Impossibly Longrange Predictions

The lamestream media told you:

The Associated Press reports that the Congressional Budget Office study of the proposed greenhouse-gas control bill could have "comparatively modest" effects on overall economic growth over the next 40 years. The CBO estimates the cap-and-trade bill could lower the nation's gross domestic product by 1/4 to 3/4 of a percent by 2020.

The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that:

The idea that anyone, let alone an office of the federal government, could estimate the effects of a single bill on the entire national economy 12 years from now is absolutely preposterous.

The idea that the estimate could be as close as ¼ of one percent (0.0025 or 25 ten-thousandths) is patently absurd, proving yet again that reporters and the entire editorial chain has no command of math.

The AP obediently reported the report handed to it by government officials, and called it "reporting." The number of variables that could affect such a thing are incomprehensibly large, but apparently unimportant to the world's largest but math-challenged "news" organization.

This is the same government that couldn't predict people would line up for billions in free clunker cash in mere months. Months, according to leading experts, are shorter than years, and thus easier to predict. This is the same government that ran financially amok, without realizing its fiscal policies would lead to an unexpected and devastating economic crash, predicted by no one. This is the same government that wants to take over the entire U.S. health care system, but can't deliver a single poorly tested pig-flu vaccine in the face of a proposed epidemic, in a timely way. Reporters who pass such drivel on to the public, without asking even the most rudimentary questions or raising the most obvious doubts, aren't qualified to empty the wastebaskets their drivel is thrown into.