Lloyd Lofthouse

It seems that no matter how many predictions one makes, all one has to is be right one time with the right prediction. It’s called playing the odds.

On AT&T Yahoo Finance’s Breakout, Peter Schiff predicted America is headed toward a financial collapse worse than 2008 and Europe.

The reason that Schiff gets so much attention is because he predicted the real-estate crises of 2007-2008, and he was right—that time.

However, Schiff has made other predictions and the odds are that if one makes enough predictions, he or she will be right eventually no matter how many times he or she is wrong.

None of the hosts of Breakout mentioned Peter Schiff’s track record of making predictions, but I checked and discovered that of SEVENTEEN predictions, Schiff has been wrong TEN times and TWO of his predictions are still to be determined. He has been correct FIVE times, so he is right 33.3% of the time and wrong 66.6% of the time (not counting the “to be determined”). Source: Wall Street Economists

Card counters in Las Vegas have better odds of winning at blackjack (a typical card counter has an advantage over the house of approximately 1% to 2.5%, which means the card counter’s odds are 51% – 52.5% to the casino’s 47.5% – 49%).

Why do we pay so much attention to guys like Schiff? Maybe because Schiff is worth $70 million, but how did he make this kind of money being wrong two-thirds of the time?

According to Celebrity Networth.com, Peter Schiff earned his net worth through the writing of his books on economics, television appearances, and as CEO of Euro Pacific Capital Inc. (adviser Michael Shedlock reported, “I have talked with many who claim they have invested with Schiff and are down anywhere from 40% to 70% in 2008.”)

He did not earn his money being right with his predictions one-third of the time. With a track record like that, would you pay Schiff to give you advice or buy one of his books? Not me.

Then again, maybe I should start making predictions.

Discover The True Value of American Idol

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Lloyd Lofthouse, a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran, is the award winning author of The Concubine Saga.

His latest novel is Running with the Enemy. Blamed for a crime he did not commit while serving in Vietnam, his country considers him a traitor. Ethan Card is a loyal U.S. Marine desperate to prove his innocence or he will never go home again.

And the woman he loves and wants to save was trained to hate and kill Americans.

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