Despite all of the data and economic models at our disposal, the economy is exceedingly complex, the product of countless decisions made every day by human beings, who have varied goals and motives.
Economic data, sometimes received with a considerable time lag, can give us only a rough, backward-looking picture of the economy, and judging where the economy is headed in the future is even more difficult. Even the most accurate forecasts about the economy are often wrong, simply because of the uncertainty that is inherent in the task of interpreting and predicting future economic conditions.