STREET DOGS: Don’t argue with stupid people
You can’t blindly follow anyone’s argument because it sounds intelligent or lines up with your current thinking
Never argue with stupid people. They will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience" – Mark Twain. No one knows what’s going to happen in the future and there are people that look at both sides of an argument and make decisions using realistic probabilities. The problem is that they tend to get drowned out by those overconfident prognosticators that make their predictions with complete certainty. "These perma-bulls and perma-bears don’t like to see both sides," says Ben Carlson at A Wealth of Common Sense. "They have their views and nothing you can say will change them." Typical perma-bull arguments: Cash is waiting on the sidelines; forward price:earning ratios are low; this is a buying opportunity; we’re cautiously optimistic; the market may be a bit stretched but there are pockets of value. While perma-bears mainly talk about CAPE ratios, the latest from Zero Hedge, Marc Faber, the Chinese government, charts that look exactly like 1929 or 1987, Greece, Japan,...
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