For those who remember the 2008 downturn: Did anyone in the mainstream see it coming?

by legitqu

So at the moment barely a day goes by when we’re not coming across some new argument for why we’re due a downturn and/or recession [*]

It got me thinking to how equivalent coverage fared in the lead up to our last crash, I’d love to compare it to help see if there’s any validity in the claims we see today.

Did anyone foresee 2008? Apart from the likes of the Big Short guys, I’m really thinking about the mainstream media that average joes like us have exposure to.

This time around, it seems everyone thinks they’re an expert while predicting a downturn, but instinctively it feels like the more people that predict the slump, the less likely it is that they’re correct.

Thoughts?

[*]

Decade long boom drawing to an end:

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-global-markets-cbanks-analysis/tide-about-to-turn-for-markets-as-easy-money-decade-ends-idUKKBN1L11HJ

3/4 of big investors predict a recession within 2 years:

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/19/75-percent-of-the-ultra-rich-forecast-a-us-recession-in-the-next-two-years-survey-finds.html

IMF predicts slowdown in the economy in 2019:

https://money.cnn.com/2018/04/17/news/economy/imf-global-economy-outlook-slowdown/index.html

Forecasting the next recession for late 2019-2020:

https://www.guggenheiminvestments.com/perspectives/macroeconomic-research/forecasting-the-next-recession