Don’t Bother Trying to Predict Interest Rates
Are low interest rates on your savings account or bonds driving you crazy yet? Well, perhaps my prediction will cheer you up:
If interest rates rise sharply—something bound to happen in the future, since they can’t go any lower than they are now…
Good news, right? Unfortunately, I made this prediction in February 2010, and I was completely wrong.
But I’m just some guy. What if we asked professional economic forecasters, people whose job it is to, y’know, make economic forecasts?
Well, two years ago, in July 2009, the Wall Street Journal asked fifty forecasters whether the interest rate on the benchmark 10-year treasury note would be higher or lower a year later, in July 2010.
If you were to sum up the forecasters’ sentiment at the time, it would be, “Interest rates can’t go any lower than they are now.” Forty-three of them predicted higher rates. Five predicted slightly lower or static rates. Two out of fifty pr

