By occupation I was a geophysicist, but I also took a degree in economics, and one of the more useful courses I took was my third-year economics forecasting class. My professor was incredibly candid about the limitations of economic forecasting. I tell people he said that it was better than voodoo but not by a whole lot.
That's a slight exaggeration there. I'm not an economist, nor do I claim to be. I don't change my mind that often. As we've seen with the economists revising their forecasts every two to four weeks this fall and so forth, I'm not too sure how much the back-of-the-envelope calculations, which may or may not project accurately, might be worth. I'm not all that opposed to it, but I just don't see the relevance of this when it is something that could be easily done by MPs' staff.