For apocalyptic contemplatives
Wednesday November 7, 2007
Categories: Decline and fall
We had a municipal election yesterday in Dallas in which voters chose to stick with a plan to put a new toll road in a central Dallas river bottom. Traffic downtown in the interstate exchange called "The Mixmaster" is horribly...
Filed Under: Peak oil; Kunstler; Deneen
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About Crunchy Con
Rod Dreher is an editorial columnist for the Dallas Morning News, and author of "Crunchy Cons" (Crown Forum), a nonfiction book about conservatives, most of them religious, whose faith and political convictions sometimes put them at odds with mainstream conservatives. The views expressed in this blog are his own.
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*sigh* Again, the facts don't support Kunstler's EVERYBODY PANIC writing. I could begin by simply pointing out that no one, anywhere, will gain anything if we cross over into peak oil. No, not even oil companies: they need a product to sell, and the need a market for it, and both of those things will be missing if oil shortages lead to drastic price increases. People whose livelihood depends on oil are projecting that the price of oil will peak soon somewhere between $100 - $105 per barrel, and then drop this winter to around $80 before going up again in the spring.
Long term, I see oil going up faster than inflation for the next several years. Not catastrophic increases, but increases on the order of, say, college tuitions. We're not running out of oil, we're just running out of cheap oil, and we're going to have to get used to paying more for it.
By the way, the reason for the current price spike: reserves are down in the US. That's all. It has happened before, and will happen again, and it isn't hard to fix.
I was a little surprised when Rod started mentioning Kunstler a while back, as Kunstler is about as far from 'crunchy con'as it gets - a cynical, foul-mouthed, secular Jew who lives to spread pessimism and gloom. But I have to admit that Kunstler was way out in front of most other non-technical writers about "peak oil." And now that peak oil has made into the MSM, he looks positively prescient, even if a lot of his prognostications are way off target.
But once you get sucked into reading and speculating about PO, there's no turning back. There are dozens of blogs and websites devoted to the subject, and the partisans are divided into "doomers" like Kunstler and "debunkers" who like Joel above, try to pick apart or otherwise dispel the gloom spread by the doomers.
Speaking only for myself, peak oil has been the Grand Unification Theory that ties together 9-11, the US occupation of Iraq, and the whole sordid history of US foreign policy in the Middle East.
It's all about oil and the US dollar.
frightened self-interest...well-described by investment banker Matthew Simmons.
You know, Kunster is a real loon, but his lauding of Matthew Simmons speaks very well of him. Anybody who wants to understand peak oil without a lot of baloney (like Kunster) should read Simmons book Twilight in the Desert, and especially the end section of worldwide inventories and comparison of different oil fields. He alone gets it (and I've read nearly every book on peak oil and nobody else really does, certainly not Kunster!). It's a shame it takes a banker and not a petroleum engineer to finally do it right.
Regarding Kunster's rant: One of the biggest laughs of the season came out of a New York Times..."many are at a loss as to what keeps driving the price." Actually, lots of people know what is driving up the price; well, Kunster is either actually just dumb (which I doubt) or is being willfully ignorant (more likely).
And it hurts to defend that rag the NYT, but what the reporter is (trying) to say is that the high price of oil is not currently reflected by lower inventory, and when this happens the cause usually trader speculation. This is of course the majority opinion, which while I'm not sure I agree with it, it is fair reporting.
But I say bring it on. An advantage for me personally if peak oil is being anticipated by markets (we are certainly nowhere close in to peak oil crisis based on real oil inventories) is that people will finally stop looking at me strange when I walk instead of drive. So I'm all for it!
But I have to admit that Kunstler was way out in front of most other non-technical writers about "peak oil."
He wes so far out in front...he was wrong. Kunstler was crying peak oil so long ago if anyone followed his advice would have lost their ass. He was so wrong about oil I can't believe anyone still reads him.
It's like if I claimed the stock market was going to tank and thus missed the whole '90s boom...and when the bear market finally arrived and everyone had made their pile be me yelled, "See, I'm right!" Any fool can do this. Peak oil itself was well documented by back in the '50s by Hubbert, and timing the worldwide peak is all that's left...and Kustler missed by a mile.
The only thing Kunstler is worth reading for is his advice on lifestyle changes, and I confess he is a real Crunchy fellow (not Con) in this area, and has some real good stuff here if you can wade through his BS to get it.
Will wrote: "peak oil has been the Grand Unification Theory that ties together 9-11, the US occupation of Iraq, and the whole sordid history of US foreign policy in the Middle East."
