People don't realize that we cannot forecast the future. What we can do is have probabilities of what causes what, but that's as far as we go. And I've had a very successful career as a forecaster, starting in 1948 forward. The number of mistakes I have made are just awesome. There is no number large enough to account for that.
Alan Greenspan
We really can't forecast all that well, and yet we pretend that we can, but we really can't.
Forecasting our futures is built into our psyches because we will soon have to manage that future. We have no choice. No matter how often we fail, we can never stop trying.
We futurists have a magic button. We follow every statement about a failed forecast with 'yet.'
Alvin Toffler
I do believe it is important to be future-ready with a portfolio to be able to deal with however the market evolves. This is better than just forecasting accurately but in having the weapons ready to deal with the uncertainties.
Anand Mahindra
An unsophisticated forecaster uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts - for support rather than for illumination.
Andrew Lang
It is almost possible to predict one or two days in advance, within a rather broad range of probability, what the weather is going to be; it is even thought that it will not be impossible to publish daily forecasts, which would be very useful to soci.
Antoine Lavoisier
Like so many free trade deals before and since, Nafta was sold as a massive opportunity for working people and their prospects. Forecasts spoke of hundreds of thousands of new jobs in all three countries. The reality could not have been more different.
Barry Gardiner
Whenever I see a forecast written out to two decimal places, I cannot help but wonder if there is a misunderstanding of the limitations of the data, and an illusion of precision.
Barry Ritholtz
It is important for investors to understand what they do and don't know. Learn to recognize that you cannot possibly know what is going to happen in the future, and any investment plan that is dependent on accurately forecasting where markets will be next year is doomed to failure.
Never forget this simple truism: Forecasting is marketing, plain and simple.
Forecasting is simply not a strength of the species; we are much better with tools and narrative storytelling.
Whenever you try to pick market tops and bottoms, you are making a prediction. Guessing what stock is going to outperform the market is forecasting, as is selling a stock for no apparent reason. Indeed, nearly all capital decisions made by most people are unconscious predictions.
In 2009, it was forecast that the number of single-person households would increase by two million in 10 years, suggesting that social isolation will only get worse.
Bee Wilson
Of course, economic forecasts must be revised when new information arrives and are thus necessarily provisional.
Ben Bernanke
We talk about the Internet. That comes from science. Weather forecasting. That comes from science. The main idea in all of biology is evolution. To not teach it to our young people is wrong.
Bill Nye
I'll admit that I'm not quite certain how to sum up an entire year in music anymore; not when music has become so temporal, so specific and personal, as if we each have our own weather system and what we listen to is our individual forecast.
Carrie Brownstein
I have spent too long being able to manipulate the answers I want from market research to rely upon its findings any more than I do weather forecasts.
Charles Saatchi
And this is one way to do technology forecasting; get a sense of where technology is, and then anticipate the next upturn.
Chris Anderson
I came up with a 'forecasting cell,' which is basically a mixed intention cell or chord that is a complete hybrid of a consonance and a dissonance, and what that does when you are improvising is lead you to where you are supposed to go.
Christian Scott
Forecasts vary in horizon, from a few seconds up to a few days in financial markets, compared to from one to several months for macro variables. We have to provide uncertainty intervals around the central forecasts to indicate the extent to which we are unclear about the future.
A teacher told my mother that I would never become successful, which illustrates the difficulty of long-run forecasting on inadequate data.
A potentially useful property of forecasts based on cointegration is that when extended some way ahead, the forecasts of the two series will form a constant ratio, as is expected by some asymptotic economic theory.
There are domains in which expertise is not possible. Stock picking is a good example. And in long-term political strategic forecasting, it's been shown that experts are just not better than a dice-throwing monkey.
Workers and jobs are naturally heterogeneous, and the quality of their interaction when paired is difficult to forecast.
Even as our unwitting alterations to Earth's carbon and hydrological cycles slowly make storms more damaging, our ability to monitor our planet from space and make reliable short-term forecasts have equipped us enormously to withstand them.
Until the 20th century, medicine was more like politics than physics. Its forecasts were often bogus and its record grim. In the 1920s, statisticians invaded medicine and devised randomised controlled trials. Doctors, hating the challenge to their prestige, resisted but lost. Evidence-based medicine became routine and saved millions of lives.
Forecasts have been fundamental to mankind's journey from a small tribe on the African savannah to a species that can sling objects across the solar system with extreme precision.
If you have to forecast, forecast often.
The herd instinct among forecasters makes sheep look like independent thinkers.
Forecasting is a maddening occupation. It is always fascinating and exciting and rewarding. yet it is also regularly exasperating and infuriating, occasionally even deranging.
No one can escape the iron rule that once you make a forecast, you know you're going to be wrong; you just don't know when and in which direction!
There is no formula that will guarantee success in forecasting, no magic words that will part the clouds. The real problem, as the old saw puts it, is that the future lies ahead.
If we're going to forecast the business cycle, surely it is a good idea to know the business cycle. Sounds reasonable, but it's not that easy.
The general public still expects a lot more forecasting accuracy than any of us can deliver.
In a sense, there are as many forecasting methods as there are forecasters. But I would argue that most projections are derived from two major methods: macro-econometric models and eclectic judgment.
We're not very good at forecasting, and we don't know how to measure the impact of economic policy.
Many people have been getting too casual about climbing Everest. I forecast a disaster many times.
The population forecast for the United States in 1970 is 170 million. The population forecast for Russia alone in 1970 is 251 million. The implications are clear.
In college, I was a weather anchor for the local news. I would 'borrow' my forecast from The Weather Channel.
Much theoretical work, of course, focuses on existing economic institutions. The theorist wants to explain or forecast the economic or social outcomes that these institutions generate.
Economic forecasting has actually got pretty good over the years, though admittedly, we don't always get it right.
Entrepreneurs can't forecast accurately, because they are trying something fundamentally new. So they will often be laughably behind plan - and on the brink of success.
I have been fighting climate change for two decades, and people often ask me how I remain hopeful in the face of extreme weather and grim forecasts. The answer is simple: I see countless solutions spreading across the nation and across the world. But we need more investment.
The affairs of this world are so shifting and depend on so many accidents, that it is hard to form any judgment concerning the future; nay, we see from experience that the forecasts even of the wise almost always turn out false.
Weather forecast for tonight: dark.
The rise in world oil prices has been larger than anyone forecast.
Meteorologists don't use a script, and most create their own graphics and certainly put together their own forecasts. Most of us went to school to become scientists - at least I did - and studied thermodynamics, physics, and tons of calculus to take this young science to the next level. Our accuracy is amazing and will only continue to improve.
I try not to forecast the future and look down the road as far as my wrestling, because it's there. All I have to do is walk in a ring and light up the crowd.
I often find myself listening to the 'Shipping Forecast' on Radio 4. At first, I am usually wondering what time it is, but then, because often I'm on the other side of the bed and I can't be bothered to turn it off, I just listen and it becomes very relaxing.
