Doomsayers, Inc.

The doomsayers are out in full force again. The past 2 years have been somewhat difficult for those who make a living by peddling fear, oil and gold as the world economy continued to grow. Now with the natural disaster in Japan, they have gotten second wind – some bold enough to say, "I told you so." It is ironic that a natural disaster of this magnitude had to occur to prop up their sagging ego – as they have been predicting a collapse of the stock markets to zero accompanied by infinite prices for oil and gold for many years.



Financial advisory services are regulated in the US and for good reasons. Such advice can be doled out by anybody without an education, let alone competence. On the press, however, many are profiting financially by selling worthless information in nicely wrapped packages – most with no qualifications to do so. It is time that regulatory authorities have taken a look at the "advice" given out on the airways to unsuspecting and unsophisticated investors. In many cases such "advisers," are able to precisely predict the future. What is not known to the audience is that the "adviser," holds an option – to "switch" to something else if the "predictions," do not come true. For example, if the adviser predicted a bad outcome due to a war breaking out in the future and if the war does not occur but a natural disaster does, the adviser could quietly switch her reasoning and still look good. If nothing bad happened as predicted, the advisor still has an option – she can keep quiet till something bad happens – which is guaranteed to occur sometime in the future.



Doomsayers may want to carefully consider their approach. Internet and related technologies now allow the analysis of their past predictions and actions, systematically – exposing their incompetence. Regulators may also get interested in such "unsolicited financial advice."