The New Straits Times (December 31, 2008) shows how 2008 forecasts by Lillian Too and others failed to identify the big stories.

Lillian Too

Too’s 2008 prediction was evidently aimed at Somalian pirates and Bernie Madoff: “There will be plenty of potential to get wealthy, however, people must be alert to not let opportunities to make money slip by.”

Yuvaraj Sowma

This “Indian Feng Shui Master” (a vasthu sastra expert) claimed that 2008 would be a dull economic year for the share market

There were others wide of the mark

Michael Hanna

Hanna was also forecasting only for Madoff: “Positive thoughts are like good software, they help us to perform to the best of our abilities, believe positively that 2008 will be one of your best years yet.”

Chriss Barr (Palm Beach Feng Shui)

Barr claimed the next vice president of the US would be female.

She claimed “Obama has … disaster energy on his Success direction for 2008 and during the month leading into the election Biden has this same disaster energy in his Success direction, too. This is a bad combination and will act like a road block on their ability to win the White House.”

Obviously she was much better at prediction for herself, as her former occupation was Certified Financial Planner. Barr previously managed money for wealthy entrepreneurs.

Janarrdhana Guptha and Kalpana Guptha (Crystal-Vaastu)

The Gupthas said that 2008 would be a year of average money luck and windfall luck. They advised installing a lot of toad/frog statues.

John Hogue

He said the oughts are the “uh-oh!” decade, and that the chickens are coming home to roost — but his predictions are mostly observations (no actual data) and he gets most predictions wrong (there’s been no expose of the “real conspiracy” for 9/11 and no avian flu pandemic in humans). However Hogue does mention the strong possibility of a global economic crash.