You can predict what will occur quite easily, you can't necessarily predict when it will occur.<p>A lot of the "failed" predictions relate to markets...the reason why you can't predict this stuff is because humans are irrational and those irrational humans control outcomes in the short and medium term.<p>For example, you can see that a recession should have occurred. What people didn't expect is fiscal stimulus worth about 50% of GDP, tens of trillions in monetary stimulus, etc. Yes, if the government just deposits hundreds of billions into people's bank accounts then it is going to impact growth.<p>I remember back in 2007, Blackstone RE made insane leveraged bets at the very top of the market, it is very easy to point out rationally "these are absolutely terrible investments, the price is awful, these aren't economic"...today, all these bets got bailed out by the government (after a short period of bankruptcy/restructuring), the person responsible is probably going to be made head of Blackstone, that unit has hundreds of billions in AUM, etc.<p>The assumption that people make with forecasts has to be: the long-term is today. That is it. You will often be wrong but that does not mean that your model is wrong (indeed, the reason why this stuff is so predictable is because people believe that the models have stopped working repeatedly).<p>If you take something as apparently "unpredictable" as the market, you can predict returns to within 10bps very easily over the long-term because the fundamentals do not change (but, again, the current period has been the most unpredictable because of the level of government intervention, it is unprecedented...the government cannot hold back the waves forever though).<p>EDIT: referencing the 2005 interest rate prediction is quite humorous too, 2% against a predicted 5%...this was basically the start of it. Back then, no-one thought the Fed would cut rates to this level for, essentially, no reason...the Fed cut, the result was a financial crash. Turns out those predictions (which were essentially the long-term neutral rate) were right and the Fed was wrong...but the only account you hear about is: those damn forecasters, they failed to predict the Fed torching the economy, so stupid. Lol.