"Thomas Friedman’s Five Worst Predictions"...

[BlooInBloo]

Apologies if this is a dupe. It's good to always be clear about the fucking idiot villagers - especially now that Judith Miller is telling us we need to go to war with Iran.

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/politics/2009/03/friedmans-follies.html

In this morning’s New York Times, columnist Thomas Friedman makes a grave prediction regarding Obama and the ongoing financial crisis: “I fear that his whole first term could be eaten by Citigroup, A.I.G., Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, and the whole housing/subprime credit bubble we inflated these past 20 years.” Friedman is a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, a staple of The New York Times, and a bestselling author, and thus this prediction should be taken very seriously—in some alternate universe where the news media is a meritocracy and Thomas Friedman is a competent observer of the world and its workings. The rest of us can probably relax.

In October of 2000, Friedman decided that the Chinese regime would soon find itself threatened by a major unemployment crisis caused by an influx of American wheat and sugar into that country. In fact, American wheat and sugar failed to make any inroads whatsoever, while Chinese unemployment figures (however unreliable they may be) remained at low levels for a period of seven years.
After the announcement of Colin Powell’s Secretary of State nomination in December 2000, a clearly impressed Friedman related to his readers that “it was impossible to imagine Mr. Bush ever challenging or overruling Mr. Powell on any issue,” that Powell “can never be fired,” and that “Mr. Bush can never allow him to resign in protest over anything.” Five years later, Powell was out via “resignation” after having been consistently challenged and overruled by Bush, who must have missed Friedman's column.

Other false predictions at the link.

[Idealism]

1. I can't stand neoliberalism. n/t

[rurallib]

2. Creator of the friedman unit

as in "in 6 months the Iraq War will turn around and we will be looking at leaving." (paraphrase)
Bush's war has now lasted 12 Friedman units with a good possibility of 4 more.
Good to see him go negative on Obama. That gives me hope.

[BlooInBloo]

4. *Named* after Friedman, of course. I think it was *coined* by Atrios...

Or possibly one of his cohorts.

[rurallib]

6. correcto - I botched the explanation on second look.

[TomClash]

3. Great find

Hehe. I have sent this to my chorus of friends who know and dislike this man.

[otohara]

5. Call These Pundity Type Assholes OUT

keep em coming.... Jon Stewart, Frank Rich - Vanity Fair, Stephen Colbert -

Lord knows few will ever spend time in jail, lose their job or say opps I fucked up. At least we have a few people in the media who aren't afraid to out these jerks.

I received my Vanity Fair yesterday - most of the magazine is about Bernie Maddoff and others who milked so many out of so much.

[Ikonoklast]

7. Whoopie! Time to start buying the financials!!

Thanks, Tom, for the contrarian compass you provide!

If Friedman says it, do the opposite and you won't be far wrong.

[BlooInBloo]

8. CNBC is always looking for a good contraindicator, I would think.

:rofl:

[Ikonoklast]

9. If you short Cramer, you'll be in the money two thirds of the time.

He is nothing more than a carnival barker trying to get the nickels out of the pockets of the 'marks'.

And do the exact opposite of whatever Kudlow says. Winning strategy, there. Love how he was barking about gold two weeks ago just in time for a pump-and-dump by the speculators. I wonder how many suckers he hooked with that one.

I swear people would set themselves on fire if some asshat on TV told them it was good for their portfolio.

[BlooInBloo]

10. Hmm... Mebbe I should check his schedule - see when he's in Vegas.