1. HUMBLE PIE - Bill Gross, portfolio manager of the world's largest bond fund, said on 2/15/11 that " inflation will go up and bond prices go down." As of 2/28/11, Gross had sold all of his fund's holdings in US Treasury debt in anticipation of rising interest rates. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note was 3.42% on 2/28/11. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note was 1.88% on 12/31/11 (source: Financial Times).

2. EXAGGERATION - Financial analyst Meredith Whitney predicted on the television show " 60 Minutes" (aired on 12/19/10) that there could be " 50 to 100 sizeable (municipal bond) defaults... within the next 12 months. This will amount to hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of defaults." Instead only $6 billion of defaults occurred last year. The municipal bond market is $3.7 trillion in size (source: CBS).

3. NEVER IS A LONG TIME - Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner was asked on 2/07/10 whether the USA could ever lose its top credit rating. Geithner responded "that will never happen to this country." S&P downgraded the United States from AAA to AA+ on 8/05/11. The USA had been AAA-rated for 70 years (source: ABC News).

4. SO RIGHT - Microsoft founder Bill Gates predicted in a 1/08/02 interview (i.e., 10 years ago) that the upcoming 10 years would be the " digital decade" and that consumers will come to "take (computer capabilities) for granted the way we take electricity or water for granted today" (source: Consumer Electronics Show).