Appropriately enough, if you have read the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, or heard the original BBC Radio series, this post is driven entirely by coincidence.
But has it struck anyone as a little odd that the answer to the current GFC is $42 billion, an answer which is derived from a model in a computer which is inaccessible? Ken Henry appeared to be coming-up with a variation on “The Vogon ate my homework” when he claimed that Treasury couldn’t say whether or not they had looked at other scenarios and whether they gave the same results, because that might reveal what else their client (the government) was looking at.
At least Malcolm Turnbull appears to have read the cover (to the Guide, not the book about the book) as his message appears to be “Don’t Panic” or perhaps “Don’t Panic as much”.
Must be a good model because around 3 months ago it was confidently predicting no recession, and that was without any idea that $10.4 billion, let along a total $52.4 billion, would be spent. But then, readers of this blog know my opinion of opaque computer models.