Worst economic predictions of 2008

Or at least Business Week's list, that's pretty good. Jim Cramer's "Bear Stearns" is pretty good (didn't he also tout Lehman or something equally bad?) as is the Madoff quote. I might add McCain's "the fundamentals of the economy" line as well as the countless GOP schmucks who pitched the "AIG will provide fantastic returns for tax payers" who have all suddenly gone quiet. They probably could have added CNBC and the Wall Street-friendly media regular stories about the market bottom and encouraging buyers to jump in and ride the next wave. (Even today CNBC has one.) Read the full list here.

During the oil bubble, I also thought oil would be sitting around $150 by the end of the year and I also thought the Dow could easily be sitting closer to 7000, so I'm very glad to have been wrong on those two points. I wished that I was wrong about the failing banks and bad economy and admit I thought it would have taken longer to collapse. The speed of this unraveling has been amazing, in a very bad way.