Why do people insist on posting silly predictions?

greenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) : One Thread

You know, I'm not sure how to pose the question without welcoming flames, but I really don't get it so I'll risk the slings and arrows.

Today Lenny says the market's going in the toilet (it's up about 40 points as I post) last week it was a big earthquake on the west coast (never happened), before that, Paula with grocery shortages and hyperinflation,(no supporting evidence) Andy with Gold at $1,000 an ounce ($287 today)...the list just goes on and on.

What's all this based on? Usually it's "feelings" and they "can't tell us" how it is that THEY have knowledge that we mortals don't have, but they just have to share it with us and then usually ridicule those of us who doubt them.

If all these folks were so good at predictions, they'd be rich and selling books rather than giving this stuff away to the rest of us on the web. As far as I can tell, the results of all these prediction have been very poor.

What drives this behavior?

How do they then repost the same drivvel next week when they published erronous predictions this week?

Finally, what purpose does it serve to post predictions?

Call me stupid, but I thought only God knew the future.

-- Randers (coyotecanyon@hotmail.com), December 20, 1999

Answers

I predict that more people will respond to this thread.

-- (sorry@try.again), December 20, 1999.

Economists make a lot of predictions that are almost always wrong, and yet they continue to make their predictions. Just about the only economist who correctly called the bull market of the mid and late 1990's is Dr. Edward Yardeni.

I think most people realize that 'predictions' are just another person's opinion. Seen that way, it doesn't hurt to hear to another person's opinion.

-- (predictions@re.opinions), December 20, 1999.


Isn't it funny how all their predictions are based primarily on how they expect people to act and react to events? The price of gold, the drop in the market, run on cash, hoarding of food supplies...... All that were supposed to have happened already? But in case you have not noticed, none have. So, obviously, the doomer's knowledge and expertise in individual and group psychology is severely limited. Then the doomers yell "but....well, what happened was......the government controlled media is........if it were not for the mind altering comtrails..........how can you not know that the Trilateral Commission is controlling the........yes, my predictions were wrong, but its because things are WORSE THAN I THOUGHT!........the reason MY predictions were wrong is because I couldn't see clearly- someone STOLE MY BINOCULARS!

-- for real (for@real.com), December 20, 1999.

Agree.

But keep in mind that many of these so-called predictions are posted by trolls, very few by regulars with recognizable handles. Some are polly trolls. Some are doomer trolls. Some are just psychos.

The sorry facts are (despite what these same trolls spew forth) that very little of what happens on this forum is deleted.

Use some discrimination, Randers. There are only about 15 long-time regulars still posting regularly at this time; maybe another 15 who post infrequently.

This forum has been under near-continual sabotage postings since March, 1999. They just take a variety of different forms.

In general, if I don't see something posted from a regular who has posted at least a hundred times, I don't pay attention. I pay attention to your postings because you established your credibility at GY's forums.

And it will get worse before it gets better. About 1 in 10 threads has any usefulness here; used to be 1 in 2. Could soon be 1 in 20.

If Y2K is a BITR or < 5, the forum will come to an end by May, 2000 (or, at least, I won't be here). Here's hoping!

(TB2K is just electrons ....)

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), December 20, 1999.


I predict that programs will not work properly when 00 is compared to 99 and finds out that it is less than 99, not greater than 00. I'm some prophet aren't I?

-- Larry (cobol.programmer@usa.net), December 20, 1999.


There are reasons why there hasn't been a financial panic yet.....

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/19991212/tc/stocks_week_2.html

Link

Sunday December 12 1:28 AM ET Y2K Paranoia or Greenspan's Irrational Exuberance? By Pierre Belec

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The stock market just keeps on climbing and Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has been making a massive amount money available in the financial system.

Is it irrational exuberance or Y2K paranoia? Or Both?

Greenspan has permitted the biggest expansion of money supply in the Fed's history in the weeks leading up to the end of the year, when the so-called Y2K computer bug could disrupt financial systems.

The Fed's move has been explosive on Wall Street because a free flowing money faucet at the Fed boosts confidence in the financial system, and the economy at large, and is the stuff that makes bull markets get bigger.

