Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the author of the economics book, The Black Swan, had a great take on this. I’m paraphrasing but he was like how Economists can go in the news, make a prediction, and if they’re wrong, nothing. But if they’re right, they become a staple of business news and sell out all of their books. So financially, it’s better to make a lot of predictions and hope to win the “I guess right” lottery.
There’s an old scam that runs the same way. On a 2 outcome wager like which team wins a game send 500 people prediction team A wins and 500 people team B wins. For the 500 people who got the right one send 250 team C wins and the other 250 team D wins. By the time you’re down to ~7 people they all received 7 winning predictions in a row, then you ask them for a bet on a ‘sure thing’ for the 8th game.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the author of the economics book, The Black Swan, had a great take on this. I’m paraphrasing but he was like how Economists can go in the news, make a prediction, and if they’re wrong, nothing. But if they’re right, they become a staple of business news and sell out all of their books. So financially, it’s better to make a lot of predictions and hope to win the “I guess right” lottery.
Jesse Livermoore said “the markets act, and the papers look for the explanation.” It was true 100 years ago and it’s true now.
There’s an old scam that runs the same way. On a 2 outcome wager like which team wins a game send 500 people prediction team A wins and 500 people team B wins. For the 500 people who got the right one send 250 team C wins and the other 250 team D wins. By the time you’re down to ~7 people they all received 7 winning predictions in a row, then you ask them for a bet on a ‘sure thing’ for the 8th game.