But I have a question for you, since you seem to have a connection with Chiapas. From the numbers, I would guess that 119,214 seniors in Chiapas – those over the age of 70, living in communities with fewer than l than 30,000 inhabitants – are receiving two pensions, one from the federal 70+ scheme (this is confirmed) and another from Amanecer (this I can only assume, from the total number of beneficiaries).

Can you confirm or refute my suspicion? Many thanks if you can.

Following his suggestion, I went to the FT archive to search for last year’s exercise.

A year ago (Financial times, 31 December 2010) FT writers published forecasts for 2011. These forecasts were not terribly successful. Martin Wolf correctly predicted that the euro would survive the year, but Martin Sandbu incorrectly predicted that that Europe would allow banks to fail. “Next year,” he wrote, “Europeans will choose to save their states rather than their banks: 2011 will be the year not of sovereign defaults, but of haircuts for banks’ senior bondholders”.

The main problem, though, is that many FT writers hedged their 2011 forecasts, so any outcome would be consistent with the ‘forecast’. The forecasts for 2011, for this reason, are generally less interesting than those for 2012. Martin Wolf and Martin Sandbu are outstanding exceptions to this generalisation.

It is thus understandable that the FT this year does not refer to its 2011 forecasts. A year ago, in contrast, the FT wrote that its writers “have a lot to live up to, after the success of last year’s commentators”.

On Larry’s comment, I certainly would not call on policy makers to decide on resource allocation. I am simply trying to point out an overall spending program affects the general economy whereas in my view the problem we face is highly structural in nature. While the government may try and target what it regards as rising and worthwhile activities (such as ‘green technologies’ and public sector employment), in fact no one knows where the long-term path of production is headed, and the decisions of government about the future are highly influence by political considerations. There are times when Keynesian-type stimulus programs can be effective. I do not think this is one of them .

On Nick’s comment, there is nothing to suppose about the comment I made. I simply stated the obvious, ceteris paribus, printing money and spreading it around changes the real purchasing power of the individuals in an economy, some gaining, some losing. Of course, how and how much money is injected into the economy and how it affects the demand for money will affect prevailing relationships and patterns. And I agree that injecting money will have at least a temporary positive effect on production, with a rise in average incomes and employment and, hopefully and likely, a beneficial effect on income distribution. But again, there will be winners and losers and therefore no ‘free lunch’.

My impression was the Tdj was asserting that there are some simple and costless measures we can take that will have no negative consequences to anyone. I wish that were true.