Could be. Saddam never got around to doing oil exploration in all of Iraq, and it is widely assumed in the industry (though of course not proven) that large untapped oil fields still exist in that country. Wild-eyed conspiracy loons have suggested that control of those fields is the real motivation for our presence in Iraq. (Myself, I don't think Bush ever planned that far ahead, but your results may vary.)
The thing about oil is there are numerous substitutes, all imperfect but also not disastrous. As the oil price rises, the substitutes become more economical or practical. You can take the bus or train instead of driving, put solar panels on your house. The Canadians can process oil shale. We can build nuclear plants and plug-in hybrid cars.
If the price grows very rapidly the adjustment could be harsher, and no society is entirely stable or resistant to upheaval, so one cannot exclude unrest, dislocations, and social disruption, depending on how this all comes down (if it does). However, I think we face greater dangers from demographics and spiritual and intellectual degeneration than from energy prices.
My dystopias don't begin at the gas pump.
Are Americans willing to accept the deaths of 100-200 million Chinese to preserve their way of life? I know I am.
Grumpy,
Couple of issues:
1) most shale oil may be economically worthwhile (once the costs of extraction/refinement are factored in) only at such outlandish rates they are effectively worthless. From what I've seen so far, this is the most likely case.
2) even with coal/nukes as a fallback, we still are stuck without a cost-effective liquid fuel. This leaves the worldwide fleet of cars worthless, at exactly the same time energy costs needed to mine/manufacture/build a new auto fleet gets very painful.
I think we face greater dangers from demographics and spiritual and intellectual degeneration than from energy prices.
I agree 100% here. I would argue that that is what is so scary - it's like a perfect storm of energy/demographics/spiritual/intellectual implosion, all at once. I'm no alarmist, but...
I agree 100% here. I would argue that that is what is so scary - it's like a perfect storm of energy/demographics/spiritual/intellectual implosion, all at once. I'm no alarmist, but...
...but you play one on the internet? Seriously, your last sentence sounds like pure Kunstler. That said, you could be right.
Seriously, your last sentence sounds like pure Kunstler.
I don't see how; Knustler is exactly they type of guy I'm talking about by spiritual decline.
Let's see, since Y2K --
1. Y2K -- all the machines will either stop working or rebel and kill us and there will be global collapse.
2. The SAR virus will kill billions and there will be global collapse.
3. Bird flu will kill billions and there will be global collapse.
4. Al Queda will spread anthrax and smallpox and there will be global collapse.
5. Mick Jagger will be born again and there will... (just threw that in to see if anyone is reading).
6. If we invade Iraq, we will suffer 10,000 casualties before we ever reach Baghdad and there will...
7. If we invade Iraq, a billion Muslims will rise in the street and there will be...
8. After Katrina (which destroyed my dad's home), every summer will see at least nine category 5 hurricanes and there will...
During the Carter administration's gas lines, I was preparing for a debate and I vividly remember reading the following sentence in a book by a Harvard energy specialist -- "We will never experience cheap supplies of oil again."
Maybe it's best to wait a while before going "apocalyptic."
Dave,
There are self-described "specialists" everwhere. And nobody who knows anything ever listened to them - not in 1970, and not today.
But peak oil has been predicted by mainstream oil people to fall roughly from 1990-2030 a very long time ago (incomplete data from OPEC countries is the big reason we have such a large window, not bad science). This isn't Y2K or global warming loony stuff. Remember, Hubbert predicted the peak of continental U.S. oil dead on decades before. This isn't rocket science, and it's not pie-in-the-sky. It's accurate and solid science with a proven track record.
I never read a single serious oil person say we were hitting peak oil before 1990. What the energy guy you were quoting may have meant was that Saudi would use OPEC as a means to hold prices high until the peak (they certainly could have if they weren't so greedy). But that's all politics, and has little to do with the science of peak oil.
M-David:
You might be right about oil shale; it was more an example than anything else.
And unless the oil dries up all at once, the current fleets of gas guzzlers could be gradually replaced by more efficient vehicles ("Smart Car," carbon fiber, plug-in, etc.).
This sort of thing happened before.
Perfect storms are possible, and civilizations have collapsed suddenly. However, they usually don't.
M_David, see Kunstler's blog entry entitled "The Storm Perfected." With the exception of spirituality, which Kunstler is either unqualified or disinclined to write about, he touches on the same confluence of events as you - energy/demographics/intellectual implosion.
Ok, it's back to the old Hawaiian song, "A load of hooey, a load of hooey..."
