Economist Takes 'Silver' for Predictions
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He missed the mark for the Americans, fumbled the numbers for the Greeks and Ukrainians, and his forecast for the Japanese couldn't have been worse if he'd poked himself in the eye with a javelin.    But Dartmouth economist Andrew Bernard, dubbed the Olympics' wizard of odds for his knack at predicting countries' medal hauls, still feels he earned a place on the podium for his largely accurate predictions for the Athens Games...
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Most economists agree that the dollar will continue its post-election decline, but there are at least three schools of thought on the nationÂs huge foreign indebtedness.
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The Federal Reserve&#39;s staff predicted in August that the US economy would grow at a &quot;solid&quot; pace through next year, in part because interest rates would remain relatively low during that time.
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One economist is beginning to glimpse signs of recovery that he says may be confirmed this week by a pair of reports on home sales.
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WASHINGTON -- Inside the U S Federal Reserve headquarters, a small team is testing a forecasting program that does the work of hundreds of economists. Never before has the Fed been able to crunch in real time such a large mountain of data -- as many as 150 indicators -- to divine where the economy is headed.
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The American public has a pretty cloudy crystal ball. Polls were never intended to predict the future &#151; and that's probably a good thing, given their limited success at forecasting. While the American public's reading of the economy is usually quite accurate and can hint at future spending trends, the public struggles when trying to predict the future.
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Take a look at a worst-case scenario for the markets.
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Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan  Greenspan was quoted as seeing a "one-third probability" of  recession in the United States this year, according to an  interview with Bloomberg.
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By local and wire dispatches. The economy could be a little brighter in the new year if two indexes geared toward forecasting activity in coming months prove to be on the money.
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Ernesto Zedillo on the uncertainty of the global finanical picture in the year ahead.
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A panel of banking economists has put the odds of a recession near 50 percent as the economy works through a housing slump this year.
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Former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said on Monday he expected the dollar to stay weak for the next few years and will continue to drift down, weighed by the U.S. balance of payments deficit.
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Ever wonder what the smart money is doing? Walter Hertler, a technical analyst, thinks he has it figured out, and many stock market investors won't like the news.
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The uncertain prediction market will get a new player this week when Hubdub introduces a combination news aggregation and predictive platform at the semi-annual Demo conference in Palm Desert, Calif.Demo conferences this year will bring on stage 77 companies with a good idea but not enough capital as they present their products to an audience consisting of VCs and executives from the investment arm of high-tech companies. Hubdub will try to convince one of these audience members that they will not be taking a chance by investing in its technology.The Hubdub platform creates a market around news events, such as how big will the final tax rebate be once it is signed into law by President Bush. Along with the question comes a selection of multiple choice responses.Yes-or-no response questions are also possible, such as, Will Barack Obama gain the Democratic Presidential nomination?The community wages Hubdub dollars to compete on predictions.The point of the game is to see who comes out right most of the time. If you are one of those folks, according to Hubdub officials, you will obviously gain street cred in your area of expertise -- politics, stock market, or technology, for example. Besides gaining some form of respect from your peers, credibility may also lead to more users coming to your Web site or blog. This, in theory, could be shaped into a business where a person's analytical capabilities are worth paying for.During the prediction and wagering process, the Hubdub site aggregates news stories and background data related to the predictions.Leveraging uncertainty appears to be the idea behind another Demo presenter, LiquidPlanner, a startup created by former Expedia, Microsoft, and Intel software engineers.What makes LiquidPlanner different, say company officials, is its use of "probablistic" scheduling tools.Rather than using project dates that are set in stone, the Liquid probablistic engine uses estimates that take into account project variables. This allows project teams to see a more dynamic timeline and understand at any single point where the project is headed with the idea that going down a wrong path can be stopped before it is too late.
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Did Motley Fool CAPS players predict the future?
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The U.S. job market should improve steadily this year, while consumer inflation eases and oil prices decline -- all good news, that is, if nothing goes wrong with the sunny economic forecasts released in recent weeks by many private and government economists.
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Although economists have mixed opinions whether the economy has emerged, most believe it is in good enough shape for the Fed to boost rates.