Predictions For 2011. How’d We do?

Last January 1st I asked for everybody to provide verifiable predictions for the year. Time for reckoning!

Tomorrow I’ll ask us to provide predictions for 2012, so hold off on these until then.

Here are all the serious, verfiable predictions we made. This is long, but I wanted everybody who participated to have their moment.

The winner has to be Izzy (see below), for making the most correct predictions of events that were difficult to foresee.

Remember, save your predictions for 2012 for tomorrow.

DAV

1) GW initiatives in congress will die a quiet death

Have to call this one a hit, qualified by event that the USA signed on at the South Africa non-obligatory, non-committal commitment to think seriously, one of these days, about climate change.

2) someone will prove the hard way that full body scanners and gropy-feely searches are futile

If we count all the old ladies the TSA has been pantsing at JFK, then this is a qualified hit. Word is out that some European airports are abandoning full-body scanners because of “health concerns.”

GaryP

Okay, In 2011 some city and state pension checks will bounce.

I think this is a miss. Does anybody know of any cities where this happened?

Glen Beck will make lots of money advertising for non-perishable emergency stocks of food as government pensioners start to buy them.

A solid hit, but akin to forecasting “Democrats will call for increased spending.”

Mark

The 2011 flu season will be very bad.

A bust. Maybe next year?

John M

All weather events will be “”consistent with” global warming/climate change/climate disruption/climate chaos/global wierding.

A hit, but too easy.

Scott B

In 2011, Obama and the EPA will keep-up the full court press on Texas regarding granting licenses to operate (i.e., not doing enough to make Texas like California — manufacturing friendly).

A miss, but only because of the specificity of naming Texas. It was true enough elsewhere.

Obama and the dept of the interior will not allow new Gulf Oil drilling.

Solid hit.

The Chevy Volt will have “unexpectedly” disappointing sales, sales to gov’t fleets notwithstanding.

Plus, many will prove the theory of spontaneous combustion.

Kevin B

The second portion of the double dip will be a doozy.

Has to be a miss, since we never had the official second dip.

In the US, the left will blame the ‘tax cuts for the rich’ and the lack of more stimulus spending and QE3, whilst the right will blame the lack of spending cuts and the insufficiency of the existing tax cuts…Everyone, everywhere will blame the evil bankers, (and probably George Bush).

This is a hit, but not a home run. Kevin came thisclose to nailing the idiotic Occupy! movement.

In Europe, the left will blame the spending cuts and the right will blame the tax increases.

This is another sun-rises-in-the-east prediction.

max

1) The Japanese government will fall in a major corruption scandal, which will not involve the PM but will encompass so much of his party that he will have to resign.

Well, sort of. But no word of the tsunami.

2) N Korea will ‘test’ the DMZ in force (division level force) but not actually invade S Korea or take over the DMZ.

A bust! They instead save waves of crocodile tears flooding south after the evil Kim Jong Il crapped out.

3) Pakistan, the Prime Minister will not be killed. the same can not be said for the sub-prime ministers and several will die, usually accompanied by large explosions. Conspiracy theories about joint Israeli-Indian assassination teams, Russo-Indian assassination teams and CIA assassination teams will abound.

Too unspecific, and therefore a miss, or at least a disqualification.

4) Zimbabwe will experience a 3 month long, very bloody revolution. Unfortunately the government will win due to backing by mercenaries hired by a concealed foreign government. When the mercenaries are finally traced back to, never mind that doesn’t happen until 2014.

Fanciful, but false.

5) Stoke will narrowly beat out Chelsea for the title (United having difficulty fielding a team due to a string of injuries and drunk driving offenses) beginning it’s 5 year dominance.

I need help with this one. What’s a Stoke?

Anne

Greece, Ireland and/or California will declare bankruptcy, i.e. invalidate their debts.

A qualified hit, but only because the EU went to such pains to call the bankruptcy of Greece by another name. Ireland still holds on, but barely. Democrat Governor Brown in California hit upon the rarely invoked idea of raising taxes to stave off bankruptcy while—and you won’t believe this—simultaneously increasing spending.

49erDweet

1. Enough “Republican” senators will wimp out and cross the aisle to support the administration’s agenda so as to thwart attempts by the 112th Congress to somehow reduce spending and lower the size of government. Before the end of the year it will be well-settled that the session will end up a virtual stalemate, frustrating most conservatives and many libertarians, but secretly pleasing a large number of the hold-over GOP incumbents.

A long fly out, but of sufficient depth to allow a run to score.

2. The RNC will jump the shark naming it’s next chairperson, with the result that before the end of the year a new politic party will be established based primarily on “tea party” ideals.

The RNC did name a new chairperson, but it’s business as usual. New motto: “Let’s increase at a slower rate than Democrats, but let’s still increase it”.

