One thing that bugs me is when I hear so called experts spouting off their negative comments about the current state of the economy. No sooner do things begin to look a little better than some economist has to step up to throw some water on the smoldering economy by saying that we're deep in trouble and that hope is still a long way off. Let me ask you this, how would they know?

I mean if all these economists were as smart as they want us to believe, how come the whole world's in this mess? And if they're so smart, how come they can't figure a way out of it? I'll tell you why, because economics is not an exact science. If it were there would be real solutions, not this "hit 'n hope" mentality that's floating around out there.

The part that really sticks in my craw is that it doesn't have to be this way. Have any of them ever considered what would happen if all the economists went around saying "things are better than we thought, we're well on our way to recovery"? You know what would happen? Banks would loosen up a bit and start lending money again. Joe Construction would build a few extra houses this year and John Q Public would think about buying a new home or maybe a new car. Mom 'n Pop Corner Store would go ahead and hire a couple of extra people and everything would begin working its way through the economy and before too long things WOULD be better (having said that I think the FED has to stop printing so much money, but that's another story).

So why don't economists talk this way? Because economists are like accountants and lawyers; they're not trained to spot opportunities, only problems. Besides, economists have to deal with the big "what if?" What if the economy didn't recover? What if the car companies went bust? What if another bank failed? You see in a world where your pay cheque is closely tied to your reputation you don't dare take a chance and risk being wrong.

Compare that with their negativism. There's no downside for an economist being negative. If the economy does get better sooner than forecast the economists can spin it to say that "the stimuli worked better than expected because of blah blah blah" and "look at how smart I am because I knew the stimulus would work all along". Besides, no one would really care if some economist missed the mark because things are better! But if the economy didn't get better then the negative economist has hit the gravy train because now he can go around telling everyone who will listen "I told you so!" and because everyone is in pain and struggling they actually listen to this guy and think that he knows something they don't!

What a bunch of garbage.

Remember this: economics is not an exact science. Just like trading no one really knows what will happen next. And the next time you hear some expert economist giving his opinion about this or that, remember that he's only out to protect his own hide and will NEVER take a chance that his opinion might be wrong. In other words, try not to pay too much attention to the "experts". They don't know as much as they think they do.

Erich