Federal Outlook: The Naked Emperor

Pierre Lemieux

Chapter Chapter 5 in The Public Debt Problem, 2013, pp 61-76 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract The epigraph above is often attributed to the late Danish physicist Niels Bohr, but some claim that it was authored by his fellow citizen cartoonist Robert Storm Petersen or by American novelist Mark Twain. The humor comes from the fact that scientist do try to predict both the past and the future, and that they are indeed more successful in the former than in the latter. The failure at predicting the future is especially notable in the social sciences, but is not unique to them: although physicists regularly hit the mark, astronomers and meteorologists, to name only those, are often far off.

Keywords: Interest Rate; Federal Government; Public Debt; Alternative Scenario; Official Forecast (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-137-31302-7_5

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DOI: 10.1057/9781137313027_5

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