Rod said:
"It is craziness to put one's faith in the ability of scientists to work a miracle to deliver America from this fate."
I couldn't agree more. Not because it is irrational to believe that technology might solve problems that were created, in part, by technology. That is feasible.
But, it's the magical thinking about technology, the idea that it is some kind of magic bullet, that I find disconcerting. When not solving a problem (or a set of problems) could have disastrous consequences for us all, then pessimism about the promised solutions seems like the better part of wisdom.
I look forward to reading your book about the Benedictines, Rod. From what little I know of them and of "the rule of St. Benedict" they created a very advanced community.
I am not going to take seriously anyone who uses phrases like "Nascar morons." If he is right, and we suffer an apocalypse that dovetails nicely with his thoughts on urban development, I guess he'll be one up on me and my ilk.
Rod, go for the book about monasticism, no question.
I am not going to take seriously anyone who uses phrases like "Nascar morons."
Kunstler does have a knack for insults. You have to admit though, spending $150 or more to watch a bunch of guys drive around in a circle at 200 mph, when gas is $3 a gallon and we're fighting a war on terra on multiple fronts is a little more than a tad shy of conscientious.
A few observations:
1. There are different categories of technological optimists. Some do indeed engage in hand-waving, and flatly state that yet-to-be-developed technologies will obviate the peak oil problem. To some extent, this is understandable, since these guys did win the debate last time around (i.e., Simon v. Ehrlich in the '70s). What this position fails to consider is the possibility that peak oil just might be a different ball of wax.
Others, such as myself, base our optimism on already-existing technologies. Nuclear power, coal-to-liquids, tar sands/oil shale, plug-in hybrids, electric trains, mass transit, new urbanism...none of that is pie in the sky; we _already know_ how to do such things. Considering such technologies when contemplating our future isn't "optimism"; it's realism.
2. Economic collapse, IMHO, would require more than just sustained high oil prices. Expensive oil could perhaps lead to something reminiscent of '70s stagflation, or the '81-82 recession, or perhaps even the Great Depression (if we're really unlucky); but while none of those was a picnic, we did nevertheless survive them. The more likely scenario would seem to be short-term pain, followed by long-term gain as we adjust via conservation, new energy sources, etc. The sudden disappearance of every drop of oil on the face of the earth could perhaps cause immediate collapse, but as I understand it, peak oil isn't talking about that.
3. A declining dollar isn't necessarily a sign of the apocalypse. The dollar has been overvalued for years now - just look at the US current-account deficit - but China & other Asian countries have thus far been propping it up via currency manipulations in order to artificially-cheapen their exports. So long as it happens gradually and across-the-board (not just vis-à-vis the Euro, for instance), a declining dollar isn't necessarily a bad thing. More expensive imports lead to reverse outsourcing & a decreased current-account deficit, while the cheaper dollar leads to cheaper US exports. A sudden dollar crash (e.g., 50% decline in less than a month) could indeed lead to stock market crashes and an interest-rate spike, and a recession thereafter, but even that would be a far cry from economic collapse.
On the more important question - i.e., whether our social & political fabric remains as strong as 20, 30, or 70 years ago - I plead agnosticism, owing to insufficient data.
M_David, see Kunstler's blog entry entitled "The Storm Perfected." With the exception of spirituality, which Kunstler is either unqualified or disinclined to write about, he touches on the same confluence of events as you - energy/demographics/intellectual implosion.
Will, thanks for the link, I haven't read that one yet.
But from what I know about Kunstler to date, we don't agree on anything. Let's compare myself and Kunstler on the issues:
Energy:
Knustler: Hole up and live on the East Coast, the world is ending!
M_David: No major economic change if people are smart, just less liquid fuel and some stagflation which would be a healthy diet.
Demographics:
K: We have too many people! Birth control and abortion will save us!
M_D: We have too few young people, and way too few smart people due to and imploding families. But this is nothing Darwin can't fix, and we already see it with with large, traditionalist families making a comeback and liberals going the way of the Dodo.
Spiritual:
K: Southern Nascar religious conservative losers are the classic example of spiritual decline in America.
M_D: Liberal East Coast wealthy elites are the classic example of spirtual decline in America.
Intellectual:
K: Rednecks are the source of anti-intellectualism in America. Religious conservatives are the problem! Global warming is sound science, and if you don't buy it you are anti-science.
M_D: Our intellectual implosion is cultural. It results from declining families foolishly embracing the anti-family/secular lifestyle that hurts kids. The future of American education lies in killing the public school monopoly liberals support. Global warming and Gore are exactly the type of propaganda we need educated people to counter.
