Reply #15: Funny, I googled CBO and errors -- and found they've made lots of them

[SandWalker1984]

I also found this on their own web site:

CBO's errors for forecasts looking two years ahead that were made between 1982 and 1997 did not differ markedly from either those of the Administration or the central tendency of the 50 or so forecasts that have made up the Blue Chip survey over the years. Comparing CBO's forecasts with that survey suggests that when CBO's economic predictions missed the mark by a margin wide enough to contribute to sizable misestimates of the deficit or surplus, those errors probably reflected limitations that confronted all forecasters. That result is not surprising because all forecasters, when making their predictions, have the same basic information available about the state of the economy, which they may then interpret differently. Moreover, CBO examines other forecasts when constructing its own, and CBO's forecast in turn may affect others in a similar way.


Translation: Garbage in = garbage out.