Stages Of Decay

It happens pretty often, I go to the basement for something, (we have a fridge and pantry down there, so the something is usually food) and when I get to the bottom of the stairs I have no memory of what I came down for.  Naturally, the memory comes back to me once I have made it back up.  

On the other hand, I am able to look at data and see a trend, make a note of my prediction and track how well I've done.  I wonder if there are important people who got where they were because they used to be really sharp, but are now really dim but still considered trusted advisors.

Two cases in point:

Andy Slavitt has a wiki page and it is all very impressive.

And yet, on May 3rd, he made the below prediction:  Sites like this had shown case rates falling since anywhere from early to late April.  He predicts new cases of 50,000/day outside of NY.  What were they on Memorial Day?  Just under 20,000.  My searches show no correction or mea culpa.   Maybe he is in worse shape than me and just doesn't remember his very bad predictions.

If you look at the country minus NY, from April 25 to May 1, cases have GROWN from 24322 to 28437. So outside of NY, positive cases are increasing by 17%/week.
EVEN IF CASE GROWTH DOESN’T GO UP, that would put us over 50,000 new cases every day outside of NY by Memorial Day. 13/

— Andy Slavitt @ 🏡 (@ASlavitt) May 3, 2020

Next:  Famous lawyer and wiki page owing smart man:  Ted Frank

He was so certain of his prediction that there would be more than 50,000 deaths in May from Covid-19 that he offered to bet up to $100,000 on it.  I was fairly certain that I would "win".  You can look at the data from the earlier link above and it is pretty obvious the number would be below 50k.  The reasons I didn't take the bet were that I figured that if I won, he would never admit it and I would not get paid, but that if I was wrong, he (as a skilled lawyer) would sue me for the money if I refused to pay.  So, a no-win, but can still lose type bet.  Anyway, the actual number who died in May from Covid-19, 42,339  Not only was his prediction wrong, while I maintained reasonable courtesy, he lobbed personal insults at me and then ended up blocking me. Added: The total deaths for June are 21,271. About half as many as may and still dropping.   It seemed a little deranged and reinforced my decision not to take his bet.

50,000 per month? You mean like the number who die each month from cancer and the even larger number who die from heart disease every month? It is already receding, there won't be 50k in May.

— David Pecchia (@dpecchia) May 4, 2020

How much do you want to bet? I’ll put up up to $100,000 that the number will be higher than 50,000 in May.

— tedfrank 😷 (@tedfrank) May 4, 2020