Time and time again during the final four months of 2001, economists and analysts ended up with egg splashed on their faces. Which is great, except for those retailers and contractors mired in doom and gloom who sit waiting for business to come in over the transom instead of going out after it.
Let’s review some of the miscalculations promulgated by the so-called “experts.” I’ll start with a classic head-scratcher. From mid-October to Nov. 26, the National Bureau of Economic Research Panel was the subject of a massive hype. The nation waited with bated breath for the panel to proclaim whether or not the economy was in a recession. On Nov. 26, the panel said we had been in a recession since March. That’s nine months. Gee, and a lot of our friends found that we were not at the end of the world. Far from it.