Here’s how my predictions for 2008 fared:
Predictions that came to pass
- Ron Paul won’t win a single state primary. If he runs as a Libertarian or other third party, he won’t get a single electoral vote. He won’t be elected president.
- Nothing of any substance will be accomplished by the Congress on any of the following issues: immigration, healthcare, Social Security, education, product safety of imports.
- China’s Olympics will be huge, opulent, and have precisely the opposite effect that, presumably, the Chinese government wants to achieve. Rather than showing that China has made it, it will highlight the enormous contrasts in modern China. Citizen journalism may play a part.
- On December 31, 2008 there will be at least 80,000 American soldiers in Iraq.
- Neither the U.S. nor Israel will either bomb or invade Iran.
- In fact we won’t engage in any major military action that we’re not already engaged in.
- President Bush will not be impeached by the House of Representatives.
- No Country for Old Men will win the Academy Award for Best Picture.
- No Chicago sports team will win a championship series.
- If the presidential contest is Clinton versus Romney, Romney wins. If it’s Clinton vs. McCain, McCain wins. If it’s Edwards vs. Huckabee, nobody wins.
- When the television writers’ strike ends it will turn out to have been a debacle both for the writers and the Big 3 television networks.
Predictions That Did Not Come to Pass
- Some state will have a serious financial crisis caused by lower revenues than expected and the unwillingness either to cut spending or increase taxes. It may well be Illinois.
Half-Right/Half-Wrong
- The naming of Benazir Bhutto’s teenaged son, Bilawal Bhutto Zardawi, as head of the PPP will increasingly be recognized as a sign that there never was a good option or a soft landing for Pakistan.
- The sub-prime mortgage fiasco will continue to perk along with various measures being proposed and taken to address it. All of the measures will be aimed at increasing liquidity, ironic since the problem is one of confidence not liquidity. Nothing will be done about the incentives in the form of billions of dollars in commissions and bonuses paid for peddling bogus financial instruments. House prices have a little farther to fall.
- At least one of the following won’t make it to the end of the year: Fidel Castro, Pervez Musharraf, Robert Mugabe.
- Video game sales will continue to increase, music and movie sales will continue to decrease. The video game Mass Effect will have strong sales, spawning sequels, imitators, and a movie version which is likely to include at least some of the people supplying voices for the characters.
Final Tally: 11-1-4. That gives me an accuracy of 81.25%. However, I think that in reality I did worse than that since I didn’t predict either of the big stories of the year: Barack Obama’s election and just how bad the financial crisis would be.