M3, the Fed's broad definition of money, which includes currency, travelers' checks, bank deposits and money market mutual funds, has climbed $194 billion over the past 13 weeks -- the biggest increase ever. The money supply increased at an annualized rate of 15 percent, which is well above the Fed's target growth rate of only 5 percent.

Just a week ago, M3 went up a huge $36 billion, which would seem to indicate that the central bank is buying insurance against some possible disruptions as the calendar changes from 1999 to 2000, analysts said.

``The money supply has gone through the roof and the increase, adjusted for inflation, is the biggest in the nation's history,'' said Don Hays, president of The Hays Market Focus Advisory Group, an investment consulting firm.

``The Fed may be flooding the nation with cash because of jitters among central bankers that the Y2K computer bug could do more damage to the financial system than most people expect,'' he said.

``I just don't have another excuse other than Y2K to imagine why the Fed would flood the system, unless there is something that's happening behind the scenes that we don't know about,'' Hays said.

``This huge liquidity is the reason for the big rally in stocks since October,'' Hays said. ``It's a replay of the market's run-up exactly one year ago, when the Fed rushed to flood the system after the panic from the Russian loan default and the Long Term Capital Management hedge fund disaster.''

The Fed came to the rescue of the LTC fund, which teetered last year on the brink of bankruptcy due to the global market turmoil. The fund's losses threatened to slam the financial system, which in turn could have hurt the economy.

But the increase in money supply and financial system liquidity may also ``reflect Greenspan's thinking that the stock market is on a very unstable foundation because of valuations and Y2K might be the trigger that could keep it from coming down softly,'' Hays said.

One of Greenspan's goal's over the last four years of extraordinary gains in stocks has been to ``talk'' the market down, or to set the mood for the market to come down from its lofty levels in a gradual way and to avoid a panic on the Street, which would demoralize business confidence. But the market has not yet suffered a serious reversal.

And the Fed may fear that Y2K could be the thing that could yet punch a big hole in the market bubble, analysts said.

Three years ago, in December 1996, Greenspan sent global stock market reeling with a comment about investors' ''irrational exuberance,'' and Wall Streeters now say the Fed head is not practicing what he preaches.

There are few signs of panic in the run-up to the new year, when computers may confuse the year 2000 with 1900, messing up date- sensitive functions.

Corporate America says it is confident that it has fixed the Y2K problem, but the Fed is apparently not taking any chances.

The concern is that disruption on a large scale could stun corporate earnings, slam the stock market and drive the economy into recession, analysts said.

``We don't have the slightest idea how Y2K is going to play out,'' Hays said. ``From listening to all the 'informed' sources, I have to come to the conclusion that no one else does either.''

Paul Kasriel, chief U.S. economist for Northern Trust Co. in Chicago, said there is no doubt that the cash from the Fed has been the elixir for the market's rally.

``People are not borrowing just to stuff the money in their mattresses,'' he said. ``They borrow to spend and it ain't a coincidence that the stock market has picked up as the money supply has exploded.''

The Fed can boost confidence in the financial system and make the economy grow faster by making more money available to banks, which eventually leads to cheaper loans.

It can also discourage lending when the economy grows at a fast clip, and threatens to fuel inflation, by withdrawing money from the banking system, or by raising short-term interest rates.

Kasriel said the money supply growth was revved up in October, which is about the time that stocks began their recovery from a selloff that threw the Dow Jones industrial average for a loss of 1,300 points -- a classic correction of 10 percent -- between September and mid-October.

The other major market gauges were also battered, with the Standard & Poor's 500 index slumping 12 percent and the Nasdaq Composite index skidding more than 6 percent.

Since then, the Nasdaq has been rewriting the record books, making highs on an almost daily basis. In addition, the S&P last week hit a new high while the Dow Jones industrial average came within less than 50 points of beating its Aug. 25 record of 11,326.04.

``Without the money supply growth, I am convinced that the market would be in much weaker shape at this time,'' Hays said.

Kasriel said that things could get interesting for the market next year as a result of the Fed's action.

``The Fed may choose to ignore the rapid growth in credit and money that it has a hand in creating,'' he said. ``But investors ignore it at their own peril.''

Kasriel said that, unless the Fed can rope in credit demand, it will have to raise interest rates more than the half percentage point that he has been expecting in the year 2000. The Fed this year has already boosted interest rates by three quarters of a point.

