Rather than focusing on his numbers, you should be focusing on his directions. Anyone who makes so many predictions leaves himself open to failures for critics to slobber over. How can anyone in 1992 predict that America will boom from a about 2003, but also say that the nation will begin its transition to a depression from 2008? No chart will ever tell you that, the same with the economists that prolific the economic world of late.
When he predicted the USA will boom, everyone though he was nuts; yet everyone joined in on the economic frenzy that followed and then could not say a thing while their mouths were so full. So when he predicted the Dow to go beyond 20,000, it was based on exponential growth caused by the power generation hitting the sweet spot. So he was right about the boom, just not so right with the absolute figures. What hindered the Dow's progress was the over investment in housing as so much wealth was being falsely created from doing nothing other than borrowing, buy, sell, repeat and lather.
His book will do you head in though - too many facts and figures, and you get the feeling it's Groundhog Day again by its repetitiveness. It's a little difficult to be 100% conclusive with the finer details, but the big picture stays focused in your head.
But his reasoning is so simple that it's not Voodoo or black magic, just pure facts and figures. Knowing that the average person has kids at 28, and knowing the a human consumes the most calories at 14, means that household discretionary spending will be at its lowest when adults hit 42 as their kids will be eating their parents into poverty. When you have a large group of people in that age group you can literally predict that the economy will be very flat during that phase. Of course, when that same group turns 48 most of those 14 years olds will have turned into adults, begin to become self sufficient and may even move out of the house. All of s sudden more money is available, then mid-life crisis sets in and you want to buy a sporty car and spend up to feel better about yourself - funny about that, because so many others are thinking and doing just that and the consequential boom is inevitable. Again, people thought this guy was nuts, especially as the economy had been held back by those household eating ferals.
He wrote "This great bubble boom is coming to an end. A likely economic recovery in the second half of 2009 will be quickly thwarted by major rises in inflation pressures, interest rates and a final oil and commodity bubble." Not bad considering most economist became bearish at that point and saw no recovery to come.
More...
"We forecast that the Internet Bubble was peaking in February 2000, and in April 2000 we forecast that the Nasdaq and broader tech stocks were peaking as well. The problem is that we thought that this would be another 20% to 30% correction on the way up to a 32,000+. It was not! By late 2000 and early 2001 our growing base of shorter-term technical indicators suggested that the downturn could see the Nasdaq and Dow go back to their late 1998 lows but that much of the damage was already done. Our challenge at that point was to figure out how such strong demographic and technology S-curve trends could result in such extreme crash in an ongoing bull market"
Again, make your own mind. At least I'm not telling anyone to load up on debt!
