In two successive years I 've been 100 pts pessimistic and 400 pts optimistic on DJIA crystal ball.

[dmallind]

Last year when reviewing a near spot on call made in 2009 for 11225 close in Nov 2010 I suggested we'd be at 11750 right now. I certainly admit I expected a better jobs recovery, and thought Greece would be more coddled by rhe EU big dogs.

Still - my record against the silly freefall Cassandras is quite solid and the direction remains right. No doubt a horde of them will be here to tell me it's just one more year before the "house of cards" collapses "inevitably".

And indeed I am a touch more pessimistic than last year. The corps are still holding on to way too much cash, the goldbugs are still dancing on a bubble that is more durable than it should be, jobs are slow to get better and spending/sentiment that is the base of it all is more negatively entrenched than I would have guessed. In 2010 I would have predicted for mid Sept 2012b a 13000+ close. I am less hopeful now, while still seeing a slow and decidedly bumpy growth. Bond fund geniuses are still willing to buy long term US paper at minimal returns, and eventually that cash has to seek a better return. So for next year at this time I'm going for a 12400 close.

Will I be there to see how close I am or face the Kunstlerites grave-dancing if vermin stew is on the menu? Dunno. My IPF is worsening but much much less slowly than the average - it's one of those maddeningly difficult to predict things (much like the DJIA) so I have no idea whether I'll be around to see next year (2 yrs ago I was told it could be days or years, but the average was about 18 mos based on symptoms then, and yet I'm not that much worse than I was, and they are saying the same thing now - so it's still who knows whether I'll see this dead cat finally stop bouncing higher in this just one more year, or see that I'm pretty close again).

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=114&topic_id=82064#82107

[jtuck004]

1. Silly freefall Cassandra here...

You were very close on your prediction, I was way off, and I learned something about how untied stock prices are to everyday people's lives in this country.

I now realize my mistake was not in assuming the lives of our neighbors in this country would be circling the drain in ever increasing numbers, (still correct on that one) but that somehow the stock values would reflect that. I realize now that scumbag rent-seekers have a whole world to leach from as they practice their immoral and harmful craft, and as long as there is another nickel to be stolen from the most vulnerable they will build their web out to trap and set their sharpened teeth deep into their victims. I told you then I wasn't a predictor of the DJIA, though now I know more about why I feel the need to shower nearly every time I read something about the financial sector these days.

I do hope you stick around for a great while. For many others, however, it doesn't matter if it is another year or a hundred because those numbers are propped up on their graves; those of the working poor, those who were paid so poorly they could not afford insurance, children, others. I would rather concern myself with how they divest themselves of the financial fools. That thoughtless rush which values short-term profits wastes our most valuable resources, people. The extent to which that happens continues to make me think the overall trend is that of driving the bus into the ground, regardless of how many beach homes those profits allow a few to have, or how long it takes. It's ever possible that a new discovery in energy, medicine, or ? could alter our trajectory, but as long as the addicts of Wall Street are in control I suspect we will still go over the cliff.

I was watching Ratigan the other day, he had Jeff Kreisler on, and they were talking about billionaires and Kreisler's satirical book about how to get rich by cheating. The line I thought typified it best was when Dylan was suggesting ways to improve the lives of the people around us and Kreisler said something like "Dylan, Rome is burning and you are trying to put out the flames. You should instead be trying to sell them violins and marshmallows". Not so much funny as an accurate descriptor of a mindset, eh?

It is much more clear, the thinking of those who are profiting the most from our current exercise in governing, and I thank you for your part in my understanding more about them.