4. TSA and DHS will finally combine to run out of luck this year and fail to prevent a US airline disaster, which will not officially be blamed on a Muslim terrorist. But “everybody” else will know who did it anyway, thus further establishing the incompetence of the chosen one’s spokes-idiots.

A bust, thank God.

5. Three more mega-sized print media outlets will go belly up this year and cease publication. Most of the remaining US newspapers will virtually ignore will ignore it when it happens, or will blame it on something else. No one will publicly mention they were caused by failure to report news in favor of expressing opinions.

Another bust!

6. A significant number of well-known Democrats will publicly form a group similar to the “tea party” and begin the process of taking back control over their party. This activity will be virtually ignored by public media outlets, but the individuals will still be placed on the WH enemy’s list.

Have to count this as a miss, though if we wanted to be generous, we could read the Occupy! movement into this.

8. The UAW and Ford Motor Company will settle on a new union contract before the end of the year, but for some unknown but justifiable reason Ford will be paying about 25% more in wages than either GM or what used to be called Chrysler.

A hit, of a kind. Ford didn’t pay higher wages, but it offered a $6,000 cash payout for signing the new contract, which is something GM or Chrysler didn’t do.

POUNCER

For 3 of any 4 previously established definitions / metrics of “violence”; the incidence of such violence per capita in Mexico will exceed the same incidence per capita in Iraq.

I think this is a hit. Unfortunately.

bob

By December 31, 2011 the US unemployment rate will be hovering around 8%. The Obama administration will try to implement a new way of calculating the number of unemployed…

8.6% of this writing. And I think the second portion of this guess must also be classified as a hit, given the fine efforts of Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

2. The US economy will grow at a rate of 2.5%.

Nailed it, I think. Final numbers aren’t in, but the quarterly rates were 0.4%, 1.3%, and 1.8% (don’t know the 4th yet). This should end up being just north of 2% for the year.

3. Carbon trading will become a regular feature of commodity quotes on the cable business broadcasts. The EPA will be successful in implementing the regulation of carbon dioxide emissions.

A bust on the first, but a solid, sad hit on the second.

pesadia

1) Thorium (named after the god “Thor”) will become the element of choice for nuclear power.

A miss; but there is more discussion along these lines.

2) Climategate will be a bigger scandal than ever as a result of analysis of the so-called enquiries.

Is this a prediction of Climategate 2.0 or just a lucky guess?

3) The AGW debate will become more polarized as a result of legislation.

A miss; if anything, interest is abating.

4) Belgium will be in crisis by the end of 2011.

A miss, unless he meant the EU implosion.

5) Australia will have a political crisis in 2011.

A miss.

6) There will be a major scandal involving the IPCC

A miss.

7) Tony Blair will fall from grace as a result of revelations connected to the Iraq war.

Wasn’t he already fallen? Otherwise, mostly a miss.

Bob Koss

The Chicago Cubs will not win the 2011 World Series.

And in other news, fish found in ocean.

John Morris

1. With the Republicans in control of the House to take the blame while being unable to actually do anything to prevent it, Obama will use his Executive powers to ensure a double dip. Not that he needs to do much, he probably couldn’t stop it at this point if he actually wanted to. Unemployment on Dec 31, 2011 will be 10% +/1 1%.

A bust.

2. The media will have the Republican POTUS nominee predestined by the end of this year. If Palin runs she gets it, if not some other useless unelectable candidate.. If it is Palin the Tea Party will likely (75% probability) fall for it. 50% chance they fall for Huck. Anyone else I predict 75% chance of a major 3rd party Tea Party run.

A good prediction, but utterly wrong. It’s still up in the air on the nomination, and Palin and Huckabee never came in. Paul has the best chance of a third party run, but has hinted he won’t do it.

3. Colder than normal winter causes final death of Global Warming amongst the myriad scandals. We will see the first hints of the replacement by Dec 31…Gore admitting Ethanol was a scam will be seen as the final nail in GW’s coffin.

Winter warm so far, or at least not too cold, not too hot. Gore admitted nothing.

4. Birthers make a push in several states to make a birth cert a ballot access requirement. While being widely denounced as racists one attempt will succeed. Hilarity ensues.

Never happened, but funny!

5. Hillary Clinton does not mount a primary challenge. Nobody does in ’11 or ’12.

A hit, both ways (for 2011 anyway).

6. CNN & CNNH merge into one channel due to ratings to low for cable operators to justify letting them have what, on most systems, are two plum slots. While keeping it all deniable for fear of the regime’s increasingly fascist regulation of communications (Chavez is their model) MSNBC will be under increasing pressure to deliver viewers outside their target demo in the NY-DC corridor.

A miss, I think. Or do I recall hearing something about Headline News failing? A hit on the MSNBC fortunes, though.

