Bob Tippee
Preparing for terrorist attack is like forecasting oil and gas prices. Receptivity of the audience is as important as the message.
Politicians scrounging for poll points are second-guessing Bush administration handling of early intelligence hints about the suicide attacks last Sept. 11 in New York and Washington, DC.
They're even using scandal rhetoric, asking, "Who knew what, and when did they know it?"
Wrong question.
Government intelligence agencies mass-produce warnings. Most are vague extrapolations from scattered observations of the activities of potentially hostile groups and individuals. Responding to each warning would be impossible, even foolish.
Except for the rare surprise, it's possible after any security disaster to dig through intelligence reports and find a warning about it. That's the game politicians are playing now.
No one has yet found a warning about the Sept. 11 abomination specific enough to prompt a response.
Here's the right question: If, before Sept. 11, someone had predicted that terrorists would hijack airliners and crash them into skyscrapers and government buildings, would he or she have been taken seriously?
The answer: No.
Predicting oil and gas markets presents a similar hazard.
Oil and gas prices neither rise forever nor fall forever. Instead, they rise and fall forever. And frequency of the cycle is increasing.
Yet the tendency within the industry remains strong, especially when prices are low, to assume prices will never budge from current levels.
A forecaster can't go wrong predicting low prices when prices are high and low prices when prices are low.
The challenge is to be taken seriously.
When prices are high and companies are furiously drilling wells, warnings about a looming slump tend to be ignored.
And when prices are low and companies are laying off workers, no one wants to hear about the rebound likely just a few months in the future.
In both preparation for terrorism and forecasts about oil and gas prices, a vitally important consideration is how much people will believe, at any point in time, about indications of future events.
Both activities offer rich potential for futile indulgence in retrospective regret.
(Online May 24, 2002; author's e-mail: [email protected])