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It’s that time of year when futurists and prophets play fast and loose, projecting visions rife with both promise and peril, weighing the possible against the improbable. As we contemplate competing pictures of the future, although every forecast risks missing the mark, one thing is certain: 2024 won’t be a year for the faint-hearted.
We are at the end of the beginning. ‘If you feel you have coronavirus…’ I tune out emotionally and daydream as the public service announcement plays over and over in empty trams and trains, and in deserted shopping centres.
Economists are often, sometimes spectacularly, wrong. But like all prophets, they are unabashed by and unpunished for abject failures. They pop up from each new set of ruins, surprised yet unrepentant, princes of a plethora of evanescent predictions.