This is Planet Money from NPR.

Hello and welcome to Predictions, the show where economic forecasters make economic

forecasts and then come back later to gloat about what they got right and to own what they

got wrong.

I'm Mary Child.

And I'm Jacob Goldstein.

Today, our contestants will be making three predictions about the most pressing economic

questions facing us today.

The real inflation spiral out of control.

Will the home price boom continue?

How fast will the job market bounce back?

Now Mary, let's meet our two contestants.

Diane Smok is chief economist at Grant Thornton, a global tax and advisory firm.

A forecasting veteran, she combines rigorous quantitative analysis with real world stories

and a little bit of gut instinct.

I don't sit in ivory tower.

I go out and I ask people what they're going through.

Our second contestant is Alfredo Romero, he's an economist at North Carolina, A and T University.

New to the forecasting game, Alfredo built his first economic forecast last year for the

Wall Street Journal.

With a robust toolkit of statistical and economic tricks, he is all about the numbers.

You know, human behaviors are a little bit unpredictable and reliable, so I'm going

...