yet economists do make predictions, and they make them based on abstract models. Read the krugman piece for some examples of such models and their predictions.

One concrete example, when the fed raises or lowers interests rates it's based on a prediction of where they believe the market is going, where they believe it's at, and a prediction of the effect of the rate change. Otherwise what is the profession doing?

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.

That's a very good point. That is the feeling I have been getting during that past year from Krugman when I started reading his columns. I wanted to read him because of his reputation as an economist, but it is almost like he is parlaying that to push his political agenda.

I'm getting the sense that you haven't really read krugman. For starters, if you did read him on the NYT then you couldn't have missed the giant OPINION label at the top. It's an op-ed, it isn't claiming to be anything else.

Second, if you read the article in question he specifically talks about this particular school of economists using rigorous mathematical models, and the problems he has with those models (in laymans terms). Did you miss that part or did you not read the article in question?