Plausible Sounding Stock Tips from a Cartoonist
Scott Adams, of Dilbert fame, on why now is a good time to buy BP stock—which he has just done:
The financial wonks will tell you that the cost of the clean up and settlements are "already baked into the stock price." That's probably true(ish). Still, no one can really predict how much this thing will cost BP in the end. The stock could still go much lower. And I remind you as always, don't take your financial advice from cartoonists….
I assume some of the best engineers in the solar system are working on this. So what we have here is a pure case of brains against oil spill. It's the Manhattan Project for natural disasters.
The Scott Adams Theory of Predictable Disasters states that any catastrophe that society at large can predict far in advance won't happen, usually because scientists and engineers figure a way to head it off. So while an oil spill of this size wasn't predicted by the general public, the slow motion ecological disaster from this point forward is predictable. Admittedly, this is a grey area for the theory because this particular disaster is happening on a relatively fast schedule. It will be a good test of the robustness of the Scott Adams Theory of Predictable Disasters.
This is an interesting variation on the Julian Simon theme of placing bets on human ingenuity. Would you buy BP stock today?