10. The Tea Party is a real awakening but will be too small and too late. ’10 was the moment of truth for them and +63/+6 was impressive but not enough to truly frighten the old bulls in either party.

Given the latest budget deal, this prediction must be seen as a hit.

11. The terrorists’ luck can’t be crappy forever, especially when the administration is rooting for em, so they finally score against the idiots in DHS.

Second one to make this prediction; a miss.

12. Against all odds, Obama manages to screw the pooch in Iraq. In ’11 things will suddenly start to go bad.

A miss, of a sort. Al Qaeda waiting for us to leave.

Rick Bradford

By the end of 2011, a lot more people will be ready to believe that we are in for a cold 30 years or so, maybe even a mini Ice Age

A qualified hit.

Izzy

1) USA economy will not double-dip, but will remain in the doldrums. Democrats will claim it is showing improvement and their “stimuli” prevented a second great depression. Republicans will claim improvement is being prevented by the “stimuli” and more tax cuts would be the answer. The tea party will claim that we are already in deflation and only by throwing out the bums (both those that are still there and any new ones that are not faithful to the tea party message) can we save the USA.

A solid hit.

2) Violence will continue to escalate in Afganistan. The current administration will declare victory somehow and retreat. The main stream media (MSM) will support the victory declaration.

Again, a hit.

3) Violence will begin to escalate in Iraq as a result of overflow from Afganistan. The MSM will cover it up.

A miss—didn’t foresee the rapid exit.

4) Red China will make more aggressive moves against Nationalist China. This will become a proxy war between Red China and the USA. There will be small skirmishes without a full war. This will become the new cold war.

Another solid hit. China floats new carrier, Taiwan builds new aircraft carrier missile.

5) North Korea, seeing the USA being a paper tiger, will fully invade the islands that South Korea controls. The USA and the UN will get South Korea to make concessions. The MSM will fully support conceding to the Norks.

Another miss.

6) The UN will become more ridiculous by passing human rights decrees that effectively make Islam unquestionable. The UN will attempt to pass decrees that criminalize personal gun ownership in all UN members.

Neither happened, but it’s too soon to call either a real miss. The second prediction in particular bears some watching.

7) Due to few jobs, and increasing tensions, there will begin to be riots in the streets in the USA. They will escalate when the congress fails to provide even more welfare, and even threatens to cut back any services. The instigators will be the anarchists, but they will be joined by most other special interest groups (unions, communists, etc.)

The biggest hit, a home run. Grand slam even. Izzy did everything but name the Occupy! movement.

JH

A Popeye the Sailor movie will be made, and another Friday the 13th movie will be made just for DAV.

Popeye the Sailor?

A Star-Trek style video communication tool will be marketed to replace the existing home phone.

A hit, actually. But nearly every year this is a hit.

A nano memory card for my digital camera will be available. No more photo transfers. No more sorry-out-of-memory moments. “It’s a Wonderful Life: A Memory Chip”. This would be nice.

Didn’t happen.

AND the DJIA will exceed 12,000.

A hit, but not too hard. It ended last year at 11,577. It peaked mid year about 12,810, and will end the year just over 12,000.

Eric Dailey

Many more people will study the Scripture.

Hard to verify, but a miss I think.

Amy G. Dala

1. Large scale ocean heat loss will continue to cause deadly cold snaps in both hemispheres. The Soros/Gore cabal will nonetheless declare 2011 to be the warmist year in geologic history.

Well, cold snaps do kill. A hit, but a weak one.

2. The world economy will continue to plummet, driven down by shock waves of runaway inflation. China, a paper tiger, will not be able to save the U.S. from economic suicide.

A miss: inflation is up, but is not a runaway levels.

3. Armed revolutions will spring up in dozens of countries as the US military will become even more ineffective in policing the world. The US Army and Navy will send contingents to march in Gay Pride parades, however.

A hit, kind of. The Arab Spring (so-called) makes it a hit, but Obama’s intervention in Libya was effective. The latter prediction turns out to be true, too, in its way.

4. Obama’s popularity will drop to its lowest levels in geologic history but that will not reduce his caviar consumption

True; an he’s in Hawaii now at taxpayer expense, isn’t he?

John R T

1. C. Figueres resigns from UNFCCC Exec. Secy. position: finally, UN COI regs. 2. Costa Rica welcomes her home, with a position in Chinchilla administration.

Didn’t happen.

3. B. Obama promotes rapid approval of dozens of nuclear power plants.

No, and he also denied new sources of oil (Keystone, drilling, etc.).

5. EU rejects Lisbon Treaty, and promotes EURO as “back-up/contingency” fund.

An unfortunate hit, if we’re generous with the word “rejects.” Also the UK did just that.

6. F. Chang tests plasma propulsion, in space.

Didn’t happen.

