Was having this discussion with a friend tonight. The term "Informal indicators" in this case is used for any non-exact but solid signal of something. For instance, The Economist uses the price of a big mac to indicate the cost of living in a place beyond exchange rates. We were talking about less academic ones.
The most usefull I came up with was: Any bar with a line for the men's room equal or greater to the ladies room almost definitely sucks.
The quality(aka ****ty deliciousness) of diner food increases with how often the waitress refers to you with slang from > the 80s i.e. hun, sugar, darlin, baby doll
The amount of time it takes for the first person to reply to your thread is a pretty good indication of how likely your thread is to be successful and interesting.
Good luck.
Last edited by Tapow Dayok; 05-14-2008 at 03:15 AM.
Reason: last
If you have a vagina your computer probably has a lifetime's worth of spyware and your monitor probably has more fingerprints than mary jane rottencrotch's pretty pink panties.
This thread has taken a strange turn, but here's one:
It's useful to find a marginally employed tech professional - ideally a programmer or test guy. The guy you're looking for is a hard worker, but not terribly competent. You want someone who on average employed about 70% of the time in about 2-3 year stretches. Ideally a nice friendly guy.
These guys are MAGNIFICENT barometers of the economy and labor market. When they get fired, it's a leading indicator of an economic downturn. The reason is that they're the first guy to get fired and since they're a nice guy it wasn't because they pissed someone off. When they get re-hired, you know they were the last guy left, so the labor pool is tight and wages are likely headed in a good direction.
I latched onto one of these guys back in college, and he's been 100% accurate. For example, he didn't get fired in this latest "recession" so I knew it wasn't serious. Sure enough, when the final Fed numbers came out it wasn't actually a recession at all.
These guys are MAGNIFICENT barometers of the economy and labor market. When they get fired, it's a leading indicator of an economic downturn. The reason is that they're the first guy to get fired and since they're a nice guy it wasn't because they pissed someone off. When they get re-hired, you know they were the last guy left, so the labor pool is tight and wages are likely headed in a good direction.
Please start a thread and keep us apprised of said friend's employment status.