Am I missing something? Whenever the OECD or the OBR or countless other "think tanks" publish their latest forecasts, which are invariably different from their previous forecasts, the media and politicians stand around in grave silence, hanging on their every word. Furious rows then break out about whether the Chancellor's deficit reduction plan can be salvaged, with pundits on each side pointing to different bits of the latest report. What seems to have escaped everyone's attention is that the OECD and the OBR are admitting that the economic forecasts in their previous reports were wrong which means that their latest reports are unlikely to be right. The lesson here, which everyone seems to ignore, is that economic forecasting is not merely an inexact science – it's pure voodoo. (To read more, click here.)
