Kenny’s irrational behaviour hard to understand

As a part-time lecturer in economics I always try to hammer home to students in the first class the hazards of trying to forecast the economic future based on the fact that economics is a social science where outcomes are very heavily determined by human behaviour.

Human behaviour is rarely straightforward and can rarely be predicted with any degree of certainty. The other unfortunate aspect of trying to forecast the future is the inordinate impact that the actions of the political classes can have.

In my experience the long term for most politicians does not extend beyond the next election and hence their actions will tend to be very heavily influenced by what they need to do to get re-elected.