Post things you predicted that turned out to be true, or things that other people posted that turned out to be false.

http://www.brentroad.com/message_topic.aspx?topic=527850 - This is me predicting the massive recession we would have when most other people thought it was a hiccup in the economy.

http://www.brentroad.com/message_topic.aspx?topic=545934 - I just thought this was a neat thread on how we thought US politics would play out over the next several election cycles. Before anyone knew who the Tea Party was.

I'm also positive that I called for a decent sized recession in hooksaw's Economy thread in Nov or Dec of '07 when we realized the housing market was in the shitter but before we learned it brought down the banks.

I just wanted to see how well some of us have predicted the short term future compared to others.

1/11/2012 3:17:33 AM

1/11/2012 3:05:02 PM

Back in 2010, I was telling some people that enough supporters of the marriage discrimination amendment people would get into office this coming election to pass it, and that we needed to something about it. But the idea that the Dems wouldn't continue to control the legislature fell on deaf ears.

Now some of the same people that ignored said call-to-action at a time when winning just a few house seats in NC would have made all the difference, are now asking for help in fighting against the amendment now that we are faced with the much bigger task of winning over the entire state's electorate during a republican presidential primary. Of course I'm giving them all the help they ask for and then some now, and of course I'm not saying I told you so because that doesn't help anything. But if the community of people working to defeat the amendment now, had put in even 1/10th of these efforts back then, it would have been a whole different ball game. Haha, it's nice to vent this on tdub, since there is nothing to be gained from venting anywhere else.

Also, unrelated to tww, there was a local council race prediction contest. About 50 people entered the contest, including elected officials and politicos of all stripes. I was the only person to correctly predict who the winners would be, who the losers would and the exact order of who would get the most to least votes. There were twice as many people running for office as there were seats available. I was scheduled to go to a victory part that night of a candidate who was widely favored to win a seat, and who I had anonymously predicted to be the first loser. I think I was about the only person who wasn't shocked that night. It's too bad too, because that person would have been great in office. Again, this isn't something I could really take any credit for getting right, since doing so would mean admitting that this person who I'm friendly with was someone I expected to lose.

1/11/2012 6:54:56 PM

Actually, most of us didn't care about the marriage amendment then, and most of us don't care now.

1/11/2012 7:53:27 PM

Nor did I imply such.

1/11/2012 7:57:35 PM

Predicted Santorums Iowa surge in like August.

1/12/2012 1:04:55 AM

IMStoned420, you shouldn't take credit for events that not even you predicted. How could anyone have known then that the next President would purposefully prevent any recovery by doing exactly those things economists agree should never be done during a recession (major regulatory and regime reforms being a big one)?

1/12/2012 1:14:47 AM

I predicted that Obamacare would prove to be a Pyrrhic victory for the Dems, leading to a rout by the GOP in the 2010 midterms.

1/12/2012 2:41:08 AM

So how long do we have to not be at war with Iran before I can say I predicted that we wouldn't not go to war with Iran?

1/12/2012 2:59:27 AM

Quote :

"Post things you predicted that turned out to be true, or things that other people posted that turned out to be false. http://www.brentroad.com/message_topic.aspx?topic=527850 - This is me predicting the massive recession we would have when most other people thought it was a hiccup in the economy. http://www.brentroad.com/message_topic.aspx?topic=545934 - I just thought this was a neat thread on how we thought US politics would play out over the next several election cycles. Before anyone knew who the Tea Party was. I'm also positive that I called for a decent sized recession in hooksaw's Economy thread in Nov or Dec of '07 when we realized the housing market was in the shitter but before we learned it brought down the banks. I just wanted to see how well some of us have predicted the short term future compared to others. "

Now go through all your prediction posts and tell us which ones didn't come true or haven't come true yet. I need a ratio of right to wrong.

[Edited on January 12, 2012 at 10:57 AM. Reason : -]

1/12/2012 10:56:48 AM

I and many others predicted that Democrats pushing Obamacare really just wanted to dismantle and destroy the private insurance companies, via legislation ostensibly designed to help people get insurance, so they could then implement single payer. And now we have Shrike dancing in the streets at the thought of the individual mandate being destroyed with the rest of Obamacare standing, because it will destroy the private insurance companies.

not sure that was really an accomplishment, though, as anyone with an ounce of sense could see that was really the Dems' goal the whole time

1/12/2012 12:44:55 PM

Shit, so is my Oxford card no good anymore?

1/12/2012 3:12:49 PM

Quote :

"IMStoned420, you shouldn't take credit for events that not even you predicted. How could anyone have known then that the next President would purposefully prevent any recovery by doing exactly those things economists agree should never be done during a recession (major regulatory and regime reforms being a big one)?"

What are you talking about? The damage was already done while Bush was in office. Obama had nothing to do with it. You're not nearly as knowledgeable on the economy as you like to think you are.

1/12/2012 3:18:36 PM

If only TSB's history went back to 2003 (Iraq). Sheeeeeesh half of you were dumb.

1/12/2012 9:06:41 PM

Quote :

"This is me predicting the massive recession we would have when most other people thought it was a hiccup in the economy. "

Because of oil prices, yeah you really called it alright

1/13/2012 11:26:39 AM

Quote :

"You're not nearly as knowledgeable on the economy as you like to think you are."

Lol now here's an accurate prediction.

1/13/2012 11:28:53 AM

To be fair, I was saying we were uber-fucked back in Nov/Dec of 2007. High oil prices in summer of 2008 were the straw that broke the camel's back.

