What was Bloomberg's (FT, Economist, the general economists' consensus, whichever) position in the year before the 2008 crisis? How many times did they flag the impending burst?

Every media outlet has an undisclosed interest somewhere or at the very least a heavy bias sometimes. And it's highlighted more than ever when those trusted pillars of reporting like Bloomberg, FT, or the Economist come up with conflicting information.

Right now CCTV in China or RT in Russia are saying the same thing about the US, or the EU, or Japan, or Korea. And the people reading and listening are having the same discussion we're having just with different conclusions based on that trusted information.

The economist had e.g. a leader like this: https://www.economist.com/leaders/2005/06/16/after-the-fall

It is possible to call bubbles, especially if they are as large and data is transparently available. It is really hard to tell the moment when it will pop, especially if it is connected with the government like in the soviet union or in China.

I'm not arguing the possibility of seeing them but whether you visibly flag them or not. A bad prediction might turn into a self fulfilling prophecy. At the very least it could make a dent in the people's trust. You do this on an election year and you'll pay for it. You might get the shaft regardless if your prediction makes someone powerful look bad.

So when you're playing close to home positive stuff gets the fanfare, negative predictions are underplayed. You're talking about your own market after all. Why do you think it's so easy for these publications to hit at anything that's not domestic? The further away, the less friendly the player, the more scathing the prediction.

The Economist was generally quite consistent about it, including in its American publishing (which is mostly written by American authors). I was reading The Economist at the time, and so the housing bust did not really surprise me; and I don't remember any false positives at the time. (They called it a little too early, though, as a lot of the "smart" money did.)