With Greece disintegrating before our very eyes [8], here are some recent blasts from the recent and not so recent past, showing just how clueless some of the most and least respected, strategists, bureucrats, drama majors, and former Goldman employees have been when it comes to Greece.
First, here is Tom Lee, best known for predicting in August 2008 [9]that stocks will rise "much higher" by the end of 2008, with the S&P expected to rise to 1450, instead of plunging some 40% lower and wiping out countless people who listened to Lee. From June 23, 2015 [10]:
The Greek debt drama is a "sideshow" for U.S. investors, who should be encouraged by signs of a stronger American economy, longtime stock market bull Thomas Lee said Tuesday.
"Greece isn't the systemic risk that it was three years ago," he told CNBC's"
"Focus on U.S. fundamentals, which have been really good."
Then here is Dennis Gartman, telling what little viewers CNBC has left, that he wants to be a "buyer of European stocks."
Going further back in time, how can one possibly forget Jean-Claude "When it is serious you have to lie" Juncker's premature victory lap from October 2014, best summarized in the tweet below:
I say to all those who bet against Greece and against Europe: You lost and Greece won. You lost and Europe won. http://t.co/F3EtHLG3km [11]
— Jean-Claude Juncker (@JunckerEU) May 19, 2014 [12]
Oops.
There was, of course, this humorous interlude:
Congrats to Greece on its triumphant return.
— Joseph Weisenthal (@TheStalwart) April 10, 2014 [13]
But the single, most glorious example of clueless punditry comes from none other than Mario Draghi himself who back on April 4, 2013 [14]lied to everyone's face with the following:
Scott Solano, DPA: Mr Draghi, I've got a couple of question from the viewers at Zero Hedge, and one of them goes like this: say the situation in Greece or Spain deteriorates even further, and they want to or are forced to step out of the Eurozone, is there a plan in place so that the markets don't basically collapse? Is there some kind of structural system, structural safety net, especially in the area of derivatives? And the second questions is: you spoke earlier about the Emergency Liquidity Assistance, and what would have happened to the ELA in Cyprus, the approximately €10 billion, if the country had decided to leave the Eurozone?
Mario Draghi, ECB: Well you really are asking questions that are so hypothetical that I don't have an answer to them. Well, I may have a partial answer. These questions are formulated by people who vastly underestimate what the Euro means for the Europeans, for the Euro area. They vastly underestimate the amount of political capital that has been invested in the Euro. And so they keep on asking questions like: "If the Euro breaks down, and if a country leaves the Euro, it's not like a sliding door. It's a very important thing. It's a project in the European Union. That's why you have a very hard time asking people like me "what would happened if." No Plan B.
Yes, they "really" are asking questions like "if a country leaves the Euro" because someone had to. Perhaps the fate of millions of Greeks would have been different if more had the balls to ask just this one most crucial question.
As for the Euro's "political capital", it just ran out.
But fear not: as Goldman laid out the script last week [15], and as we warned all readers, the political capital is about to be replenished with a boost to the ECB's QE. And all that will take to send European stocks in one last gasp surge higher, is the sacrifice of several million Greek pensioners, coming to a PIIG country near you next.