1/13/2012 11:35:05 AM

except, they weren't

1/13/2012 11:49:27 AM

this thread is dumb

1/13/2012 11:51:00 AM

Quote :

"except, they weren't"

100% agreement with aaronburro, mark it

1/13/2012 12:26:57 PM

<--thinks oil prices played a significant role

1/13/2012 5:46:18 PM

^ would be wrong.

people weren't defaulting due to high oil prices. they were defaulting due to ARMs resetting.

1/13/2012 5:47:22 PM

A pretty detailed paper:

http://dss.ucsd.edu/~jhamilto/handbook_climate.pdf

My boys Stu and Kev weigh in (shorter reads than the entire paper)

http://earlywarn.blogspot.com/2011/10/peak-oil-for-economists.html

http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/10/peak-oil-and-great-recession

Quote :

"The green line shows expected economic growth. The dashed line shows the Great Recession. And the red line? That's his estimate of the effect of the huge spike in oil prices in 2007-08. If Hamilton is right, then the oil spike is responsible for about two-thirds of the Great Recession all by itself. The housing and credit bubbles are only responsible for a fairly small piece of it."

Personally, my gut tells me that 2/3 of the recession is to high, but oil prices played their role.

^Higher oil prices pinched everyone, making almost everything more expensive. Obviously, less free cash means its harder to make your mortgage payments

1/13/2012 5:59:28 PM

Quote :

"Higher oil prices pinched everyone, making almost everything more expensive. Obviously, less free cash means its harder to make your mortgage payments"

yes, but more obviously, a change in interest rates adding 1000/month to your mortgage probably hurt a hell of a lot more than 20bux a month in gas


and then the kevin drum piece? really? a straight line for economic growth? come on...

[Edited on January 13, 2012 at 6:04 PM. Reason : ]

1/13/2012 6:03:08 PM

According to what I found online, the US used about $555b of oil in 2010, when oil prices were at 2007 levels, which was an average of $69 per barrel. In 2008, oil averaged over $95 even though it crashed hard in the later half of the year. That's a 37% annual increase without even considering how much worse than $95 oil got. It was well over $110 for a good period of time that summer. But a 37% increase on something that we already spend a half trillion dollars on is a huge number. I don't even actually have to figure out how much money it is to know it's a ton. More money than many countries GDPs. But regardless, that's money that has basically vanished from the economy. Not only vanished, but into the pockets of a lot of countries that we don't like. What if we could have spent that money on researching new sources of energy? That's probably like 10 times the amount of money we spend on it. Or we could just keep all that money and buy CDs and Furbys or whatever we bought back then.

Oil made things catastrophic at a time when things were already bad. Since it's inelastic we can't reduce our demand for it in a short period of time. The longer high oil prices continue, the worse things become. They actually didn't even as get as bad as they did in 1980, which can give you an idea of what it was like back then. I know I can't remember back that far. It helps illustrate how big of an effect oil has on our economy though. It simply can't be understated enough. Fuck global warming, the #1 reason to get off of oil* is because it would be good for the economy.

*I know that we will never get off oil anytime soon. It will remain an important part of our economy for decades, if not longer. The point is simply that we are heavily reliant upon it and it would be in everyone's best interest if we could simply develop significant sources of new energy.

http://inflationdata.com/inflation/inflation_rate/historical_oil_prices_table.asp
Oil price table

[Edited on January 13, 2012 at 7:43 PM. Reason : link]

1/13/2012 7:43:06 PM

Quote :

"Oil made things catastrophic at a time when things were already bad."

no, it didn't. Things were already catastrophic. I imagine some people might have been pushed off the edge by it. like 6 or 7 people. The rest of the people who got foreclosed were done for anyway, either because they never had a chance to pay off the loan in the first place or their ARMs reset.

you quoted 555b in oil. OK, let's work with that. Put it over 100m households (to account for children that don't really count), and that's $5000/year in oil usage per household. But that's not 5000 in gas, unless your numbers are only for oil used as gas. 40% of that is 2000, which works out, roughly, to an extra 200/month. That simply isn't accounting for the massive increase in foreclosures. over that time span, especially when we know the foreclosures started happening well before the oil prices increased. not only that, but those prices weren't there for long enough to cause the kind of mass destruction you are describing. had it hung around at 100 for a few years, maybe. a couple months? fuck no

look, the increase in oil prices certainly didn't help, but it surely wasn't the main reason the economy fell off the cliff. that was Dubya (if you listen to Obama).

[Edited on January 13, 2012 at 8:05 PM. Reason : ]

1/13/2012 8:02:00 PM

I'm looking more at the general effect oil has on the economy as a whole versus how much it cost each household. People were forced to cut back on other things in order to directly afford higher gas prices. However, I'm talking more about how the economy experienced a 200 billion loss as a whole compared to the year before. Probably well over $300 billion in the first 8 months of the year to be more specific since oil prices collapsed in September '08. It was enough to crash the financial system anyway, which is what really fucked everything.

1/13/2012 8:14:52 PM

except, that 300billion DIDN'T crash the financial system. jesus. the deadweight loss of millions of mortgages killed it. how much of that 300b even LOOKED at the financial services sector? you know, the sector that took a giant shit and sent the economy into a tailspin?

there's so much fail in your post that I don't even know where to begin. first, you are assuming that every extra dollar spent completely and totally offset another area where it would have been spent, despite the fact that we know that Americans at the time were living heavily off of credit. Was some of it offset? sure. all of it? absolutely not. we also know that not all of the extra money spent would have gone overseas, as the oil companies do actually drill here in the US, even if a lot of our oil does come from abroad. third, you are assuming that all of the money that did leave the US left completely, and that, too, is absurd

meanwhile, you are completely ignoring the effect of millions of mortgages going under and taking out the shell game of the financial services industry.

[Edited on January 13, 2012 at 8:48 PM. Reason : ]

1/13/2012 8:34:11 PM