It's that time of year when journalists let their creativity run rampant to produce 10-Best and 10-Worst lists, revisit the year's biggest whoppers (look no further than the Oval Office), and offer prognostications for the coming year. With that in mind, I've gleaned the five most important lessons from 2013, which are all but guaranteed to be forgotten next year.
No. 1. Beware political pronouncements posing as economic forecasts.
Before, during and after the federal government shutdown in October, President Barack Obama warned us about all the terrible things we should expect. The Earth would go dark, the oceans would recede and droughts would devastate the nation's farmland. OK, not that bad, but he did imply we could get food poisoning from eating tainted beef (no food inspectors) and risk getting killed in a plane crash (no air-traffic controllers). As it turned out, essential workers weren't furloughed.