With reference to the differences between Africa and Europe we find better predictive power in Jardine's Law:
"Political stability is inversely related to musical grooviness."

Yes, indeed.

The "dark art of economic forecasting" had already been outed-

"Future Babble-Why Expert Predictions Fail - and Why We Believe Them Anyway" by Dan Gardner.

Certainly institutions play a much more important role than economists seem to assume.

My favourite daft predictions are-

(1) Russia becoming a liberal democracy after the collapse of the Soviet system.
(2) Japan as the world's #1 economy.
(3) BRICS.

Right on. Those crazy economists, eh.

It's like saying if the weather forecasters can't hit the mark a week in advance, why should we pay any attention to what they say will happen by the end of the century.

Oh. Right.

Am I missing something in the analogy?

If weather forecasters were also a causal factor and helped create the 'conditions and environment' for the weather and still got it very wrong, I'd certainly pay much less attention to what they say... or is economics a system (like weather) subject to the vagaries of chaos theory and inherently unpredictable?

Best of both worlds maybe? "Outlook: mostly fine with a chance of isolated gains throughout the afternoon ahead of increasing repositioning during the evening and overnight trading."

It seems to be universally acknowledged that economic forecasting is drivel. The real mystery is why such unreliable and potentially damaging guesswork is given so many column inches and so much credence. Post graduate research, anyone?

Yep ultimately God is sovereign over economic systems and weather.