When the Hopium wears off

As far as movies about business confidence go, Brad Pitt's Killing Them Softly is a good one. (Image: Supplied) At the Bloomberg Address in Auckland at the end of last week, I had one question for most of the economists gathered there: whatever happened to all those green shoots?An oft-cited quip about economists is that they have predicted 11 of the past five recessions, although this time around they seem to have gone against type and predicted a 2025 recovery that never happened. Simplicity chief economist Shamubeel Eaqub wasn't at the event, but is one of those economists who admits his predictions were off."This recession has been w...