Samuelson was 100% wrong.

For decades, since its 1961 edition, students of economics had read in Paul Samuelson’s textbook the following sentence: “The Soviet economy is proof that, contrary to what many skeptics had earlier believed, a socialist command economy can function and even thrive” — a sentence that still appeared in the 1989 edition. Samuelson’s hugely influential book also featured a chart projecting that the gross national product of the Soviet Union would exceed that of the US at some point between 1984 and 1997. The 1967 edition suggested that the great overtaking could happen as early as 1977. By the 1980 edition, the time frame had been moved forward to 2002–12. (The graph was quietly dropped after the 1980 edition.)

Source: Niall Ferguson: ‘Trevents’ Predict Future of Economies and Geopolitics – Bloomberg

Expert projections about the future seem to be mostly wrong. But we bend ourselves out of shape, panic, run in fear, engage in self-flagellation – you name it – in response to these frequently erroneous projections.

Coldstreams