Summary:
Kunster: anti-family, no hope for the future, we are doomed to a terrible post-oil coal hazy world of shrinking economic growth. Hole up in a Blue state and wait the end!
M_David: pro-family, we face a less materialistic future, but people will live better with less liquid fuels, so why not start this great life now? The economy should not shrink over the long haul. The only real problems ahead are cultural and political, but Darwin is taking care of that nicely.
So it's all rosy ahead. Just live in a Red state to avoid the political threat of boomers like Kunstner passing silly laws. Have lots of kids and surround yourself other traditional families to avoid the social consequences of liberalism. Then smile and enjoy life! Walk to church and thank God, because we have a great post-materialistic and post-liberal future ahead. As the Chinese say, if you sit long enough by the edge of the river, you will eventually see the body of the bad guy go floating on by.
MI: Great post.
One quibble: ...since these guys did win the debate last time around (i.e., Simon v. Ehrlich in the '70s).
I would add, these guys have won not just that debate, but every single debate in the history of mankind. For a millon+ years, humans have always found something new. Our standard of living has been going up for all of mankind's history. Always, even before oil was discovered. God likes growth, I guess.
A great book to read here: Knowledge and the Wealth of Nations by Warsh. There is good reason to be optimistic in the future from an economic point of view.
My take FWIW:
The development of China (and India to some extent) from literal starvation to a developed economy has increased the demand for energy so much that the supply/demand equation is shifted way over to the demand side. Notice that there is a great deal to be happy about in that development. Most of the supplies of oil are in the hands of nationalized oil companies. Such companies are notorious for waste, graft, incompetance, and under investment. Unfortunately, these nationalized companies are now the largest in the world.
This history of oil will tell you that it will come to tears for the producing nations. They will buy-off their populations by "investing" in uneconomic enterprises. Think Venezuela. Or they will decend into conflicts over the cash: think Nigeria. The demands on the oil revenue will outstrip the actual revenue and there will be misery and underdevelopment. Only the Norwegians seem to have been made happy from oil development.
Peak oil is hardly the 2nd law of thermodynamics but is at most a back-of-the-envelope kind of predictive metaphor like Moore's law. It has yet to be shown that it has the uncanny ability that Moore's law has to seem strangely correct over a long period of time.
Regardless, oil is a problem as we don't want to drill for it ourselves and most of the world is made up of underdeveloped kleptocracies. So, use our ability to invent a better future. It ain't that hard and piles of investment capital are going into solving these problems as we speak. Will that transition be bumpy. Hell yes, it always is, but hopeless doom and gloom is a product of the dark imaginations ot those who see in the doom-and-gloom, hope for a future that they desire. Even old Karl played that game and we know how that turned out.
The thing about a guy like Knustler is that if his ideas prevail, the doom he predicts will be assured by the policies he suggests. And that is the real problem.
M-David went from I would argue that that is what is so scary - it's like a perfect storm of energy/demographics/spiritual/intellectual implosion, all at once. I'm no alarmist, but...
to
So it's all rosy ahead.
So maybe you understand my confusion with what you're saying. Frankly, I think you mis characterize Kunstler on a number of points, but my point was that you and Kunstler both had used the Perfect Storm metaphor to suggest that a combination of factors could produce an apocalyptic mix of scary 'stuff.' At least your earlier post suggested that, and then in your subsequent post you said everything would be "rosy."
I'm a bit confused by your "post-liberal future" reference too, unless you are actually suggesting that a theocratic, socially conservative future would be preferable to a liberal future, in which case I'm not sure I know what to reply!
Joel, I really don't understand how this is not a reason to at least be really concerned. Some of us have to commute and can't really afford to keep paying more for gas, which also translates to more for everything else that is shipped by petroleum. I currently pay over six dollars a day to get to work because I haven't been able to find work that lets me meet my bills locally. I drive a small car and i know people where I work who pay ten dollars a day just to get to work and back. Its going to get worse. We can't all just tighten our belts and keep paying more. There is no gaurantee of affordable alternatives for us who live where there is no public transportation and where we may have to drive forty or more miles just to get to work. I have high hopes for alternatives, but meanwhile I am hoping to find work locally. It may not be time to panic, but it is definitely time to realize that more than a few civilizations have ended when their primary resource failed. That resource for us, right now, is oil and we do not have a viable replacement resource. Ethanol aint it. Nuclear could be, but will we, collectively, tolerate it? Will electric cars become practical with three hundred mile plus ranges? Will anyone invest in the infrastructure nesessary to implement, say, battery exchange stations like gas stations? Will we invest massive amounts of money and brain power in the problem as though it were the cold war space race over again? Will our government offer practical incentives such as, snay, ten or twenty year tax exemptions for entrepreneurs investing in new energy technology and infrastructure? Or is it more likely that we will still be talking about stop gap measures such as hybrids, e-85, and road taxes (like I can afford any more taxes adding to the cost of my commute). Whether we come through an energy crisis or fail because we are oil junkies unable to change in not a forgone conclusion. Not every addict makes it through rehab. A lot of them, don't. What happens to them? They die. We, as a civilization are not yet doing what it takes to end our own collective addiction. Its really not a question of can we (we can) but will we?
