My
presentation at the Federal Forecasters Conference summarized my work on the inability or unwillingness of forecasters to predict recessions. I also suggested that to get forecasters to predict recessions (even inaccurately) we should have a Stekler Award for Courage in Forecasting. The award would be in honor of noted forecaster Herman Stekler who says that forecasters should predict recessions early and often and that he himself has predicted 9 of the last 5 recessions. If there was such an award, the 2015 award would go to Lakshman Achuthan of ECRI, who called for a U.S. recession in 2012 in September 2011. ECRI recently explained why it made the call, which is worth reading—the link is given in my presentation. In the running for the 2016 award would be Michael Shedlock (“Mish”) who at the start of this year predicted that Canada and the U.S. would slip into recession this year.