Where would we be without experts?

Foxx, I read your statement about how on occasion you have said things and later regretted them and wondered what the heck you were thinking at the time. I think you are a true diamond in the rough and see great essays from you in the future as you grow older and wiser.

 Everyone sticks their foot in their mouth at least once or as I call it, Everyone Tastes The Toe Jam Eventually. In keeping with this thought, here are examples you may or may not have seen in the past of stupid things “experts” have said. Enjoy, learn and grow. ;>)

 "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." -- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.

 "I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year." -- The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957.

 But what...is it good for?" -- Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip.

 "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." -- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977.

 "This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us." -- Western Union internal memo, 1876.

 "The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?" -- David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s.

 "While theoretically and technically television may be feasible, commercially and financially it is an impossibility." -- Lee DeForest, inventor.

 "Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" -- H. M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927.

 "I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his face and not Gary Cooper." -- Gary Cooper on his decision not to take the leading role in "Gone With the Wind."

 "We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out." -- Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962. 

"Radio has no future. Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible. X-rays will prove to be a hoax." -- William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, British scientist, 1899.

 "With over 50 foreign cars already on sale here, the Japanese auto industry isn't likely to carve out a big slice of the U.S. market." -- Business Week, August 2, 1968. 

"Ours has been the first, and doubtless to be the last, to visit this profitless locality." -- Lt. Joseph Ives, after visiting the Grand Canyon in 1861.

 "The bomb will never go off. I speak as an expert in explosives." -- Admiral William Leahy, U.S. Atomic Bomb Project.

 "Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value." -- Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre

. "There will never be a bigger plane built." -- A Boeing engineer, after the first flight of the 247, a twin engine plane that holds ten people.

 "Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction." -- Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872.

 “The idea is simple, easy to understand, workable and above all, fair.”  Neal Boortz in his book The Fair Tax Book attempting to bamboozle the public in his pursuit of revenge against the IRS.