[fpadilha]

I think you are confusing what economics is then. Economics is not only about predicting, actually there are various fields in economics focused in different kind of predictions techniques - including such ones that (coupled with the field of statistics/mathematics) resulted in big data analysis and machine learning. In one of many definitions that you can find in Wikipedia definition of its "Economics" page:

"Economics is a study of man in the ordinary business of life. It enquires how he gets his income and how he uses it. Thus, it is on the one side, the study of wealth and on the other and more important side, a part of the study of man.[21]" Lionel Robbins (1932) developed implications of what has been termed "[p]erhaps the most commonly accepted current definition of the subject":[22]

Economics is about understanding how your everyday actions impacts the whole, it is a study that allowed whole societies to organize and plan at the beginning and now it dares, through data, to predict events. And believe me, if companies and people couldn't have a minimal idea of the inflation rate by the end of next year, investments wouldn't occur as much (because the interest rate would be higher) and everyone would be worse off. Obviously, trying to predict the future is almost nonsensical, and yet those methods apply to every field nowadays. Marketing without data is nothing, does a marketing analysis always result in a successful prediction? No, and yet if you don't actually engage in trying you don't have a clue of what works and is ultimately worse off. Again, there are predictions for every possible outcome. There are researchers that say is no environment crisis and use data to back that up. The policy that ends up being made is about the study, but about the elected by the people that chooses that prediction it think it suits the society that he represents better, doesn't mean that aren't very serious people doing work that benefits us all doing those predictions.

[elmar]

"economics is the study of the use of scarce resources which have alternative uses." Thomas Sowell

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sowell

[fpadilha]

typos in last phrase: The policy that ends up being made is NOT* about the study, but about the one who was elected by the people thinks suits the society that he represents better, doesn't mean that aren't very serious people doing work that benefits us all doing those predictions...

[chibg10]

Economics may not be about predicting, but if economic theories can't predict well (in the statistical sense, meaning the generated data should fit your predicted probability distribution), then the economic theory doesn't reflect reality. And thus has questionable use in policy decisions.