It is with some relief that I find my normal column date falls outside the season for new year forecasts. These are either banal or inspired guesses.
The advocates of economic soothsaying tend to say that all life involves forecasts – for example, that the ground will not crumble under your feet when you step outside the door. But that is not really the point at issue. What is under discussion is whether the world economy, or any particular economy, will continue to recover at recent moderate growth rates, fizzle out or soar to unsustainable proportions. My guess (not, I stress, my forecast) is that it will continue to recover, but that the risk of excessive expansion will occur in 2015, which – not entirely a coincidence – is election year in the UK and the run-up to a presidential election year in the US.
In saying this I am not contradicting Abraham Lincoln who is purported to have said: “You cannot fool all the people all the time.” For in the same statement he conceded that you could fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time.