I'll close the day with something utterly trivial, but I need to get it off my chest.
A recent edition of a thrice-weekly online publication mentioned that the cover of Business Week featured a bear on its cover. I couldn't find anything bigger than a postage-stamp-sized version of the cover, but here it is, scaled larger:
I'm a big believer in the contrary nature of national magazine covers. What irked me was that the aforementioned publication citing the cover stated that the article within Business Week had a "rather dismissive undertone", and thus the cover really didn't have any significance.
Look, I'm the bear's bear, but you can't have it both ways! If someone is going to cite an anecdotal indicator, you can't cherry-pick things so blatantly that only instances of your bias are valid.
Of course, the cover indicator isn't infallible. Business Week had a very prominent cover story in August 2009 that the recession was over, and frankly the market hasn't keeled over yet. My point isn't that the cover indicator works or doesn't work; my point is that consistency promotes credibility.