Will:
Re: my post, read the context of it as a response to Grumpy and you will see that I was agreeing that there might be a concern. Not due to peak oil itself, but from a whole bunch of unrelated events Grumpy called out on the horizon. Sure, there could be a perfect storm, and it would be scary if occured. But I'm not predicting it.
Re: post-liberal future; my point was that since I believe liberal culture is creating most of our cultural hardships, and that libs are demographically on the out, this part of the problem will simply fix itself. Again, no alarmism.
Re: mischaracterizing Kunstler, I probably am in spots. I've not read that much of him, and was careful to say this was only to the best of my knowledge. Correct me where I'm wrong about him.
Will Harrington: I currently pay over six dollars a day to get to work because I haven't been able to find work that lets me meet my bills locally. I drive a small car and i know people where I work who pay ten dollars a day just to get to work and back. Its going to get worse.
A serious question: let's assume you are right and we have big inflation (say, 8%/yr) and the growth slows. How much are you willing to pay for a daily commute before you feel forced to move close close to where you work, or if that's impossible, find new work? And what's your guess for your coworker's response? Because the answer to this tells us a lot about how peak oil will play out.
Pfft. I am not as concerned about the mode of transportation but rather the failing infrastructure it has to go over. The largest problem we're facing, across the U.S., is the level of decay that we've let the bridge,roads,trestles, etc fall to. The Minneapolis/St.Paul bridge collapse is a wake-up call to that effect. In Seattle, we have two major arteries that have a 1 in 20 chance of failure to a common occurence here ( i.e. moderate earthquake and winter windstorm ). This is not to mention the surface streets/bridges (think potholes, roadbeds sloughing, etc) We can hope for the plug-in hybrid future, but if the roads they are driving over are falling apart...
Re: post-liberal future; my point was that since I believe liberal culture is creating most of our cultural hardships, and that libs are demographically on the out, this part of the problem will simply fix itself. Again, no alarmism.
Your use of the word 'liberal' is what's alarming. There's 'liberal' arts, which I think we all agree is the basis of Western-style higher learning, there's 'liberal' that means generous and tolerant, both Christian values, and then there's the 'liberal' used to characterize anyone that a 'conservative' disagrees with. It seems you're using the third definition.
Living in an inner city area and relying solely on public transit is starting to look better and better ...
PS, Will, re. auto racing --
CART/Champ Cars use methanol; Indy Cars use ethanol (neither terrific, but both better than gasoline) and Formula 1 is supposed to convert to alternative fuels by 2011 as well. That leaves only (you guessed it) NASCAR.
Their current fuel sponsor is Sunoco, but I suspect they should switch it to Sinclair -- you know, the dinosaur ...
Will: and then there's the 'liberal' used to characterize anyone that a 'conservative' disagrees with. It seems you're using [this] definition.
My use of the word "liberal" is meant to be descriptive, not prejorative. By definition, "liberals" are indeed exactly who "conservatives" disagree with, so I'm not sure what your point is on that.
But to give a more exact definition: I'm talking about "social" liberals, people who embrace the worldviews of feminism and secularism and thus support liberal laws regarding abortion, divorce, family life and structure, gay marriage, no-fault divorce, government run public schools, mandatory sex ed, etc. Clear enough? If not, just think Hillary :-).
It's worth noting that Kunstler was a major Y2K alarmist. To his credit, the article in question is still available on his website:
http://kunstler.com/mags_y2k.html
That does NOT, of course, necessarily mean that he is wrong again. He could be like the boy who cried "Wolf." Nonetheless, it is worth noting.
Y2K was the biggest joke of all time. Having spent my life working with computers (including big mainframes back in the day) I could never understand what the buzz was about. I remember when my wife asked me about it and I just said something like, "probably nothing will happen and at most, a system here and there might record the wrong date for a record." I don't think that even happened.
