Quotes About The Economy: Even Experts Make Mistakes

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PHOTO: FOTOLIA/TOMISLAV FORGO
The economy is an inexact science, as these expert quotes prove.

Over the years, MOTHER has often opened up this column to such expert economic analysts as Vern Myers, R.E. McMasters Jr. and Julian Snyder (to name a few). And we’ve been pleased to do so, since it allowed us, in effect, to give our readers a distillation of the kind of advice that folks who subscribe to exclusive economic newsletters often pay upwards of $250 a year to receive. On the other hand, though, in any science as imprecise as the study of the economy, a person would be unwise to blindly follow the lead of one (or more!) authorities. And, to illustrate that point, we’ve prepared the following excerpt — containing “expert” quotes about the economy — from Christopher Cerf and Victor Navasky’s 392-page “compendium of authoritative misinformation,” The Experts Speak. That volume is, by the way, about as fine a supply of laughter and enlightenment as we’ve seen, and may be in your local library.

1929: The Coming Stock Market Boom

“The election of Hoover…should result in continued prosperity for 1929.”

–Roger W. Babson (American financial statistician and founder of the Babson Institute), address at Wellesley College,September 17, 1928

“Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.”

  • Published on Jan 1, 1985
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