About those forecasts

Alan Greenspan knows a thing or two about trying to project into the economic future and admits that it's pretty much a lost cause. The former chairman of the Federal Reserve, who has been forecasting since the early 1950s, tells NPR that he was as bad then as he is now. The problem, of course, is that economies turn good or bad for reasons that can't be anticipated in forecasts. Wars, oil shocks, credit crunches, whatever. If markets knew in advance that there was trouble ahead, they would figure out a way of adjusting in order to avoid the trouble. Markets, however, can't predict the future. Nor can economists. That said, Greenspan keeps suggesting that the chances of a recession are rising (which of course the markets are interpreting as a forecast). By the way, when Steve Inskeep asked him whether too much attention was paid to what he said as Fed Chairman, Greenspan replied, "Yes."