NeetaT – I guess you don;t remember about 1980 when you could get 8% from your checking account. Problem was the price of things were increasing by more than that.
Everything you buy will become more expensive in nominal dollars. So you’re getting 10% on your CD, but gas prices go to $5. A gallon of milk costs $5.75 and the Toyota Prius you’ve been eyeing costs $43,500. A happy-days are here again meal at McDonalds is $7.85.
The good news is that exporters would be making more in dollar terms.
PW – I know that you agree with him because he supports your views, and he may be right. The main point I was just trying to make was that he got housing wrong, so do not hang your hat on his housing views. If a person had liquidated all of his RE when he had said, they would have missed the largest windfall of their lifetimes. Would have been right…. that is all supposition. The fact of the matter is he was wrong, you cannot make excuses for why he was wrong.
If you are in the business of predicting, and getting paid for it, you have to be closer than 5 years on a cycle or 1 year on a recession call. If you are off by more than that, timing decisions can be very costly. I think the average duration of recessions has been less than 8 quarters, so if you are off by 6 quarters on that call, what good is it?
If people are going to act on your calls, they need to be fairly timely, you cannot make excuses, they are what they are. When I am off by 2 days I get crucified by clients! Predicting things precisely is very difficult and you need to be prepared to take the heat when you are wrong. No matter how good anyone is, they will still have periods of inaccuracy.
“On April 3, 1998 Cisco closed at 11.78.
Today it is at 26.”
Well, for those of us who bought it on the way down during the tech crash, it’s been a long few years back to profitability. I bought at about $14 and watched it drop below $10 before it started a long slow climb back up. The Oracle that I bought at $18 has only recently come back up for air. The Lucent that I bought at $9, never recovered.
