Economics has always been more of a religion than anything else. It has no predictive aspects. It is purely reflective. And the entire system has a group of "ideologies/leaders/etc" that adherents cling to and worship.
Economics is what Feynman calls a "pseudoscience" ( aka social sciences ).
One sect of economists will argue with another sect of economists and neither side can ever win. Just like muslims and jews will argue with each other and never get anywhere.
While economics has issues, this is an unfair assessment. Entire nations base economic policy based on much economic theory. That is as predictive as you can get, betting with real stakes. Some nations succeed. Some don't. There is fairly solid agreement as to why certain countries perennially have extremely poor economic performance while others are not bad. There is fairly certain agreement as to why Germany experienced hyperinflation. Choosing good or poor economic policy results in predictions either way.
How often do the nations that base their economic policy on economic theory succeed, and how often do they fail? That's the crucial data that would tell us whether it has predictive value or not, and if so, to what extent.
> While economics has issues, this is an unfair assessment.
It's the truth.
> Entire nations base economic policy based on much economic theory.
Sure. Just like in the past entire nations based their economy/society on religion.
> That is as predictive as you can get, betting with real stakes.
No. That's called "gambling". It isn't predictive. It isn't science.
> Choosing good or poor economic policy results in predictions either way.
You are mistaking what I mean by "predictive". I meaning in the sense of science where assertions are made and if it fails, the theories/laws are gotten rid of. It is empirically and predictive based where you can test it.
Imagine a religious society. A priest says, if everyone prays to god, then we will have a great harvest. Everyone prays but we get terrible harvest. What's the priest's response? People didn't pray hard enough.
Economics is the same. If an economic model fails, they blame politics/the people/weather/whatever. A socialist/communist economists will cling to their beliefs and say no "true" form of socialist economics system has been created yet. There isn't a "test" to definitively show on or the other. That's what I mean.
Economics is what Feynman calls a "pseudoscience" ( aka social sciences ).
https://youtu.be/tWr39Q9vBgo
One sect of economists will argue with another sect of economists and neither side can ever win. Just like muslims and jews will argue with each other and never get anywhere.