If Kunstler was a Y2K alarmist, I wouldn't trust his judgement on where to order a pizza from.
Fun paragraphs from the above article:
People will consequently suffer. I don’t know how much. Some people may lose their lives - but more likely at the hands of a disabled medical establishment than because of civil disorder, loss of power, starvation, bad water, or other projected horrors (though these, too, are possible). Some will suffer the loss of fortunes, some of any income whatsoever, and many of something in between. Quite a few will find themselves suddenly without an occupation, and few ideas about how to make themselves useful to other people (without occupations themselves). Many will suffer a loss of comfort and modern convenience, and if that goes on any longer than a week, it may escalate into serious problems of public sanitation and infectious disease.
The foregoing may seem to be little more than unsupported generality. I will be more specific below. I won't knock myself out trying to empirically demonstrate the "truth" of these assertions. It seems to me that the Y2K problem is so broad, systemic, and unprecedented that imagining its repercussions calls for something beside conventional thinking. Many of the effects I anticipate will not be provable one way or the other until the interconnected and interdependent skein of events this problem represents plays out. Since the effects of Y2K are apt to follow fractal pathways of self-organization - with strange, surprising twists - understanding them may be better served by a mind in free flight. These scenarios therefore should be taken for what they are: an exercise in human imagining.
It's worth noting that Kunstler was a major Y2K alarmist.
What I find interesting about Kunstler's take on Y2K is not (only) that he got things _wrong_, but also his prediction of Y2K's likely effects:
The aftermath of Y2K will require us to do things differently. We are going to have to live more locally, and more self-dependently...We are going to have to re-invent smaller-scaled farms (with value-adding activities), and we?re going to have to localize, or at least regionalize, commerce. We may have to start making some things again ourselves, or do without them for a while.
Compare with "The Long Emergency", from Rolling Stone:
The successful regions in the twenty-first century will be the ones surrounded by viable farming hinterlands that can reconstitute locally sustainable economies on an armature of civic cohesion.
It would appear that Kunstler has his Vision for restructuring society, and that what varies over time is the sort of predictions he makes when hawking that Vision to audiences.
If Kunstler was a Y2K alarmist, I wouldn't trust his judgement on where to order a pizza from.
Yes, he was a Y2K alarmist. He also says we have now "the war we deserve." He's also on record saying "bombing Iran is not the worst thing we could do." He started predicting the Dow would hit 4000 in 2005 and he's repeated the same prediction at regular intervals since then.
But for all his cynical, Chicken Little/Boy Who Cried Wolf hystrionics, there's something about his prognostications that resonates. Today, Helicopter Ben is telling a story of woe to congress, with high oil prices, massive housing losses, a plunging dollar and a reluctance of lenders to lend. The Dow is already down 2 percent for the week.
Pakistan is in turmoil. Cheney's rattling sabers at Iran. It's not that hard to imagine Kunstler's Clusterf*ck nation.
Here's my rule for World Collapse...
Prepare for the worst.
Hope for the best.
Get on with life.
He started predicting the Dow would hit 4000 in 2005 and he's repeated the same prediction at regular intervals since then.
Predict enough things and you occasionally get something right.
The DOW is down 2% for the week.
My friend, that doesn't even constitute a minor correction in a bull market. I predict that if we get an 8 to 10% decline off the recent peaks, it will be seen as a great buying opportunity. And I'll bet real money on it.
there's something about his prognostications that resonates.
Not with me.
He started predicting the Dow would hit 4000 in 2005 and he's repeated the same prediction at regular intervals since then.
I didn't read this right the first time.
Whaaa. Has he given a date for this?
It bottomed in 02 at almost double that. That prediction is almost as stupid as the Y2K one. The guy is a fool and anybody who listens to him or takes his advise... gets what they deserve.
Whaaa. Has he given a date for this?...The guy is a fool and anybody who listens to him or takes his advise... gets what they deserve.
I should have said that in 2005 he predicted the Dow would hit 4000 in 2005. And he predicted in 2006 that the Dow would hit 4000 in 2006.
You know, in a way, I agree with you. In his defense, he did retract that particular prediction, albeit in an equivocal way, this year. Why do people listen to him? I wonder the same thing about Rod Dreher. Rod Dreher used the Dallas Morning News to propagandize for war in 2003 and he subsequently recanted too. Yet here we are reading him. Maybe we're masochists. Or maybe we take our tea leaves where we find them.
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