7. VA AG Cuchinelli advances both news-worthy cases in court decisions.

A lucky hit given Newt’s and others of failing to make the Virginia ballot?

8. D. Ortega brings troops home, after losing bid for second term: Latin America rejoices.

Nope.

9. ObLaden buried in Iran, after death in shoot-out.

Buried a sea and died like a coward by shoving a woman in front of him.

Osynlige Mannen

The largest issue of 2011 will be islamic jihad on the civilized western world. And the jihadists will to a very large extent have been born and bred in the country where terrorist actions take place. (And no-one suspected them to be radical.) It won’t be 9/11 again, but it will become much more intense than the last couple of years. Europe (including Russia) will be worst hit. Great Britain, France, Spain and Germany will cope best, since they are so used to domestic terrorism already.

Hit and miss, simultaneously. We need more specificity to award points.

AndrewK

There will be at least one announcement of a new clean energy source… but it will require millions of $s in govt funding to get it up and running.

If you count Solyndra, this is almost, sort of, kinda right, but in a backwards ways.

Mike B

House passes a bill to defund the EPA for their C02 regulations, but the bill dies in the Senate.

Didn’t happen.

Michelle Obama gets preggers, giving an instant 10 %-age point approval boost to Barry.

Great idea, but the never consummated the deal.

Rulon Gardner wins Biggest Loser Couples. Seriously, whose idea was it to put a WRESTLER in a weight losing contest?

Huh? Help here, people.

Jerry

1.) In 2011 global weather conditions will fall well within the normal range with some local high/low temperature and wet/dry precipitation records broken. 2.) Climate Scientists will declare this is consistent with Climate Disruption models

Yes, but too easy.

Peregrine John

6. Gold will top $2000, and it won’t take long.

Topped out at around $1,900, latest was about $1,500.

7. The U.S. economy will stagnate, and while real estate nationwide will average better than 2010, the bluest states will get kicked again, hard.

A bust, all ways.

Steve Nicoloso

Yields on 10-year US Treasury notes will surpass 7% as the rout on US Debt begins in earnest

Never even topped 4%.

ed will target short-term interest rates only high enough to chase the consumer price index up to an annualized rate of 18% for the remainder of the year.

Bust; off by about 14% (full points).

By year’s end, at least 75 cents of every dollar taken in Federal revenue will go to service debt.

I think this is right.

JJD

1. One or two solar/wind power megaprojects in California stall and die due to financing problems. 2. California economy tanks and a high technology golden goose leaves or gets seriously ill.

Solyndra, anybody?

3. One or more incidents of serious anti-government political violence (assassination, abduction) in USA reminiscent of 1960’s. Nutters are blamed without serious investigation.

A hit, marred only by the assumption of an assassination or abduction. Otherwise, the Occupy! folks fit the bill.

4. Unless replaced by a more vivid pseudoscientific scare such as “Possible Spanish Flu Pandemic, No Really” or “Dying Oceans,” global warming/climage change/climate disruption will continue to be a major political hobby horse

A hit, but an easy one.

obiwankenobi

RP 1: Iran will collapse from internal green revolution.

Didn’t happen.

RP 2: N Korea will cheat on the agreements and continue dark U enrichment effort.

Another easy one.

RP 3: Iraqis will continue to prosper under freedom.

A hit, but one that has to be tempered by the USA’s withdrawal.

RP 4: Additional democracies will be added to the world, see #1.

Egypt might fit this—temporarily, anyway.

RP 5: Yellowcake (Uranium Oxide) spot price will break $80/pound (currently $62/lb).

The current price is $55.

RP 6: There will be a 10% increase in the number of new nuclear reactors under construction worldwide (currently there are 65 rxtrs under construction). At least one will be in the US.

I believe this is a bust, particularly if you consider what happened in Japan and Germany.

RP 7: One of the original leaders of the American Indian Movement will be charged in the 1975 murder of Anna Mae Pictou Aquash (as of 2010 two AIM members have been convicted of aiding and abetting her murder).

Don’t know. Help here?

RP 8: A clear frontrunner for the Republican nomination will be named by the MSM and she won’t even be running.

Too unspecific.

RP 9: Lance Armstrong will not race in the Tour de France but he will race in the Leadville 100 and the Tour of Colorado/Quizno Pro Challenge.

Also don’t know.

RP 10: A human will beat IBM computer at the Jeopardy/Computer Challenge in February.

Oops.

WJb

2011 will witness the birth of the ‘Mobile Marketing Consultant.’ This creature will advise companies on how best to brand themselves on smartphone platforms without really knowing how the phones work. It will be rewarded with large checks and be interviewed for countless front page articles.

I don’t know, but this has to be a hit, especially given the faddishness to which businessmen are prone.