Treasurer Joe Hockey announces his rejection of the GrainCorp
bid on Friday.  Treasurer Joe Hockey announces his rejection of
the GrainCorp bid on Friday. Photo: Peter Braig  Think of a
number. Say it's 24. Call this the Pre-election Economic and
Fiscal Outlook. Now let's have some fun. Double it, subtract
one, and multiply by a billion. Congratulations, and welcome to
your new day job as Treasury Secretary. You've just guessed the
Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook deficit!  The down side of
working in finance is that the Academy Awards (outrageously)
still refuse to believe economic forecasting is a category
worthy of an Oscar. Can't they recognise the sublime
contribution that's being regularly made to the acting
profession? On the plus side, however, is the fact that
Secretary Martin Parkinson's salary isn't linked - in any way -
to the accuracy of these guesses about the future. This is
probably just as well. If his salary was linked to the
predictions (sorry, careful calculations) he released just bef