Looking Back At Expert Opinions

The site I’m about to talk about has been making it’s way around the web and around blogs for a while now. If you’ve seen it, sorry for the duplication, if not, it’s worthwhile reading.

Chart of Pompous Prognosticators

The site takes a rather novel look at The Great Crash of 1929. A play-by-play look of what industry experts, politicians, and academics were saying during the spectacular rise in the Dow Jones Industrial and through the subsequent (and most spectacular) crash. Take a good look at those names, don’t they sound awfully familiar? How did these experts and academics get it ‘so wrong’?

Take a good look at the comments on the way up. No, I’m serious, take the time to take a look at that site and read it. If you don’t know who Keynes, Irving Fisher, and the others were, read up on them in Wikipedia. Don’t just skim over this and say “It’s different this time” or “The stock market and housing have nothing in common.” This has nothing to do with housing or the stock market, but how expert, professional, political, and academic opinion isn’t always the best source of information.

It’s eerie how similar the situation is if you overlay those names with the housing shills of today. I can see the website in my head already.

“We will not have any more crashes in our time.”
– John Maynard Keynes in 1927

“There is no national housing bubble.”
-David Lereah in 2005

Caveat Emptor,
Grim

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