The city, for example, forecast that capital gains would decline by 5percentt in 2002.
The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, for example, forecast that expansion next year would be a little more than 8 percent — up from a bit less than 8 percent this year.
Economists at Barclays, for example, forecast that the E.C.B. would announce more rounds of long-term loans to banks, in an attempt to contain a flight of deposits from troubled countries like Greece or Spain.
For example, JPMorgan forecasts that transport investment will expand by an impressive 70% in 2009.
The institute has already started producing routine forecasts that have, for example, successfully predicted periods of drought in East Africa.
First, forecasts that never came true are either plain examples of contrafactual futures, i.e. futures that were anticipated but that did not take place.
Roger Bootle, managing director of Capital Economics, for example, recently forecast that interest rates would not exceed 1% during the next five years.
The technology company Cisco, for example, has forecast that between 50bn and 1 trillion devices will be connected to the internet before the decade is out, creating an economic impact of $14.4tn.
Sports Illustrated, for example, has forecast that the Knicks will finish fourth in the five-team Atlantic division of the Eastern Conference of the N.B.A. "It's a little premature for them to say 'Now,' " said A. J. Daulerio, editor in chief of the blog Deadspin.com.
Examples like these of predictions failing badly in the real world are very common, and forecasts that seem too good to be true usually are.
