Three Arrows Metaphor and Multivariate Analysis

Now apply multivariate analysis

Abenomics Arrows are all very well but…

Shin: First arrow: Fiscal stimulus to boost spending.

Taro: Shrinking population means fewer workers, fewer shoppers.

Shin: Second arrow: Government spends more on programs.

Taro: Then we have to increase the consumption tax which further dampens consumer spending.

Shin: Third arrow: Structural reform: lower company tax, put more women to work.

Taro: Decreasing taxes on the wealthy takes from the less wealthy. And can we really turn around cultural attitudes to women in the workforce just like that?

_________________

Voice-over

How about a fourth arrow? Increase taxes on the wealthy. Thomas Piketty has data to support that approach.

Three arrows. Good metaphor. But it cries out for multivariate analysis.

…

Abenomics Meme

A narratologist, Harris Tottle, has truck with a memist, Mimosa...

Harris Tottle: Abe rose with the spring but, mark my words, he’ll fall before autumn.

Mimosa: Pictures are already depicting this rise and fall. These are the memes of Abenomics.

Harris Tottle: Might even call them narremes.

Mimosa: There’s such a word?

Harris Tottle: There’s such a word. But it’s not a well thought out concept.

Mimosa: Neither is Abenomics.

____________

Voice-over

The concept of memes as being cultural ideas that self-replicate, spread and mutate, like genes, is a convenient analogy. But even Richard Dawkins cautioned that “Memes are a philosophical method; they aren't a scientific object.”

If memes are chunks of culture, are narremes chunks of stories?

In a forest of ideas, analogies help us sketch the species we stumble upon.

Abenomics memes from The Economist.