Mark Zandi of Moody’s Economy.com has been a media darling for the last three years, so much so that very few days go by without my reading one of his quotes about how the stimulus will create economic growth, how the stimulus is working, how the stimulus has worked, or how the stimulus created as many jobs as the administration said it would.
He has been also very active on the Hill. For instance, he testified again yesterday before the Senate Budget Committee reopened the debate about whether the stimulus packages and other federal interventions have been effective. His written testimony is here. As expected, he explained that the Obama administration’s economic stimulus plan has been successful and helped prevent a second Great Depression.
Now, there is a great list published today at “The Big Picture” tracking Zandi’s forecasting errors. It is quite an astonishing list of errors, considering how often his opinion is presented by the media and the administration as independent and reliable. As the author explains
. . . based on Zandi’s record, either his analysis is just wrong or his independence is compromised. Everyone seems to like to hear the guy who is saying what people want to hear, even the press appears to prefer “feel good” analysis to considering the accuracy of his record.
The whole thing is here. (Thanks to Tyler Grimm for the tip.)