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Art of the forecast

There are pundits in every field. These so called druids are capable of telling what is next - whether its technology or the stock market or the medical inventions or the state of the economy or that of the Euro Zone. One thing that tends to be consistent is that people assume age affords wisdom and thence the pundit tend to be of advanced age. Nothing could be further from the truth. I think that any of the forecasters including the weatherman are merely taking a chance on what appears to be the most obvious and some deciding to be a contrarian take the opposite view. What then is consistent many times is that these all tend to be people of advanced age. If they are wrong they are never going to be around to see the consequences. So what the heck go ahead and forecast. Or they are themselves so well off that their actual decision making is of no material consequence to their own security. Take Ron Johnson's foray to change the face of JCPenney - an ancient retail institution in America that frankly was one too many to begin with what with more clothes than people 100 times over. Do we really need so many people selling shirts? No matter. He gets paid more than there are shirts in America, and gets to experiment on someone else's dime to change the way they want to sell those excess shirts. Result - a disaster in their books and after couple years of blowing smoke and forecasts he is asked to leave. Many a consultants also got their laundry washed in this machine while it was running. End of day - the most obvious happens - or will happen - in the next few years JCPenney and its similar retail brethren like the Best Buys and Home Depots will vanish as they came.. in a series of 'I told you so' forecasts.

Comments

  1. RajendraApril 9, 2013 at 7:14 PM

    The 'die' is cast..how's that for a summary of the events to come?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Diamond HeadApril 9, 2013 at 8:16 PM

    Indeed it is - Things will either get worse or improve for sure.

    ReplyDelete

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