Question:
Can Macro Economics predict anything accurately? I think not.That being the case, let's re-name it. Let's call it History.
Answer:
Economics, broadly speaking, is not a predictive subject, certainly not in the way, say, meteorology is. Meteorology is very useful at predicting both short-and long term weather, when it will rain, will we get snow or a tornado, etc. Economics is not like that. Most of economics, especially macroeconomics, is occupied with understanding what has already happened, and in that, it does share some intellectual space with history. The reason for this goes back to a basic problem that economics confronts, one the natural sciences or meteorology, does not. In physics, if one block of ice floats on water, then all blocks of ice will do the same. Not so with people: I may buy from a certain store even though prices at that store are higher than in competing stores. I may choose to hire someone good-looking even though good looks has no effect on the person's ability to do their job. All this makes it very hard to predict with precision what would happen, who would do what, say, if the sales tax rate went up.
