On Sat, Nov 15, 2008 at 12:34 PM, John Williams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote:
> > Of course it is! All sorts of people predict all sorts of things. The > only ones worth listening to are the ones who have a track record of > being consistently right. If that were true, no market research company would be in business. I'd imagine that no long-term forecaster of any kind would be in business. I know a little bit about forecasting... I co-founded and ran a successful market research firm and I have patents for methods of forecasting markets. Do you have any credentials or examples to cite that would support your notion that we should only listen to people who are right all the time? I have a little trouble imagining that you do, since following that advice, you might as well put in earplugs, since there's nobody who is consistently right about long-term forecasting or predicting much of anything interesting. The value in long-term forecasting is not so much the forecast as the thinking behind it. As regards the current economic situation, there's an old truism that good weather predictions are far more accurate than bad weather predictions. The people whose predictions are accurate during stable conditions are far less likely to be accurate when things become more chaotic. Nick _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
