Friday, September 26, 2008

Dept. of Oops

In a post the other day I mentioned two giant, book-length mistakes. The first was by NAR "economist" David Lereah, who wrote Why the Real Estate BOOM Will Not Bust. The second was James Glassman and Kevin Hassett's Dow 36,000: The New Strategy for Profiting From the Coming Rise in the Stock Market.

As it happens, the WSJ had a revealing piece mentioning both of these failed efforts in the September 10 issue.

In the first case, the chief of Lereah's publisher, Doubleday Business, defends his book by saying, "In retrospect, everyone was fooled. I would certainly say I was fooled. No one saw what was going to happen with real estate."

In the second case, the Journal asks Hassett about Dow 36,000: "Kevin Hassett . . . says criticism of his book isn't something he's lost a lot of sleep over. He is now an economics adviser to Republican presidential candidate John McCain."

There you have it.

5 comments:

Dave S. said...

With these types, acknowledging a mistake is the biggest mistake of all.

TubbyLover69 said...

But, Jonathan, you can't hold a whole punditocracy responsible for the behavior of a few, sick twisted individuals.

For if you do, then shouldn't we blame the nation's free press?

And if the nation's free press is guilty, then isn't this an indictment of our First Amendment in general?

I put it to you, Jonathan. Isn't this an indictment of our entire American society?

Well, you can say whatever you want about our nation's fantastically inept pundits, but I am not going to sit here and listen to you badmouth the United States of America!

Gentlemen!

[Leads the pundits out of the hearing, all humming the Star-Spangled Banner]

Anonymous said...

Forget it, he's on a roll.

Coach Mark said...

The dishonest pundits we hear from need to be taken out with the next tide. These people are corrupt scum. The mainstream media's approval numbers are lower than Bush's, who they love to deride. Get rid of these hacks by turning them off and demanding honesty and even handedness.

Anonymous said...

the punditocracy is responsible, along with the MSM, the entire political class and the "elite" financial geniuses on wall street...faster than a Philo Bedoe knockout our economy is in a tailspin.......we used to be a better country than this.....