PODCAST: The Kiplinger Letter’s 2022 Forecasts
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Links mentioned in this episode:
- Kiplinger’s Economic Outlook: GDP
- Kiplinger’s Economic Outlook: Inflation
- Kiplinger’s Economic Outlook: Jobs
- Kiplinger’s Economic Outlook: Interest rates
- Kiplinger on tiktok
Transcript:
David Muhlbaum: 2022. Yes, it's already underway, but we've got more than 11 months to go. Forecasting what might actually happen in that time is what the Kiplinger Letter does. John Miley, a senior associate editor for the Kiplinger Letter joins us to talk about his team's top 10 forecasts. Also, the Theranos trial. Are you fascinated by the tale of Elizabeth Holmes? That's all coming up in this episode of Your Money's Worth. Stick around.
Welcome to Your Money's Worth. I'm kiplinger.com senior editor David Muhlbaum, joined by Kiplinger Senior Editor Sandy Block. How are you doing, Sandy?
Sandy Block: I'm good, David.
David Muhlbaum: Great. Well, our guest today is John Miley from the Kiplinger Letter. And I know you were following the Theranos trial very closely, and that story is one that John was intrigued by. So what we're going to do is bring him into the opener right here, right now. But before I turn the two of you loose on your thoughts about Elizabeth Holmes, I want to try to apply the Your Money's Worth principle: Is there some actionable personal finance advice in this tale?
Sandy Block: Well, probably not, or it would be a stretch, but what we do see are some total failures of due diligence by investors. And that should give people pause about the judgment of the smart money we often look to for guidance, and is it is not always right? And I think there is some relevance. What we saw in the past year was how easy it is now to take a flyer on a stock with apps, such as Robinhood, you can do it for free. And while I don't think Theranos was ever available widely to the public, there are plenty of flashy stocks that are. And just because they're getting a lot of buzz, does not mean that you should put your money there.
David Muhlbaum: Got it. All right. I'm curious what John has to say as well, but maybe John, first off, you can give us the Theranos story in 30 seconds?
John Miley: Well, Elizabeth Holmes, as a 19-year-old Stanford... well, she didn't finish Stanford. She came up with the idea for a device that could take a pinprick of blood and come up with all these results. And it's something that the conventional testing couldn't do. They would have to take vials of blood, and the devices were huge and expensive. And she was able to convince a lot of investors to pour in hundreds of millions of dollars into this company. And it lasted for years. She convinced military people. She convinced George Schultz, former secretary of state, and among other things, to buy into this and be on the board. And basically what happened is the thing was covered a lot in the technology world, and it ended up being largely a scam throughout all the years. And she covered up that it didn't really work. And what surprises me most is how long it lasted. But yeah, I don't know if I left anything out Sandy, but that's how I see it.
Yeah. I think the thing that I was fascinated by was the suggestion that what she did wasn't all that unusual in Silicon Valley, that whole fake-it-till-you-make-it, that exaggerating what you've invented or what you're selling is how it's done, and that maybe she exaggerated things a bit, but it wasn't all that bad. But I think what separated this from the
