THE TOP FIVE FINANCIAL PORNOGRAPHERS by Rich Karlgaard

“Hard-core pornography,” said former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart in 1964, is hard to define but “I know it when I see it.”

Same with financial pornography. You can’t define it, but it is easy to spot–the prediction so raw and shocking you are left panting. In late 1999 and early 2000, when the Dow had soared above 11,000 and the Nasdaq was jetting toward 5,000, when tech IPOs were 10-bagging on no profits and scant underlying revenue, porn was all about new paradigms. It was the financial equivalent of a free love revolution, without cost to body or soul.

Today’s financial porn–Prechter’s predictions of a 1,000 Dow, with everyone urged to head for the back woods, rifle in hand–is at the other end of the porn scale from those Caligulan romps of yore. Those delicious but so wrong old calls for a Dow 36,000 almost look innocent now. Today’s stuff, by contrast, is pure S&M, bondage, pain and slavery. Today’s pornographers–they’re all men, and old ones at that–seem to love dishing it out.

Here is my list of the Top Five Financial Pornographers of 2010:

Robert Prechter, president of Elliott Wave International

Sample here and below:

The Dow … is likely to fall well below 1,000 over perhaps five or six years as a grand market cycle comes to an end, he said. That unraveling, combined with a depression and deflation, will make anyone holding cash “extremely grateful for their prudence.”

Sample here and below:

It was 2017. Clans were governing America.

The first clans organized around local police forces. The conservatives’ war on crime during the late 20th century and the Bush/Obama war on terror during the first decade of the 21st century had resulted in the police becoming militarized and unaccountable.

As society broke down, the police became warlords. The state police broke apart, and the officers were subsumed into the local forces of their communities. The newly formed tribes expanded to encompass the relatives and friends of the police.

Paul Farrell, columnist, Marketwatch

Sample here and below:

Yes, Wall Street has a death wish, secretly trying to self-destruct. Can’t stop. Don’t get it. Wall Street’s culture, mindset, brain, psyche–whatever you call it–has a saboteur locked deep in the unconscious. Not only are they hell-bent on self-destruction, they’re taking America down with them.

Why? It’s a “guy thing.” Alpha-males have the power. Worse, their death spiral can’t end till Venus conquers Mars and its killer instinct–until we see a new era where women rule not only Wall Street, but Washington and Corporate America. This is a race against time: Alpha-males versus Venus and the feminine mystique. Guys love games. Are women up to it? To win, they must change the rules of the game.

Farrell is such a deep well of porn, I’ll give you one more: “30 Reasons for a Great Depression 2 by 2011.”

Sample here and below:

[Dent] has two scenarios for the Dow Jones in 2010: one, a fall to 3,300-4,600 in a broad crash also taking down real estate and commodities, including gold and oil; second, for the Dow to go even lower to 2,200-3,500.

Both are apocalyptic for stock market investors. Harry Dent made his name in the early ’90s with a counter-consensus and very accurate, super bullish prediction about the outlook for stocks. His specialty is the study of demographics, or population trends, as a means of forecasting the future.

In his current book he apologizes some past errors, with a real howler being a stock market bubble in the late 2000s that just never happened or came close.

Gerald Celente, CEO, Trends Research Institute

Sample here and below:

Celente says that by 2012 America will become an undeveloped nation, that there will be a revolution marked by food riots, squatter rebellions, tax revolts and job marches, and that holidays will be more about obtaining food, not gifts.

We’re going to see the end of the retail Christmas … we’re going to see a fundamental shift take place … putting food on the table is going to be more important that putting gifts under the Christmas tree,” said Celente, adding that the situation would be “worse than the great depression”.

“America’s going to go through a transition the likes of which no one is prepared for,” said Celente, noting that people’s refusal to acknowledge that America was even in a recession highlights how big a problem denial is in being ready for the true scale of the crisis.

For one minute, do you believe the pornographers are sincere? I don’t. Their words are said to shock–which is why it is porn, not anything serious. If you want solid bearish analysis, read Gary Shilling. He says stocks could go down 30%, and he might be right.

Now what’s interesting is that each of my Top Five Pornographers is an old man. You would think financial porn would be a sub industry dominated by young, Web-savvy people–e.g., Lady Gaga types using their social networks and Twitter feeds along with their bottomless supply of time. But it turns out the Top Five Financial Pornographers of 2010 are not Millennial Exhibitionists. They are each desperate old men, seeking attention. Sad.

Rich Karlgaard is publisher of Forbes Magazine.  You can read his columns on technology, economics and culture at http://www.forbes.com/opinions/