The profession is still in the stage of gathering data and looking for patterns. Some theorists believe they have testable hypotheses, but this is debatable (in my opinion)

The Fed makes forecasts but monetary policy is based on consensus among various schools of thought, not models. It doesn't work like NOAA.

If you could reliably predict the markets you'd make a fortune -- and the markets would adjust and become unpredictable again. This is a basic feature of markets, agreed to by all comers, last I checked.

IANAE, but I'm hearing over and over again that Krugman is making political points, not economic ones. That's fine, but it makes it difficult for laymen like myself to determine if we're having a political discussion or an economic one.