> Also: note that the Wall Street analyst estimates Ed cites (and then declares impossible targets) are predictions by serious people with a lot of money at stake.

I think Ed is wrong. But I have to push back. Wall street analysts are more likely to misrepresent precisely because they have money at stake. Much like ed has a pretty vested interest in saying the sky is falling (that's his brand at this point) the analysts have vested interests in saying everything is fine and keep investing.

We can see similar behaviors with analysts like zero hedge, which every week write a new "the bubble is about to pop" article.

A lot of this, IMO, is similar to a fact about the weather I'm probably misremember from stats. If you always predict "it will be sunny tomorrow" almost anywhere in the world you'll be right something like 80 to 90% of the time (citation needed).

Analysts who always say "things are great and stocks will go up" will be right most of the time. The tricky thing has always been predicting when and if a pop will happen.