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The business section of a well-known Canadian newspaper warned the other day that any forecasts contained in the federal budget should be treated with extreme caution, given the fact economists have a lengthy record of getting their predictions seriously wrong.

Most economists have no more clue what’s going to happen down the road than you or I, because they have no way of telling which of the 7 gazillion influences they’re aware of may come into play, not to mention any unknown factors, which are hard to identify, because they’re unknown.

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Purely by accident, no doubt, the same newspaper printed another story soon afterwards, suggesting Canadian investors unload any excess holdings they might have in the loonie, because economists predict it’s in for a fall. Whether it was the same set of deeply fallible economists surveyed for the first article wasn’t clear.

The number forecasters would do better to digest is located way over in a different set of statistics, pertaining to the fact we all eventually get old and die. It indicates that the population of millennials in Canada is now neck-and-neck with the remaining supply of baby boomers; in several provinces they already outnumber their older and greyer compatriots, and the gap can only increase, given the “getting old and dying” thing.