The future for forecasters

Economists were clearly stunned by the strength in consumer spending evident in the recent retail sales report for January. Non-auto sales rose 1.2%. Excluding gas station sales, which tend to be driven by changes in price, they posted the fourth consecutive solid monthly increase. 'Our projection for total real consumer spending growth this quarter (-1.5% annualised) looks much too low now in the wake of this report,' wrote economists at Goldman, Sachs & Co. 'Consumption growth could be stronger than the 2.5% decline we have been assuming,' wrote the folks at Deutsche Bank, in a mode...