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Two years late, Steve Forbes proven correct
Friday, December 19, 2008
The late-2005 call by Steve Forbes that we'd see oil at $35 a barrel has finally been proven correct - it's too bad he said it would happen within a year.
That call looked pretty bad for more than three years and a fair number of barbs were cast in his direction, during which time, even his closest friends probably chided him.
Shown below is what results from a simple Google search on the subject:
Surely, at least a few reporters have contacted him for a new prediction.
He'd be better advised to either not specify a time frame this go-round or to be just vague enough to be able to claim clairvoyance should he get the price right and the timing wrong once again.
5 comments:
More important than his price target, what was his rationale for predicting a decline in oil prices from the $70 level -- that a major recession/depression would destroy demand as has actually happened? Or that free-market deregulatory magic would boot US oil production into the stratosphere? One is a prediction, the other is an ideological fantasy.
Commodities are so volatile that making a wild numerical prediction with no timeframe isn't much of an achievement.
tech98 beat me to it, but I wanted to point out the Forbes' rationale was way, WAY off for his $35 barrel oil prediction. He thought the US economy was still "very, very strong" and only a "huge error" like the Fed "jerking up interest rates" could possibly derail it. Other than that, the only cloud on Forbes' horizon was Islamic terrorism, which he mentioned repeatedly in that Peter Ryan interview.
People were right to chide Steve for not knowing what he was talking about.
Yes, I too think it was one of the dopiest calls in history. It's just funny that it finally came true (for reasons entirely different than what he talked about at the time).
Tim:
how about a post on this topic?
http://tinyurl.com/4fhxbg
"Uncle Sam May Grab Your Gold if You're Not Careful"
Realistic scenario, given historical precedent.
I predict the price of a barrel of oil for the next 10 years will be $50 plus or minus $150.
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