Time Essay: Why Forecasters Flubbed the '70s

The decade just ended left behind a great many fresh reminders of why prophets have always had difficulty winning honor on their own turf. The forecasting about the 1970s turned out to be a pathetic flop. Virulent inflation and an epochal energy crisis are only two of the most ominous realities that eluded the visions of virtually every forecaster. Moreover, the failure was marked by far more than the understandable inability to foresee all the astonishments to come; many, perhaps most, of the positive projections also turned out to be dismally wrong. To...