About economic prognosis
It is quite easy to make prognosis. If you have the feeling something might happen, you can say it will happen. Sometimes you are write, sometimes you are wrong. The secret is to make people thing you are right most of the times.
Therefore, whenever you guess something, you must make sure you let everybody know that “I told you so!”. If you guess it wrong, just forget about it. I noticed this is what most economic analysts do…
Another trick is to make prognosis in a way that will always allow you to say you were right. For example, you may predict that: if stock prices drop, there are high chances investors to buy gold and gold price to increase and if stock prices increase, there are chances gold price to decrease. It is a good prediction and you are covered both ways. You must be very unlucky to see the stocks and gold drop at the same time.
The conclusion of the first post in this “economic analyst” blog is that most analysts do not really make accurate predictions. We just have the impression they are smart people. 
November 20th, 2008 at 9:39 pm
I feel you are overlooking the necesary specific knowledge in some economical fields as well as the necesary up-to-date info on what is currently and really happening on the market…
So, of course he appears smart if he has knowledge and info above the level of the listener, but that does not mean he cannot help the listener (even without a loud-and-clear prediction) with his knowledge/info.
Further, if he also has the abbility to see clearly through the large amounts of data, to sort it properly and to deliver the conclusions that one can use to make decisions, then you have got yourself a true “economic analyst”.
The fact the he somehow fools you is only due to the laws of communication.
November 21st, 2008 at 12:37 pm
[...] Apart from the fact that it is funny to try to make the Pope a “economic analyst”, in my opinion, this kind of prediction fits in the cathegory I mentioned here. [...]
November 22nd, 2008 at 9:53 am
good to see an english blog
November 26th, 2008 at 10:58 am
[...] he also predicted this crisis in his last book. This is obviously another prognosis that fits into this category. Nevertheless, it is interesting to see how these people insist on being able to make [...]
January 31st, 2009 at 8:30 pm
[...] the current crisis will arrive after Obama’s Inauguration, it looks like George Soros did not guess it [...]