

Analyst nails the current crisis in 2006 - mattjaynes
http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1401-starting-in-2006-peter-schiff-goes-prescient

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davidw
I don't find these articles that interesting. Look hard enough, and you can
find a broken clock that was telling the correct time at a given point in
time.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Schiff>

> On October 28th 2008, Schiff stated in an interview on Bloomberg TV that the
> investment strategies outlined in both books currently "are NOT working" due
> to the collapse of foreign currencies, foreign stocks and the failure of
> gold prices to go up significantly as most of the world entered an economic
> recession and foreign investors flee to cash. Schiff, however, remained
> optimistic on his theories and stated this was a good opportunity to buy
> foreign stocks trading at yearly lows.

So I guess he called the dollar wrong, at least for the time being; it's been
strengthening a lot, lately.

~~~
dhimes
He was thoughtful enough to admit that his previous ideas about investing were
untenable in the current market. That is a _good_ thing. It beats all hell out
of screaming that you are right nevertheless and what is really wrong is
/..whatever favorite scapegoat../

... as an aside, HN only recognizes the British spelling of "favorite" as
being correct...

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mattmaroon
At any given point in time, there are some people saying we're heading for a
recession, some saying we're heading for a crazy bull market, and lots of
people everywhere in between.

There is nothing that could happen to the stock market that somebody didn't
predict on CNBC two years ago because people predict crap on there 24/7.

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irrelative
Poor Laffer, though, can't seem to get anything right.

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sahaj
he's wrong as well. he said gold will go up to 1k/oz, but actually metals have
gone down tremendously. with the economy slowing down, industry around the
world has slowed down, and the dollar has regained value.

now, i don't think the dollar will stay high for too long, unless drastic
measures are taken by the US govt to cut spending, not print money, and create
industry within the US).

another thing to watch out for is china. today they loosened licensing
requirements for media (financial related data):
[http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/14/business/media/14media.htm...](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/14/business/media/14media.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss&oref=slogin)

what this means is that they are trying to pull more investments and spending
into their own country; this could hurt the dollar if they are successful.
interesting thing to notice is that the dollar never really regained when
compared to the yuan: <http://finance.google.com/finance?q=usdcny>

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larrykubin
Gold did go up to about 1k/oz earlier this year. Check price of ticker GLD
(which was his recommendation) around March.

[http://www.bostonherald.com/business/general/view.bg?article...](http://www.bostonherald.com/business/general/view.bg?articleid=1080185)

Now metals have gone down tremendously and the dollar is getting stronger, but
his prediction was right.

~~~
sahaj
by that logic, the other guys were right too, because most stocks were on
their 52week high in march 2008.

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dhimes
There's a reason these yo-yos don't go into science. Although, I do believe
Ben Stein has his name on a Phys Rev Letter.

~~~
brianlash
What are you implying? That a biologist would be a chemist if s/he were
smarter? That a chemist would be a physicist, and a physicist a mathematician?

Doesn't sound like a particularly useful (or accurate) way of looking at the
world.

~~~
dhimes
Nothing about how smart they are, but how they make their argument. To answer
whether or not something is "strong" ('financials,' for example) comes down to
"no it's not" -- "yes it is" -- "is not!" -- etc-- with the majority opinion
actually trying to laugh the guy off. The "right" answer goes to the better
showman. It's really E! television with the economy as the topic.

What's annoying is that millions of people will be influenced by this kind of
nonsense. /buries head back in sand

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mhb
I didn't watch it and maybe it says, but the real question is whether he
invested his own money in what he thought.

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wrinklz
I found this account enlightening:

[http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/national-
news/portfoli...](http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/national-
news/portfolio/2008/11/11/The-End-of-Wall-Streets-Boom)

