Really Bad Pundits: 2008
Foreign Policy Magazine made their selections of the 10 worst predictions of 2008 and this turns out to be fun:
1. William “The Bloody” Kristol, who told the world two years ago that “Barack Obama would not beat Hillary Clinton in a single Democratic primary”.
2. Jim Cramer, who, in March 2008, was yelling at an emailer to hold on to his Bear Stearns stock. Six days later, the run was on at Bear Stearns and the rest is history. I’d bet that there is a fun study to be done in comparing Jim Cramer financial outcomes with those who don’t need to perform on camera.
3. Dennis Blair and Kenneth Lieberthal who pooh-poohed the risks to supertankers from terrorists or pirates in established shipping lanes. They went as far to say “…Third, only a naval power of the United States’ strength could seriously disrupt oil shipments.” Somewhere in the Gulf of Aden, a Somali pirate is laughing his ass off.
4. Donald Luskin (AKA The Stupidest Man Alive) for dismissing the fact that we were in a recession back in September. This man was an economic advisor to McCain.
5. The Economist magazine for praising the election process of Kenya as an example to the rest of the continent. A week later Kenya went into a month of bloodshed which left behind a poor powersharing agreement and a very weak government.
6. Business Week magazine for predicting a Presidential faceoff between Michael Bloomberg and Hillary Clinton after Bloomberg got into the race as a self-funded Independent last February.
7. Walter Wagner, with his sky-is-falling prediction that the earth would be consumed by a black hole once the Large Hadron Collider got fired up. So the world’s largest particle accelerator gets fired up and still the only proximate black hole is right wing media.
8. Arjun Murti, a very famous Goldman Sachs oil analyst, who predicted $150 -$200 per gallon oil through 2010. This one, I think, gets a little slack — no one I know of saw the utter collapse of much of the commodities market coming.
9. Charles Krauthammer, estwhile WaPo and Fox News analyst for trying to get a rerun of the Russian communist empire building era, predicting that the Russians would be taking over Georgia and replacing its elected government back in August.
10. Henry Paulson, who, in November said:” “I believe the banking system has been stabilized. No one is asking themselves anymore, is there some major institution that might fail and that we would not be able to do anything about it.” This is, of course, not true — Citi needed to be bailed out a few weeks later.
This is the season for Top 10 Lists — nominate your own Really Bad Pundits from the national stage — or better yet — from right here in Delaware. If we get enough input, we’ll post a list of the Delaware ones…
I did a short term comparison with some of cramers recommendations and my own personal portfolio. randomly i selected 5 of his calls over a couple weeks and bought 5 stocks myself during that time. that was 9 months ago. currently cramers picks are down 41%. i am down overall .5%
Didn’t McCain at one point guarantee he would win?
Also.. the jury is still out on the Large Hadron Collider, it never fired up fully and is now down for repairs, so there is still a chance prediction #7 can come true.
I think you should have a special edition just for economic predictions.
McCain “the fundamentals of the economy are strong.” (Sept. 2008).
Wasn’t there a poster here who predicted Protack would win the Republican primary for governor?
nominate your own Really Bad Pundits
In the local division, I nominate:
Frank Knotts
David Anderson
Rick Jensen
Last year’s winner. Dave Burris. of course is a lock for the Lifetime Achievement Award in this category.
Being the prognosticator that prognosticators prognosticate about, I nominate everyone at FSP….EVERYONE!
Can’t ever get it right when you’re off base to start, capeche?
Here is my list for Pundits:
1. Keith Olbermann
2. Rachel Maddow
3. Chris Matthews
4. Paul Begala
5. Rosie O’Donnell
5. George Stephanopolous
6. Alan Colmes
7. Bill Maher
8. Al Franken
9. David Gregory
10. James Carville
Truth stings there, Jay…don’t it?
So sorry about your world view….laughing my fuckin face off….
Robert Novak for his incredible driving skills.
I know my worst call was the idea that Colin Powell might endorse McCain. On the other hand, most of my other calls were really on target.
Jason’s annual prediction he would quit blogging.
We were all wrong about Carney.
Wasn’t there a poster here who predicted Protack would win the Republican primary for governor?
It was me. Needless to say, I quit blogging for good after that one.
Cramer gets beat out by Ben Stein who, in october of 2007, declared on the Larry Kudlow show that 2008 would be the best year ever to own stocks. Maybe those eye drop commercials affected his brain.
Jason,
You have to admit you were pretty far off on that one.
Not all of us were wrong about Carney. 🙂
Number 7 was called too soon. The Large Hadron Collider broke down before collissions began.
According to some theories it could be decades or centuries before we know if some scientists concerns about micro black holes are valid.
Cheers,
LHCFacts.org