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The Economists Got 2025 All Wrong
Hotair.com ^ | 01/03/2026 | Stephen Moore

Posted on 01/03/2026 10:34:12 PM PST by SeekAndFind

Well, Donald Trump has done it again!

He stumped the chumps. The "chumps" in this case were the "blue-chip" academic and financial economists whose consensus forecast this time last year was of high inflation and low economic growth. Wrong on both counts.

As you've probably heard, the GDP growth for Q3 came in at a red-hot 4.3%, following 3.5% for the second quarter. Some 90% of professional economists got it wrong -- all underestimating the strength of the Trump economy. QED: These weren't random errors. These were "hate Trump" errors.

They also predicted inflation of above 3% for 2025. It's going to come in at closer to 2.7%, with the last two months trending down to the Fed inflation target of 2%.

Starting in the second quarter, GDP has been nearly twice as high as predicted.

To quote the inimitable special agent Maxwell Smart, "Missed it by that much."

This isn't the first time the whiz kids whiffed on the Trump economy. These are the same Keynesian economists who warned at the start of Trump's first term that we would see a stock market crash. The stock market is today at record highs on all three indices. Paul Krugman, who won a Nobel Prize in economics and wrote regularly for The New York Times for years, famously feared a second Great Depression if Trump policies took hold.

Krugman and others all thought Trump's tariffs would ignite runaway inflation. There's no doubt tariffs did cause a rise in aluminum, coffee and beef prices -- commodities that got hit by tariffs as high as 50%. But the economic pundits failed to take account of the disinflationary effect of pro-growth Trump policies like deregulation, tax rate cuts, and pro-America energy policies. These counteracted the impact of tariffs on prices overall.

One would have thought that the academics and media would have learned from their mistakes of always underestimating Trump on the economy. But they seem incapable of self-correcting.

The latest blue-chip forecast for economic growth for 2026 is a measly 1.9% even though the economy has been growing 50% faster than that of late.

This raises the question: Why are they persistently wrong? It could be that they are so afflicted with Trump Derangement Syndrome that they can't see or shoot straight. No one likes their theories and core beliefs proven wrong. It was John Maynard Keynes who once famously said, "When the facts change, I change my mind -- what do you do, sir?"

His disciples seem incapable of changing their minds.

If these blue-chippers had any integrity, they'd admit that they don't know what they are talking about and send back their Ivy League PhDs.

Fat chance that will ever happen. Instead these prophets of doom will continue to give the entire economics profession a black eye. No wonder it is known as "the dismal science."


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: 2025; americafirst; demagogicparty; economicgrowth; economy; gdp4inflation4; interestrates; investing; maga; nominalvsrealgdp; paulkrugman; tds

1 posted on 01/03/2026 10:34:12 PM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

Economics, it’s a Dismal “Science”.

Most of them need to get a life.

Paul Robin Krugman is the quintessential example on point.


2 posted on 01/03/2026 10:41:41 PM PST by Paladin2 (YMMV)
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To: SeekAndFind

Yeah, and our old buddy Jerome Powell is probably gonna use the GDP as justification to not lower interest rates


3 posted on 01/03/2026 11:24:41 PM PST by suasponte137
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To: SeekAndFind

TDS is how they stay on the payroll.


4 posted on 01/03/2026 11:28:26 PM PST by Carry_Okie (The tree of liberty needs a rope.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Experts strike again.


5 posted on 01/04/2026 1:53:48 AM PST by ArcadeQuarters (You can't remove RINOs by voting for them!)
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To: SeekAndFind

Macro economic models struggle to forecast real economic growth accurately. In practice, intangible and hard to predict factors like investor confidence, government policies, and the pace and benefits of technological change make a great difference. The result is that Keynesian economic models are often more accurate by relying on what is easier to predict. Thus, as an investor, Keynes prospered by focusing on predictable short term economic factors.


6 posted on 01/04/2026 2:17:18 AM PST by Rockingham
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To: SeekAndFind

This here “economist” was 100% invested in US Stocks all year for an 18% gain.

Suckers.


7 posted on 01/04/2026 4:02:00 AM PST by Uncle Miltie (islam v. communism: Which is worse for mankind? Discuss…)
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To: SeekAndFind

Professional economist were educated in liberal institutional shxtholes so no surprise there. Kids in Ivy League schools now can’t even add and subtract let alone read.


8 posted on 01/04/2026 4:04:18 AM PST by maddog55 (The only thing systemic in America is the left's hatred of it!)
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To: SeekAndFind

This makes it easy to list a new category of pundits called “Econo-duds”. They may have been educated in economics but were too dumb to learn it.


9 posted on 01/04/2026 4:22:48 AM PST by norwaypinesavage (Observation & experimentisare the only means of new knowledge. All else is poetry. Max Planck)
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To: suasponte137

Hopefully, Powell will leave in May - if he stays, we’ll know he’s a committed enemy of the People...


10 posted on 01/04/2026 5:01:14 AM PST by trebb (So many fools - so little time...)
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To: SeekAndFind; All

I can’t wait for the STOU address this year!


11 posted on 01/04/2026 5:13:48 AM PST by SMARTY (In politics, stupidity is not a handicap. Napoleon Bonaparte I)
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To: SeekAndFind

We have “globalist economists”. Always add globalist in your mind in front of the word economist.

Trump, like me, is a “nationalist economist”. The only way to be.


12 posted on 01/04/2026 5:31:43 AM PST by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn... )
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To: Uncle Miltie

I had a similar gain this year.


13 posted on 01/04/2026 8:13:48 AM PST by KC_Conspirator
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To: suasponte137

J Powell’s days at the Fed are numbered. He’s soon to be gone.


14 posted on 01/04/2026 9:46:56 AM PST by Georgia Girl 2 (The only purpose of a pistol is to fight your way back to the rifle you should never have dropped)
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