Alternative Scenarios

I doubt I'm telling readers anything they don't already know when I say year-ahead outlook pieces from Wall Street should be taken with a grain (and quite possibly a whole shaker) of salt. That's certainly not to disparage the best efforts of the sell-side's legions of strategists. Their analytical exercises do serve a purpose even if, on some days, I can't readily identify what that purpose actually is (Charlie Munger is laughing somewhere). On Wednesday, Goldman's David Kostin suggested the