![\"GRBJ0695.gif\"](\"http:\/\/auchtoon.2gtech.com\/images\/grbj\/GRBJ0695.gif\" "\\"GRBJ0695.gif\\"")
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Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal<\/em>, February 16, 2009<\/p>\n We\u2019ve become what I like to call a Derivative Society. (Did that sound impressive? I hope it sounded impressive. I added the \u201cwhat I like to call\u201d bit to make it sound impressive. And also to throw you off the trail because I haven\u2019t really thought the whole \u201cDerivative Society\u201d thing through entirely. It just popped in my head, and I thought I\u2019d write it down because I gotta get back to work, and I honestly don\u2019t have a lot else to say about this week\u2019s comic.)<\/p>\n Derivative Society. What I mean is that we are saturated with information. Media provides us with news and analysis way, way beyond our capacity (or desire) to consume it all. We are overwhelmed. But instead of using our awesome technological powers to gather and report information to add clarity, we sweep past the basics and drill deeper and deeper looking for hidden treasures. Not because it is at all helpful. But just because we can. We analyze the analysis of the analyzer\u2019s analyzation. Which is asinine.<\/p>\n \u201cIs the economy moving forward or is it moving backward?\u201d is the simple question we could ask and the simple question that could be answered. Instead we are more interested in the derivatives: How fast is the economy changing? Are we accelerating out of going backward? Are decelerating out of going forward? Is this decelerating beginning to accelerate? Or is it decelerating at an increasing deceleration? Are crude oil prices going up or down? Who cares? Are the stocks of gas refineries in the Pacific Northwest enough to meet anticipated demands of the 2011 summer driving season? Now that\u2019s sounds interesting! Let\u2019s base the current price of gasoline on that!<\/p>\n So we\u2019re left now with a stimulus package that was declared dead even before it was written. There\u2019s no time to let anything actually work in a Derivative Society. We\u2019ve already thought it all out. The only thing that can save the economy now is news of a future stimulus package. But once we anticipate what it might contain, that won\u2019t work either.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, February 16, 2009 We\u2019ve become what I like to call a Derivative Society. (Did that sound impressive? I hope it sounded impressive. I added the \u201cwhat I like to call\u201d bit to make it sound impressive. And also to throw you off the trail because I haven\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-grand-rapids-business-journal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}