"U.S. Manufacturing Growth Slows Dramatically", "Housing Imperils Recovery" and "Private Sector Added Few Jobs in May".
All of these developments seemed to catch the economic experts off guard, who were expecting improved job growth and housing starts. One week the economists are expecting a turn around for 2011, the next week a double dip recession.
And where were the financial experts when the devastating stock market crash of 1929 hit banks and businesses? Or the Black Friday Crash of 1987 when the market lost more than 22% in one single day? How many of us were ready for the latest stock market decline beginning in 2008?
How can these people win Noble prizes for economics? My basic predictions-- based on talking to a few clients, basketball junkies and family -- come closer to the truth than these guys. I'm convinced economists (preferably liberal) are idiots, trust them at your own risk.
Hardly a week passes when some "expert" predicts something that is later proved false.
A few weeks ago, Family Radio Network founder, Harold Camping, was predicting the end of the world. The "rapture," as it was known, was scheduled for May 21, 2011, would signal the day when Christ would come back to earth to take his believers to heaven. A 14-year-old Russian teenager committed suicide when she heard the prediction, because she didn't want to be one of those left behind to suffer on earth. Others quit their jobs and sold possessions in anticipation of not needing them anymore.
When it didn't happen, Mr. Camping laughingly said, "I miscalculated the date, it should have been October 21st." How convenient for someone who has been wrong before. His miscalculation of the impending rapture hasn't stopped new followers from saying, "when I heard he had the wrong day, I went out and thanked the Lord for another beautiful day." OOOOOOkay!
Speaking of wiping egg off your face, wasn't global warming supposed to melt the polar ice cap and raise sea levels over 25 feet and flood coastal cities? How about David Viner, a researcher at the University of East Anglia in the UK, who claimed that within a few years children "wouldn't know what snow was" and that "snowfall would be a very rare and exciting event."
In Al Gore's documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," he confidently stated that "within the decade, there will be no more snows of Kilimanjaro" due to warming temperatures. Global warming believers fail to acknowledge that the cap has been shrinking since 1912 long before greenhouse gas emissions started to rise. To date, the famed snow cap -- a poster child of global warming -- remains a fixture on the mountaintop.
Why are people so eager to predict things, and why are we so quick to buy into their predictions?
The answer is one or all of the following: money, power and/or politics. The people making these predictions are typically trying to change behaviors (driving a car), sway voters to accept legislation (giving up our freedoms) or organizations in need of money to keep their jobs and continue their lies. For me, the reasons are easier to understand than the willingness of people to believe them. Common sense should eliminate 90% of the outrageous claims being made, but there persists a willingness to believe the people telling us these fabrications.
So there must be a desire by a lot of people who want to accept responsibility for their own bad behavior and to find redemption. A asinine example of this are carbon credits which supposedly offset the global warming activities of big business and individuals. The Sierra Club, Green Peace and the Environmental Defense Fund are some of the biggest hypocrites when it comes to telling us to give up something and then doing the very thing they tell us to stop (buying credits -- then flying everywhere in private jets or driving SUVs). Their arrogance is unbearable.
The remaining ten percent must believe these predictions because they are simple-minded people, or lack the confidence in American enterprise to create the next Apple or Apollo spacecraft. My suspicions are that you could track the people that voted for Obama and find them on the same list. Or just look in his Administration. I have more sympathy for them, but not much.
For fun, here are a few predictions from the past:
"It will be years -- not in my lifetime -- before a woman becomes Prime Minister," Margaret Thatcher, October 26, 1969.
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers," Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.
"That virus -- HIV -- is a pussycat," Dr. Peter Duesberg, U.C. Berkeley, 1988.
"A rocket will never be able to leave the Earth's atmosphere," New York Times, 1936.
"The singer (Mick Jagger) will have to go. The BBC won't like him," first Rolling Stones' manager, Eric Easton, to his partner after watching them perform.
"Rail travel at high speed will not be possible because passengers, unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia," Dr. David Larder, (1793-1859).
"There will never be a bigger plane built," a Boeing engineer, after the first flight of the 247.
"640K ought to be enough for anyone." Bill gates, founder of Microsoft, in 1981.
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My prediction for the Super Bowl? Packers
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