Amidst all of the media coverage, instead of real experts, what you see are data collectors (Robert Shiller), perpetual doomers – guys who have been preaching doom for two decades - Roubini, Schiff, Krugman and Faber.
And now we see the “hindsight heros” who are only jumping aboard now that things are obvious (everyone on CNBC, FBN, radio, and various financial websites). Anyway you slice it, they’re all extremists. Extremists are largely useless and sometimes dangerous.
As the facts show, the entire group of these “experts” (labeled as such by the media) has very little credibility based on their track record, which includes the perpetual doom forecasters. And the thousands of armchair quarterbacks who plaster the Internet with their rehashing of the news are even worse.
Make no mistake, while these “experts” are media clowns, some of them actually have some value to add; but only if you’re clueless. For instance, when I want real estate or historical stock market data, I would go to Shiller; but certainly not for forecasting or investment guidance. You need to learn to use Shiller for what he is good for; data collection. That’s it. Period. End of story.
Some of these men – guys in the media club - made forecasts that were completely wrong, costing those who followed them BIG money. Thus, without getting the full picture, listening to them can be disastrous.
In none of the cases I have mentioned would I look to any of these individuals for a comprehensive understanding of what is going on, because quite frankly, based upon what I have seen, heard and read from them, they don’t know. But the media continues to insist they do. And most people (THE SHEEP) believe what the media says. That’s part of the game. And that’s why most people (THE SHEEP) ultimately get blasted in the stock market.
I was talking with a rather pleasant and experienced journalist the other day, describing the dog-and-pony show coverage of the economy and stock market by the financial media. I told her that the media has made false claims by insisting that their go-to guys – Shiller, Krugman, Roubini, Schiff, etc. – predicted this collapse. But she insisted that Roubini did because he “wrote about it.” I was shocked that she too had been fooled by the mechanisms of her own industry. I explained…
“First of all, posting some general things about how the economy was in trouble on a blog by no means qualifies as predicting this collapse. If that were the case, then thousands of amateurs also predicted it.
Second of all, where were his specific predictions? Did Roubini estimate real estate would decline by 35% before the bubble popped? Did he discuss the possibility of Dow 6000 before the collapse? Did he predict Fannie and Freddie would be bailed out by taxpayers before the real estate bubble popped?"
The answer is of course no to all of these questions.
So now we come to today's lesson. You must look at 3 variables when determining someone’s credibility:
Agenda or Financial bias – does the person stand to benefit financially or politically (also by altering the political landscape) by their views. This does not always mean they lack credibility, but you should always keep it in mind because they may try to manipulate investor sentiment for their financial benefit; examples: analysts, fund managers, those with the same story line for years like pro-Wall Street and doomer clowns.
Timing – No prediction, no matter how accurate is worth a damn if you have been crying wolf for many years. Take Peter Schiff for instance. He has been spewing the same doom and gloom line since the 1990s. While he was betting against the US market, he missed out on the biggest bull market in history. You won’t have any credibility if you aren’t able to get the timing relatively close. Rookies stick to an extremist view while missing out on tremendous gains because they cannot understand the difference between risk and reality. Doomers pitched the same lines while the stock market went up by 500% in a decade because doom was their sales pitch.
Specificity – simply predicting “major problems” for the US economy or real estate market is insufficient to make money. And when you make ridiculous claims such as the dollar is going to 0 due to hyperinflation (Schiff and Faber) you have lost all credibility.
Hit-miss Ratio – the guys most guilty of avoiding the hit-miss ratio game are the newsletter clowns. You know who they are. They have a staff of 2 or 3 dozen writers constantly pumping out “amazing investment opportunities” or selling you fear each day. Between all of the material that gets pumped out, they seem to cover every possibility so that when something happens, they cherry-pick previous predictions, knowing you won’t know better. Others simply make ridiculous claims that say they predicted the fall of a bank based on a statement they wrote 60 days before that said “this bank has a terrible balance sheet” or “they risk insolvency.” Jim Cramer also plays this game, knowing that none of the sheep who watch him keep a written account of his track record.
I suggest you research these guys; all of them. The ones the media claims predicted things. Look for evidence of these predictions. I will guarantee you won’t find it. But also research these newsletter clowns. They have been preaching the same lines for decades.
You name them, they are all the same. Feel free to list someone you feel is an exception in the comments area. If I agree, I will respond accordingly. If I do not, I won’t respond since there are simply too many out there.
NOTE: I continue to face widespread censorship for the cold hard truth I speak, as I see it. My intention is to wake the people up so they will realize just how useless and deceitful the mainstream media is. I ask that you do your part to help with this mission by emailing my articles to your friends and adding the articles to the various online syndication options provided at the top right-hand side of each article. Together, we can make a difference.
Copyright © 2009. Mike Stathis. All Rights Reserved.
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