How crowds become stupider

FOR most of the World Cup game on Wednesday (Jul 1), the wisdom of crowds looked absent.

Prediction sites gave England an overwhelming chance of beating the Democratic Republic of Congo. Yet, the men in white were still behind until 74 minutes in. Earlier in the week, Germany had been favourites before losing to Paraguay, and the Netherlands were unexpectedly defeated by Morocco.

Away from the football (do not worry, this will not take long), the consensus was dead wrong about a weaker US dollar this year, too. Oil forecasters are also at sea. Meanwhile, despite US equity valuations at bonkers levels, investors are sanguine.