THE ‘HUBRIDS’ ARE COMING!      Since much of modern economics is pure guesswork, based on a few facts and an infinite number of probabilities, you could argue that it has as much to do with reality as Science Fiction.      Imagine say, going to see the latest Hollywood Sci-Fi blockbuster film in which the planet is under attack from a dangerous and totally unpredictable alien species whose sole aim is to destroy Earth's capacity for sustaining human life.      Sitting in the dark, maybe holding hands with a friend, we watch as Terrifying Creatures walk the face of the Earth – chopping down trees, blowing up mountains, making deserts, slashing and burning, grabbing money, consuming, and generally destabilizing world economics.      The democratic governments of the Free World are powerless to stop them from saving or investing in whatever they like! It is a nightmare horror movie scenario: even Arnold Schwarzenegger – the Robo-Economist – can do nothing to stop them from taking over the world!

Why? Because these aliens are masters of disguise – they can look and behave like any of us! In our Science Fiction movie, let us call them... the Hubrids!      Once just ordinary, fallible human beings only moderately motivated by self-interest and greed, these people have unwittingly become contaminated with hubris, an ancient Greek virus carried by the Twentieth-Century mass media that attacks the human mind, convincing an individual that he or she is absolutely right about something – like having to make money– and resulting in excessive self-confidence, presumption, pride, arrogance and contempt for any other conflicting opinion.      After a while, the alien virus works in a more subtle way. It reconstructs the human host's vocabulary into dubious metaphors in order to strengthen its arguments, constantly applying the paint of yesterday's ideas to the crumbling walls of tomorrow and compelling the hapless victim to participate in aimless, lengthy, and often heated discussions with other Hubrids.      The Hubrids infiltrate governments, banks, multinational corporations, and international money markets – as well as the chattering, muttering working and thinking classes of today – succeeding only in spreading disinformation, ignorance, muddle, and confusion. The human race is doomed!

But never fear! It's only a movie. At last, the house lights come up and the entertainment is over – but what is the economic reality out on the street? What are the economists really talking about? How many people really care? Are the Hubrids already here?