``It is beyond me how the stock market could continue to be immune to further increases in both short-term and long-term interest rates,'' he said.

So the big question is: Will the 73-year old Greenspan leave his job the same way he came in, in 1987, with a stock market crisis?

For the week, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 61.48 points at 11,224.70. The Standard & Poor's 500 index was off 16.26 points at 1,417.04 and the Nasdaq Composite index was up 99.65 points at 3,620.25.

-- Thankful there hasn't (been@panic.yet), December 20, 1999.


Well, you know how it is....get drunk....post bullsh**. They probably feel silly when they sober up.

-- Screamin' Demon (prepper@abouta4.com), December 20, 1999.

They post because they really want to believe that the isolated incident that they are seeing is the Beginning. They believe that they can see Patterns and Connections that others can't, and they believe that Joe Sixpack thinks the same as they do, so anything that they notice will be noticed by Joe and will lead to a collapse.

It's that simple. Belief, not analysis.

These people are looking forward to Y2K. So they're miserable now, and they'll be miserable afterwards whatever happens. It's not even worth berating them for crying wolf, because every day that passes makes it more likely that this time they WILL be right, so they justify themselves with that thought, and we see the same shrieks again and again and again and again.

Thing is, one day Chowbabe MIGHT be right. But not today.

-- Servant (public_service@yahoo.com), December 20, 1999.


>> Why do people insist on posting silly predictions? ...What drives this behavior? ...Finally, what purpose does it serve to post predictions? <<

Judging from your post, these are probably rhetorical questions. The problem is, if they are truly rhetorical, then your post serves no function other than to complain that some people here look silly to you. This is not very interesting. So, in an effort to recoup something from this thread, I'll pretend these were serious questions and answer them seriously.

First, to those who post such predictions, it is obvious that they do not regard them as silly drivel. That's obviously a matter of judgement. You trust your own judgement or you would not have posted as you did. You do not find that situation odd. They trust their judgement. This is no different.

Next, it is human to make predictions. We like to dignify the exercise by calling it foresight. Everyone makes dozens of trivial predictions a day. Even these are sometimes wrong. Yet we persist in making them. So clearly, being in error is not a sufficient motive to stop predicting the future. We just try to become better at it, instead.

And, just as Bill Gates sees no reason not to make yet another billion dollars, few people place limits on their desire to make predictions. Each step forward into new predictive territory reveals new vistas of virgin ground. It only loses interest when the subject for prediction becomes too remote from our own lives and interests. Few Americans make predictions about rainfall in Sub-Saharan Africa. You can bet most Sub-Saharan Africans are vitally interested in the subject. Andy is interested in gold. Paula, in groceries. Making predictions in these areas comes naturally to them.

So, you can see that all of the predictions made publically in TB2000 fit the major criteria, so far. But why post them?

Simple. It is natural to share one's hopes and fears, isn't it? Communicating a prediction is such an act.

But perhaps your questions did not clearly state your real concerns. Perhaps what puzzles you is the preternatural *certainty* of certain chronic predictors, in the face of being chronically wrong.

That isn't much of a mystery, really. Any statement about the future must rest on some amount of faith. Where faith is strong, certainty increases. Even misplaced faith produces genuine certainty.

This accounts for the certainty of some folks. What about their persistance in the face of failure?

That is a function of cost. If the consequences of being wrong were genuinely painful, the behavior would (in most cases) adjust itself. In the few remaining cases, it would be a clear sign of mental illness. As far as I can see, none of the examples you cited from TB2000 are the sort of prediction that, if failed, has much of a cost for the predictor. Including ridicule. So the cost is minimal, and the rewards are, well, predictable.

Now, does this make more sense to you?

-- Brian McLaughlin (brianm@ims.com), December 20, 1999.


Thanks all for your responses.

Big Dog, For Real and especially Screamin Demon. I think he sumed it up best "get drunk, post and then regret", or words to that effect.

Gotta say Brian, you're looking too deep into my questions. I'm just looking for insight in how these people think. If I understood the process, I wouldn't put the effort into the query. No intent other than that.

-- Randers (coyotecanyon@hotmail.com), December 20, 1999.



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