[Snorlax94]

In my field, the scientists are generally smart enough to avoid making predictions.  

I wish economists would call these things what they are: guesses.

I don't think the economists *want* to make predictions, but if they're asked, they'll take a stab.

It's like if I ask my primary care doctor what my life expectancy based on my medical history and insist she take a stab, and demand that she predict it accurately within a year, and if she ventures a guess and she's wrong, blame her, and say she's not a scientist.

I imagine there is an incredibly wide range of guesses for the economy because of the medical and political unknowns -- can people develop antibodies and be immune? If so, for how long? Can an effective vaccine be developed? If so, when, and how long will it take to mass produce, and how will the distribution go? Will there be war? ETC

If you provided economists, "assume a war does not break out, social unrest quickly ends, we find multiple effective vaccines by the end of the year and roll them out so that 80% of Americans can get effectively vaccinated by next April (and the rest of the developed world within 6 months of that)..." then I imagine there wouldn't be such a wide variance.

Sometimes the largest economic uncertainties are economic (balance sheets, consumer debt, consumer confidence), but right now, they are mostly medical, political and social.

I've generally been one of the more optimistic people on this board (both for the football team and for the economy), but a lot of it is probably due to the fact that in my "medium-case scenario", we find effective treatments this year (decreasing the shot-term economic impact), we stop screwing up domestically, and we will be able to have a substantial portion of the US population vaccinated by next summer. There are good case scenarios, medium-case scenarios, and even darker darkest timeline scenarios.

[Snorlax94]

In my field, the scientists are generally smart enough to avoid making predictions.  

I wish economists would call these things what they are: guesses.

I don't think the economists *want* to make predictions, but if they're asked, they'll take a stab.

It's like if I ask my primary care doctor what my life expectancy based on my medical history and insist she take a stab, and demand that she predict it accurately within a year, and if she ventures a guess and she's wrong, blame her, and say she's not a scientist.

I imagine there is an incredibly wide range of guesses for the economy because of the medical and political unknowns -- can people develop antibodies and be immune? If so, for how long? Can an effective vaccine be developed? If so, when, and how long will it take to mass produce, and how will the distribution go? Will there be war? ETC

If you provided economists, "assume a war does not break out, social unrest quickly ends, we find multiple effective vaccines by the end of the year and roll them out so that 80% of Americans can get effectively vaccinated by next April (and the rest of the developed world within 6 months of that)..." then I imagine there wouldn't be such a wide variance.

Sometimes the largest economic uncertainties are economic (balance sheets, consumer debt, consumer confidence), but right now, they are mostly medical, political and social.

I've generally been one of the more optimistic people on this board (both for the football team and for the economy), but a lot of it is probably due to the fact that in my "medium-case scenario", we find effective treatments this year (decreasing the shot-term economic impact), we stop screwing up domestically, and we will be able to have a substantial portion of the US population vaccinated by next summer. There are good case scenarios, medium-case scenarios, and even darker darkest timeline scenarios.