An analyst is a tool

Analysts

...a deep examination of a specific, limited area.

Apparently, the definition is lacking, in that it should also include: ...and whom actually tend towards being wildly uninformed, speculative, obvious, and at the end of the day, entirely wrong.

Case in point, this NYTimes article:

"For months there has been a rising chorus of alarm about the surging growth in the amount of data flying across the Internet. The threat, according to some industry groups, analysts and researchers, stems mainly from the increasing visual richness of online communications and entertainment — video clips and movies, social networks and multiplayer games...In a widely cited report published last November, a research firm projected that user demand for the Internet could outpace network capacity by 2011. The title of a debate scheduled next month at a technology conference in Boston sums up the angst: 'The End of the Internet?'”

Right, it would outpace the feeble network capacity of today, if there were no moves to increase bandwidth at all by the reticent telecom companies in the States.  But I smell government subsidies, money to be made, bribes and/or international corporations that would love to do the work for less just to get a piece of the US telecom pie.  Isn't the world's third-richest man really nearby, and also conveniently involved in the telecom business (monopoly, whatevs)?

This is what 'analysts' really come down to: