In 2023, economist Larry Summers predicted a recession would likely occur, citing a 70% probability due to the Federal Reserve raising interest rates to combat high inflation, suggesting a "soft landing" (slowing inflation without recession) was improbable. He felt the only path to lower inflation and rates was via a surge in unemployment.

The U.S. economy avoided a major recession in 2023, and employment remained strong mostly due to remarkably resilient consumer spending, fueled by pandemic-era savings, coupled with a strong, tight labor market with low unemployment, robust business investment supported by government fiscal policies like the IRA and CHIPS Act, and a shift from goods to services spending, all while inflation cooled, allowing the Fed to pause interest rate hikes without a sharp downturn. Inflation peaked in June 2022 at over 9%. It dropped rapidly and was around 3% a year later without triggering a recession.

In April 2025, most economists predicted a massive surge in inflation due to the huge spike in tariffs. This surge did not occur primarily because the proposed tariffs were scaled back notably since April 2025. While the average effective U.S. tariff rate climbed from roughly 2.5% in early 2025 to 16.8% by November 2025, initially, many tariffs were 50% or higher. Inflation is just around 2.7% now and lower than anticipated, while unemployment is up slightly from 4% to around 4.4%. Most of this happened with the FED lowering rates starting in September 2024 and then again three times in 2025 which always helps stimulate the economy that is now growing at a healthy pace (estimated to be over 5% in the 4th quarter of 2025?).  (The US debt grew about 8.5% in 2025 after growing 6% the prior year, up over 111% in a decade! It grew 62% in the three years prior to Covid.)

So while many economic predictions are often proven wrong eventually, maybe they act as a very effective warning signal of what might happen and then help avoid that from happening, or minimize their potential negative impact? Are there any red flags in your world that may allow you the opportunity to fix something before it's broken?