There are simply too many unknowable variables involved to allow for trustworthy forecasts of something like the inflation rate. The rate is caused by millions of people making billions of decisions: workers about wages they want to be paid, bosses about wages they are willing to pay, consumers about prices they will swallow, everybody about diffuse feelings of hardship or prosperity, fear or security, discontent or buoyancy. To claim you can make reliable forecasts about this staggering complexity seems arrogant to the point of being ridiculous. As the Axiom says, human behavior cannot be
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