Predicting All The Way To The Bank

Unimaginative as it may be, among my main reasons for wanting to travel into the future would be so I could subsequently return and thoroughly debunk all the books purporting to predict that same future. You've all seen these - "15 Reasons To Build An Ark Today", "10 Investments Guaranteed To Make You Rich", "Avoiding The Next 5 Cataclysms", etc.  Imagine how many bridges an unscrupulous salesman could unload if his list of leads included the gullible purchasers of this junk.

Anyone ever done a study of the accuracy of professional predictors like the late Jeanne Dixon? And what about the success rate of our ubiquitous political prognosticators? When President Obama was re-elected in 2012, my wife made a great suggestion to anyone who - courtesy of our prophets of doom - foresaw an imminent government takeover, including immediate confiscation of all firearms. My wife asked others to write down all the things they were afraid might happen over the next four years. She got no takers on her suggestion. My takeaway: Those folks who would not commit their predictions about the demise of our nation to writing are smarter than the authors of those silly books, although, maybe not as rich.