YP Letters: Regardless of Brexit, economists can't predict the future

At times I just cannot understand the intelligence of some people. I see the opposition politicians and some of the Tories’ own people being amazed that there has been no assessment of the economic situation post-Brexit.

It amazes me in this respect as apparently no-one looks or even considers the predictions that economists have undertaken even in recent times and where over 99 per cent got it totally wrong about the financial crash in 2008.

I say totally wrong, as they did not even predict that a global financial collapse was imminent or in fact give any warnings in the years preceding the actual meltdown. Indeed it has to be said even after 2004 when Alan Greenspan warned Bush, Blair, Brown and western leaders that the financial markets had to be reeled in or a global meltdown would likely happen, the economists and politicians took no notice.

For at the base level and through time immemorial, economists are good at analysing the past, but they certainly have not a clue, if truth be told, in predicting the future. Indeed, history has recorded this over the centuries with these so-called ‘bubbles’, not mere years.

Therefore people asking for predictions of how things will be economically after Brexit are just asking for pie-in-the-sky – in reality such predictions would have no merit at all.

But I understand why people ask for this unknown vision of the future though, as they require certainty and to know how they will fare financially.

Unfortunately if they used their intelligence and common sense, they would realise that economists have not the means to predict the future and while they certainly do not have a crystal ball many seem to think that they have. Indeed even if different scenarios were provided, this would not mean a thing also, as all of them would be still unknowns and that’s the basic truth. I would call it a fool’s errand.

From: Peter Hyde, Driffield.

Arthur Quarnby suggests that we ditch HS2 and spend the money on Brexit (The Yorkshire Post, December 9). While it is a good idea I’d rather spend it at home. Police, the NHS, prisons and immigration are just a few areas which need it more that the EU. At least there is a very good chance that if and when HS2 is complete it will stop at Birmingham as the end cost will be so great as to put future ideas of expansion may well be ditched and rightly so.