7 Looking Ahead
Economists like to make predictions. We assemble data, apply powerful tools of analysis to that information, look for trends, and make projections based on those extrapolations.
On the other hand, economists don’t like to make predictions. (Responding to an economic advisor’s penchant for saying “on the one hand...on the other hand,” Harry Truman famously commented, “Give me a one-armed economist.”) It is an extremely complex world out there. Apparent trend lines can prove to be a mirage. Good predictions can be made bad by a bolt from the blue—some X-factor that no amount of digging or analysis could have foreseen. Economists are scientists, of a sort; we don’t want to be confused with fortunetellers.
That said, we want ...
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