I think that we should take stock of our thoughts at least once a year. That is what I am doing. I am not a prophet and I am usually wrong. It is too difficult to know enough to understand the whole world.

During last years election [which lasted for months], I offered the following thoughts:

1. Based on the proposed agenda of the Bush administration, the stock market would tank. 2. After the election, Bush would need to start a war to stay in power.

1. Seems to be true; DOW is flirting with 7,000 and more importantly the S&P is far below support levels and headed for bad times. Experts said that a drop below 900 would mean the D word. Who knows? 2. I was wrong here. They didn’t start a war; they created one. Who knows where it will lead.

I am just a just not convinced by the press releases; on either side of the argument. What did you say in the last year? How right were you? Just the important things.

Till next year that is my report.

Best Wishes,,,,

Z

-- Anonymous, September 21, 2001

Answers

I forgot:

I also predicted a large increase in unemployment by Dec 2001. I don't remember the number I gave and I can't find it in the archives at the old site. I was wrong. We are now awash in jobs.

I am frightened to look at what else I predicted since I have never been right before [except about Y2K]. Maybe I am on a roll.

Best Wishes,,,,,

Z

-- Anonymous, September 21, 2001

And how did they "create" a war? Your quality of cynicism is not strained.

Many people predicted the stock market would tank. The doomers have been saying that for years.

-- Anonymous, September 21, 2001

Z:

I agree that in your case even a little self-examination would go a long way.

1) Lots of people had been predicting a stock market decline for some years now, including Alan Greenspan (who worried that stock prices were reaching irrational levels when they were even lower than they are today). Mostly, these predictions were based on fundamentals -- that future performance could not possibly justify such prices according to any rational projections of productivity increases. And we were already out of new employees. Clearly, something had to give.

Now, I observe that some extremists presumed a market decline for reasons largely unrelated to actual market forces, and tightly bound to their own fantasies. The most common two predictions were that the market would fall victim to the depradations of y2k (the doomies fell into this category), and that "the proposed agenda of the Bush administration" would be the cause. Mindless political extremists fill this bill.

Now, and not surprisingly, I find that both the doomers and the politically ignorant are taking credit for the perspicacity of their predictions. Their explanations have two things in common -- both predicted a decline, and neither has a single shred of credible evidence supporting their prediction. Just possibly, honest self- examination would highlight this, but extremists are by definition not honest with themselves.

In a nutshell: Predicting a market decline was a no-brainer. Explaining that decline in terms of Bush's agenda is absurd. Gong!

2) Remember the terrible constitutional agonies associated with the presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes? Ask nearly any American, and they won't even recognize the name at all. Did Hayes stay in power despite the circumstances of his election? Yup. Did nearly everyone forget about those circumstances then as now? Yup. Was there ever any serious doubt about the "legitimacy" of either presidency (except as fabricated by the extremists to suit their own needs)? Nope.

So has Bush's presidency ever been in political trouble? No, it has not. Has his power been observably weakened due to the circumstances of his election? No, it has not. Has he been able to forward his program or accomplish any of the planks of his platform? Absolutely. The requirement of a war to remain in power is demonstrably pure wishful thinking by (once again) the ignorant political extremists.

And what does it mean to say "They didn’t start a war; they created one."? Is this really a suggestion that Bush engineered the destruction himself, and then blamed foreign terrorists simply to create a nice war for some reason? On the evidence, our intelligence operations lack anywhere near the competence to pull something like that off, nor did the Bush administration have time to do so even if we had that level of ability.

Or maybe you're saying that the "proper" way to respond to terrorists is to apologize for our existence, and wail about how terrible we feel for having upset them so badly? Because to the Devout, any sane response means some kind of artificially concocted war to solidify political power that needed no such solidification in the first place, except (once again) in the fantasies of the far left.

Granted, the situation is not easy to deal with. It's hard both to define our goals, and to achieve them however defined. But to normal people, this difficulty does NOT mean that we define the "enemy" administration as being wrong FIRST, and THEN discover what they did so we can apply the prepared label. At least, not unless you consider your political resentments *way* more important than other peoples' lives.

Z, your fanaticism renders you guilty of a really stupid logical error. So once again, it's like claiming that only indetectable fairies make the flowers bloom, and then turning around and using the blooms as proof of the fairies! You have derived the data from your conclusions, rather than vice versa. As even rudimentary self- examination would make clear.

-- Anonymous, September 21, 2001

Flint--

LOL. We must have posted at the same time since we each addressed the same two ideas. Difference is I took 2 lines and you took 40. (Elegantly as usual)

-- Anonymous, September 21, 2001