[elweston2]

The problem with most economic models is they all work great. In the moment. Right up until it is 10 seconds later and something changed. Then they don't.

However, over time they have hidden variables that no one knows how to measure. Say to day you are in a bad mood. You go to a store pick up an item and go 'nah not going to buy that'. Then tomorrow you are in a good mood. You go to the same store and buy that item. Your neighbor does the same thing but does not buy it at all. Economics is very bad at figuring out what that even meant. But to know if handing people cash, or taxing more/less, or changing policies you kind of need to know what it did mean. Experimenting is a good idea which we have been doing for a long time. But the models still do not match.

The other issue is many of these things are huge systems (macro economics). You can change one little thing and it has an effect on 3 other things that you did not want. To use the classic micro economic model. The pizza joint. I raise my price because (MR=MC). I sell less pizzas but my profit is up. Profit does not come from nowhere. My customers paid more. So they can buy less of something else. I bought less items from my wholesalers so their profit is down. The gov gets more money because of taxes. One little change touched dozens of other stores/governments/people not even related to me. Getting that model right is tricky with thousands of hidden variables that more like functions.