Carbon Addiction

Dear Mr Pascoe,

I studied Economics for two years at high school and, frankly, was rather shithouse at it. God awful from the first lesson with my long-suffering teacher, Mr Crawford, to my last.

I left high school knowing very well it was words which held the key to my future, not numbers. Accordingly, since then I have never – and will never – contemplate writing an opinion piece on the relative merits or otherwise on financial matters such as Supply and Demand modelling, Keynesian theory, the roles of ASIC or the ACCC, the impact of unemployment rates on home lending, or anything else remotely to do with the Economy or Financial markets.

Yes, I use money. I’ve had a mortgage. I have a super fund and credit cards. I have an ABN. I even know people who manage a share portfolio and have done so myself on several occasions. But as clever as I might think this makes me, deep down I accept these things do not qualify me as an expert and to publicly offer my opinion on such matters would really serve no purpose whatsoever, other than perhaps prove my own ignorance and, indeed, my arrogance for even thinking I might be able to offer a remotely useful opinion which the wider public would give a toss about.

Without a true understanding of the issues at play, I would be forced to throw in sweeping generalisations and tired arguments. With no hard facts to back up my assumptions, I would be forced to use hollow phrases with plenty of wiggle room from which I can easily escape at a later date when those who do know the ins and outs of such subjects quite rightly bring me to task. In fact, with nothing more than personal hunches and lazy stereotypes to go on, all I’d really be able to achieve is confuse the hell out of a lot of people, and upset plenty of others.

Which, of course, is why I don’t.

Regards,
Pete

To everyone else:
In case you’re wondering what this is all about, I can’t bring myself to attach a link to the article that led to this reply. Sorry.