Makes perfect sense

Hidden toward the end of this article on the foolhardiness of market prediction is this non-shocker:

"One of the few times that a financial strategist has been widely taken to task came in 1999, when Kevin A. Hassett and James K. Glassman published “Dow 36,000: The New Strategy for Profiting From the Coming Rise in the Stock Market.”

The book, which arrived just months before the technology bubble burst and stocks plummeted to earth, was actually an argument that bonds and stocks should be considered as equally risky investments. But the title — cartoonish in hindsight and, in its authors’ defense, proposed by the publisher — has since become a popular punch line for jokes about irrational exuberance in turn-of-the-century Wall Street. (The Dow closed on Friday at 8,378.95).

Still, while the reputation of its authors may have taken a hit, “Dow 36,000” has not seemed to hurt their careers. Mr. Hassett, who did not respond to a reporter’s inquiry, works at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative research group in Washington, and serves as the senior economic adviser to the presidential campaign of Senator John McCain.

According to his spokesman, Mr. Glassman prefers not to comment on the financial markets now that he has started in his new position: under secretary of state for public diplomacy in the Bush administration. Apparently, there is life after Dow 36,000. The jury is still out on life after Dow 8,378."

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Also, this is awesome.