So let us assume that you are hoping to pick a winning stock market prognosicator in the year 1999
Now I come along and tell you that I have a secret system and that system has a long LONG history of being very accurate,.
I show you unrefutable published evidence that I had correctly predicted whether the market would be up or down every January for 11 straight years including 1979 straight through and including 1989.
Since my predictions were publically published in a well known periodical every January, there can be absolutely no doubt that I am telling you the truth.
"It's not entirely perfect, I'll admit, because I got in wrong in 1990," I tell you truthfully, and sure enough you check and I did get it wrong in 1990.
You then you go on and see that I had indeed correctly predicted the market's direction in 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997 and 1998, too.
Would you trust my judgement to help you predict the direction the market will take for 1999?
This is, incidently a REAL EVENT, so I presume that at least some of you know this story.
My point here to teach people something about life, and how easily we can ALL be fooled by reality into thinking we see trends or realities based on our own REAL WORLD EXPERIENCE, but sometimes even the reality we can see from hard won experience is not really real!
For those of you with a perchant for probability the probability of correctly guessing the direction of the market 18 out of 19 times is the same as predicting 18 out of 19 coin tosses in a series. You can do the math if it amuses you.
Now here's the zinger....
The SYSTEM the guy used to correctly predict that long series of correct market directions was the following:
Whenever an American Football team won the Superbowl, he predicted the market would rise that year. Whenever the national team won, he predicted it would fall.
This genius progosticator's name was Leonard Koppett. He was a columnist for SPORTING NEWS.
So as counter intuitive as it is for ALL of us to believe it, most of us are basing our best guesses about pretty much everything, based on little more than our own presuppositions and NOT on anything like reality based thinking.
Now I come along and tell you that I have a secret system and that system has a long LONG history of being very accurate,.
I show you unrefutable published evidence that I had correctly predicted whether the market would be up or down every January for 11 straight years including 1979 straight through and including 1989.
Since my predictions were publically published in a well known periodical every January, there can be absolutely no doubt that I am telling you the truth.
"It's not entirely perfect, I'll admit, because I got in wrong in 1990," I tell you truthfully, and sure enough you check and I did get it wrong in 1990.
You then you go on and see that I had indeed correctly predicted the market's direction in 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997 and 1998, too.
Would you trust my judgement to help you predict the direction the market will take for 1999?
This is, incidently a REAL EVENT, so I presume that at least some of you know this story.
My point here to teach people something about life, and how easily we can ALL be fooled by reality into thinking we see trends or realities based on our own REAL WORLD EXPERIENCE, but sometimes even the reality we can see from hard won experience is not really real!
For those of you with a perchant for probability the probability of correctly guessing the direction of the market 18 out of 19 times is the same as predicting 18 out of 19 coin tosses in a series. You can do the math if it amuses you.
Now here's the zinger....
The SYSTEM the guy used to correctly predict that long series of correct market directions was the following:
Whenever an American Football team won the Superbowl, he predicted the market would rise that year. Whenever the national team won, he predicted it would fall.
This genius progosticator's name was Leonard Koppett. He was a columnist for SPORTING NEWS.
So as counter intuitive as it is for ALL of us to believe it, most of us are basing our best guesses about pretty much everything, based on little more than our own presuppositions and NOT on anything like reality based thinking.
EDITEC's RANDOM RULE TO LIVE BY
Nobody knows nuttin' about tomorrow.
(Except me, of course...cause I got a system!)
Nobody knows nuttin' about tomorrow.
(Except me, of course...cause I got a system!)
