Time Magazine's Ominous Sign

So Barron's, always the pessimist, must have a vendetta against Time Magazine because in the financial newspaper's latest issue there were two instances when it was brought to light that Time's cover stories have been great busts. More specifically, Time has been notorious for putting stories on its front page that eventually turning into great short ideas. Case in point, Jeff Bezos being voted Man of Year by Time three months before the stock went from the hundreds to below $10.

Interesting indeed. To be sure, Barron's is not the originator of the theory that Time Magazine as the predictor of bad things. It turns out that a gentleman named Paul Macrae Montgomery, who writes a Universal Economics Letter, is the astute researcher who uncovered the rather odd correlation.

Why is this most recent Time issue of concern? Because this year's person of the year is actually you. Time's issue had a reflexive mirror on its cover to show that we are the drivers of the internet, youtube, web 2.0, and itunes generation. Should we "sell ourselves short," Barron's asks? Not necessarily but perhaps this cover story could be a bad sign for Google, because nothing represents the internet generation like Google (or at least we are led to believe that).

Check out the Barron's references here and here.