So how should we treat this from the Fianancial Times:
Merrill chief sees severe global slowdown
By Greg Farrell in New York
Published: November 11 2008 14:42 | Last updated: November 11 2008 20:06
The global economy is entering a slowdown of epic proportions comparable with the period after the 1929 crash, John Thain, chairman and chief executive of Merrill Lynch, warned on Tuesday.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/834ebf5e-aff9-11dd-a795-0000779fd18c.html
What is true is not necessarily the underlying projection but the fact that presumably expert people are saying these things.
Fred
I have been editing regarding the global economic crisis. The outstanding projection is that (unless something is effective is done) the current crisis will result in a crisis similar to the Great Depression. That this warning has been repeatedly made is not subject to dispute, but the question arises as to the validity of the underlying projection. A more minor matter is the more or less reliable projection that the rate of unemployment will rise to 8% (or so) during 2009 in the United States. There are a number of sources for this. We report generally accepted economic projections. That is part of what economists do. To a certain extent the validity for our purposes of publishing depends on appropriate attribution.
Projections of global warming present the same problem.
The specific problem for Wikipedia is not publishing of generally accepted projections but of original research which often has little or no rational basis.
Fred
== Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. ==
<nowiki>{{speculation}} and {{prophecy}}</nowiki> are not welcome on wikipedia. No articles about anticipated events are verifiable, because anticipated events are not reliable. They are not reliable, because they are not testable. Exceptional claims require exceptional references. [[:category:Reliable Modern Prophets and Agencies of Prediction]] is very small. Forward-looking documents and statements should be restricted to events that are almost certain to happen in the obvious sense, considering how many times it has happened in the past and the resources devoted to making it happen again.
[http://future.wikia.com/ Wiki-future], [[WP:IRC]], [[WP:TALK]], [[WP:E-MAIL]] and [[USENET]] are fine venues for writing about the future, and it does not belong here until it is a fact, so look out for sentences that contain words like "would", "could", "may", and "might", because they should tell you what makes them likely, almost now.
$continue with exceptions...no, because as WP:CRYSTAL is now, there hav already been a lot of exceptions and that's probably why I ended up with so much static when I tried to take the [[weasel words]] out of it. I'm sure there are people who took and take this policy by the name of the section heading, like I did. I don't know a more sensible and pivotal rule than this to divide wikipedia from the rest of the media.
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