I think Madoff's is worst. It's so ironic. While he was executing one of the greatest financial schemes in history, he was saying that it's impossible to violate the rules.
The strange thing is, those who made correct predictions like Dean Baker et al., are marginalized even after they turn out to be correct.
The lesson: There is little penalty for going along with the herd, even if you are wrong, but there are consequences to being correct if you violate the herd norms.
Always being a contrarian would more often be right than the opposite, it seems -- especially lately.
It's incredible to me how anyone gets away with doing predictions without a corresponding article like this afterwards documenting their (lack of) success. We only hear about predictions when they are accurate.
Given how 2008 turned into the year of false predictions, I wonder how this will influence the development of predictive search? "You are looking for a new television" as a question rather than statement?
There are different grades of advice. Some is free, some costs 24.95 per month, some costs 6000 per year, some costs much, much more.
Now, Jim Cramer is famous because he is very shrill in his catastrophic opinions, but they are all playing the same game. One laughable spectacle is the expensive annual Forbes cruise in which wealthy people pay (I forget how much) to get stock tips, which are later relayed to the magazine's readers. This is nothing more than half-assed front running.
Rest assured, however, that ALL FREE PREDICTIONS are merely stage two of a front running scam.
