What’s the Shape of Your Recession?
by ilene - November 9th, 2009 5:02 am
What’s the Shape of Your Recession?
Courtesy of Tim at Psy-Fi Blog
Clueless Commentators
Over the past few years we’ve had endless economic experts opining on the nature of the recession. From initial hopes of a bouncy V shaped recovery we moved onto a sluggish U and then a very droopy looking L before a dose of government pump-primed financial Viagra re-erected the idea of the V. More pessimistic predictors – mainly those who originally plumped for a U or an L – are now hopefully suggesting that we’ll get a double-dip W or a triple-dip VW in an attempt to save their remaining credibility.
Of course, the reality is that none of them have the faintest clue because none them possibly can have the faintest clue. We are, as always, in the uncharted waters of the future. The only letter that needs apply is the X that marks the spot where we bury the commentators and their useless predictions.
Blithe Ignorance
As we’ve sailed on through the treacherous shoals of economic uncertainty people have naturally looked to the world’s experts for advice. Occasional suggestions by central bankers, who actually have the real data to analyse, that they don’t have a clue what’s going to happen have resulted in shudders across world markets. Meanwhile commentators have happily carried on making essentially random predictions based on their thirty years or so experience of largely benign economic times. It’s like watching a weather forecaster from Hawaii trying to make predictions for the Mid-West: amusing, but not terribly helpful.
In fact, as economies have uncertainly recovered we’ve seen the standard reactions by experts who’ve been caught out (see You Can’t Trust The Experts With Your Investments). Many have simply ignored the fact that they were wrong and have blithely continued to make further predictions; presumably on the grounds that yesterday’s media makes tomorrow’s lining for kitty litter trays. Others have opted for the standard “I was right, but not yet” or “I was wrong, but for the right reason” responses as though getting your timing wrong about the world economy and causing people to flee into overpriced government bonds just as the biggest stockmarket rally in history kicked off is a normal sized mistake.
The highly respected John Authers of the Financial Times is…
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW.