By Marek Fuchs

The more you find out about the economy this week, the less you may truly know. And with the first read on Q1 GDP and UPS's (UPS) earnings, we could see prime examples of how appearances can deceive.

The first draft of first-quarter 2013 GDP is due on Friday, but it should be clearly noted that Friday's number is only an estimate. If history is any guide – and it is – the initial reading could be revised by upwards of 50 percent (up or down, take your pick) in the coming weeks.

The curious case of 2012’s 4^th quarter should serve as a cautionary tale. In late January, the Commerce Department reported its first estimate: down 0.1 percent. Some members of the media went into alarmist overdrive, conjuring up the prospect that the U.S. had stumbled into a recession. Meanwhile, the press largely failed to fulfill its mission of providing context: that initial number is essentially written in sand.

Sure enough, a month later, the Commerce Department scrubbed the declining

By Perry Mehrling

Look around and you’ll see that the economic problems facing us today are many. Even worse, the most pressing of these problems pose a daunting challenge even to analyze in their full complexity, let alone solve.

It may seem that implementing any credible solution within current political and economic institutions is at least implausible, if not impossible. So why am I hopeful about the future?

Because I’ve seen that the new economic thinking we so sorely need is being pursued with great enthusiasm by young people around the globe. These are the people who best understand the failures of the current system and possess the creativity to change it.

The good thing about youth is that it does not shy away from a challenge, but rather instinctively embraces it. Climb that peak or ski that backwoods slope, but also throw your mind into exploration of a new approach to unsolved intellectual problems and your energies into overcoming obstacles that have defeated all previous