The history of civilization is a history of increasing knowledge of how to produce goods more efficiently and cheaply. This goes hand-in-hand with liberty becoming more widespread, and with increased mobility and communication. All this progress is reflected in the long-run trends of human welfare. Herman Kahn, my co-editor on the last book he worked on, was frequently "accused" by people of being an optimist. Herman used to reply, "I'm not an optimist, I'm a realist". And it is indeed realistic to forecast improving long-run material trends for humanity, forever. If our material situation will continue to improve - which includes fewer material problems such as fires and losses to natural disasters such as hurricanes and earthquakes, as our buildings become stronger - what challenges does the future hold? How will journalists deal with their problem of no economic bad news? Inevitably, attention will concentrate on emotional, political, and spiritual issues. Sex will always be perplexing. People will struggle ever more for honor and status, which - as Adam Smith pointed out - are the real goal of economic man. Exploration of the solar system and perhaps sub-atomic domains may absorb adventurous youths, as finding new continents did Columbus and Americus Vespucci. For lack of economic issues, political buffs will shout up the environment. But the specific nature of future issues is not revealed by this economist's crystal ball. Nor can it even be seen whether we will be happier in the future than now, or whether we will be as pained with our new problems like duck kosherness of ducks as we were pained in the past by famine, death, and poverty. Sounds interesting, though. futur8-@ thinking April 9, 1990 Clark, "Housing May Be in for a Long Dry Spell", Jan 19, 1990, p. A 10 on Gardner, Jan 11, 1990, p. 1Kornheiser, Jan 7, 1990, F1 Mann, Jan 17, 90, p.. B3 forecast 9-180 dir article0 January 24, 1990 futur8-@ thinking April 9, 1990 1