Economists, Pollsters, Futurists…there’s certainly no shortage of ‘experts’ ready to predict the future in confident and unambiguous tones.
But why do they often get it so terribly wrong?

When we look back in the past, whatever it is, be it our own experiences, the GFC, or whatever, we rationalise that whatever the thing was that happened was always going to happen. Like it was somehow inevitable.

With the benefit of hindsight, it’s easy to tell a cohesive, rational explanation of what happened and if only we had used common sense, this thing could have been avoided.

But when we’re in the present moment living our complicated lives and looking ahead, the answer is not so clear as uncertainty prevails.

In other words, we’re really deceiving ourselves into believing we understand something that in fact we don’t.

The media are more likely to give airtime to forecasters that are certain and decisive. The pundits that hedge or provide a more circumspect answer are often overlooked by the media.

One thing you can be certain of
Forecasting is a mugs game

aP