2020 Predictions Wrap Up

My Prediction mojo usually gets wobbly during Presidential election years and this year was no different.  Not to mention that 2020 turned out to be…2020.  I sure didn’t see that coming!  In any case, I still feel obligated to own up to my wins and losses of the past year.  So going through my 2020 Predictions:

What I got Right.

Reparations will be on the Democratic Platform

Called it!  Technically it’s the “study” of reparations, which is something that Democratic Congressmen vote on at the beginning of every session, but now that it’s in the platform, it will be part of the Democratic Party wish list forever.

There will be some sort of Brexit this year.

Again I was right, there was, “some kind” of Brexit.  At least it’s a start.

There will be a Supreme Court vacancy this year.

I thought either RBG would shrug off the mortal coil or Justice Thomas would see the handwriting on the wall and take a dive for the good of the Supreme Court.  Well he didn’t, which will work against us during the Harris-also-Biden administration.  He’s not young enough to be able to skip nearly a decade of Democratic Presidents.  In fact, he’s making the same mistake RPG did.  Despite the millions of atheist prayers, RPG left a gap in the Supreme Court that President Trump was only too happy to fill.

Republicans will retain control of the Senate.

Despite the blue wave predictions, the GOP maintained control of the Senate, with of course a big caveat of the runoff race in Georgia.  Well for the purposes of this year it still looks good for the Republicans so I’m comfortable calling that a win.

Democrats will retain control of the House.

I also got this right but surprisingly by a margin a bit thinner than I foresaw.  I expected the Democratic lead to remain about the same, with a few seats traded out here and there. Instead the Republicans made some real progress.  Thanks “Defund-the-Police” Democrats!

 

What I got Wrong.

Joe Biden will not be the Democratic Nominee.

Yep, I got this wrong. My reasoning was simply this:  As woke and identity politics conscious as the Democratic Party had gotten, why would they select on old white male with a history of troublesome racial statements?  Plus, I assumed that no way would Democrats want someone with declining mental faculties to go against Trump in the debates, not to mention govern the country.  But the hatred of Trump was so strong, they didn’t care they were voting in someone stretching the bounds of senility.

There will be an additional impeachment inquiry in the House of Representatives this year to consider new impeachment charges.

This one I got wrong, but by a hair.  Democrats were planning to do an “Impeachment 2.0” after Trump was acquitted, but COVID-19 got in the way and blew everything else out of the water.

There will be an independent never-Trump candidate in the race

My assumption was that Never Trump forces would be up to their old tricks, but I think the years have worn on them since 2016 when they promoted a couple of nimrod embarrassing characters to run against Trump.  Of course in 2016, they were expecting a 50 state blow out for Hillary.  I think this year, they finally began to admit they were Democrats all along and just went ahead and supported Biden.

So I got 5 out of 8 predictions: That’s a 62.5% success rate.  Or in other words a ‘D.’  In some schools, that’s passing and considering that it’s been 2020, where nothing was as predicted, I don’t feel I did too bad.

 

Predictions for 2020

I had a pretty good prediction run for 2019 so hopefully I can continue that; however it’s an election year so everything should be extra crazy.  So with that in mind, I present my 2020 predictions.

Reparations will be on the Democratic Platform

After several of the Democratic Presidential candidates came out in support of reparations, it’s hard to imagine that this year reparations wouldn’t finally make the platform somehow.

There will be an independent never-Trump candidate in the race

I don’t know how well-funded he or she would be, but for the purpose of sapping GOP votes from Trump to throw the election to the Democrats, there will be an effort to promote someone to give the several hundred never-Trumpers some voting alternative.

Joe Biden will not be the Democratic Nominee.

I’ve been saying it for months, in spite of his rather constant lead near the top of the polls, but the issue is that ultimately, it’s not the gaffes, but the fact that the gaffes will look more and more like dementia rather than “that’s just Joe.”  I think the Democrats would prefer a crazed socialist to an obviously mentally failing “moderate.”

There will be an additional impeachment inquiry in the House of Representatives this year to consider new impeachment charges.

This of course, is the action of a crazed opposition, but that’s where we are, so I’m confident the House will consider new charges for impeachment.

There will be a Supreme Court vacancy this year.

Even though the Supreme Court prediction burned me last year, I guess I’m a moth driven to the flame on this, so I’m going to say that either due to retirement or death or disablement, there will be an opening.

There will be some sort of Brexit this year.

Democrats will retain control of the House.

Republicans will retain control of the Senate.

 

 

You may notice that I didn’t make a prediction on who wins the Presidency.  In 2016 I held off until August…and got it wrong.  My prediction on what makes the difference in the race is that this will be a turn out election; whoever gets their people to the polls in high enough numbers will win, and as of now, Democrats tend to dominate the ground game.

 

Also, a not quite prediction:

I wouldn’t really say this is a prediction, both because it’s outside the one year window of this post and because at this point it’s more guess than prediction, but this could move up to a full blown prediction in the future (but that’s just a prediction).

Notre Dame, when rebuilt, will have some sort of Islamic imagery included.

 

2019 Predictions Wrap Up

I had a fairly substantial improvement in the predictions biz success rate this year so let me take a moment to brag:

Whoohoo!

Now to my predictions!

Mueller’s Investigation will not show any collusion between Trump or the Trump campaign and Russia to “hack” the election.

Easy win.  The charge was absurd to begin with, so the only uncertainty was when the report would be released, not what it would say.  So the much awaited “Mueller Time” turned out to be a big goose egg for the Democrats and media.  Not that it mattered.  They still believe Trump is a Russkie spy anyway.

The House Judiciary Committee will vote on articles of impeachment this year.

This was getting a little down to the wire, but the Judiciary committee finally voted on impeachment. Of course, even if they hadn’t I might have taken the credit for this anyway since the House did hold an “impeachment inquiry” then of course a full vote in the House.  But I still win even with my very specific prediction.  I must have powers!

Sorry Bill Maher, but no recession by the end of this year.

Not just Maher, but multiple economists all generated “reports” stating that the economy had topped out and would begin sliding into recession or that Trump’s crazy trade policy would push us into recession; in any case, the economy would be in recession in time for the 2020 election.  This sounded like a lot of wishful thinking, and considering some of the sources (I’m looking at you Mark Zandi!) I figured this was a hope, not a data driven prediction.

No Brexit.

In spite of that “hard date” of October 31, 2019, I had a suspicion that with a government jam packed with remainers, it would be next to impossible to push Brexit through this year, and on that I was correct.  Of course, the recent British elections have cleared that logjam, so next year may be a different story.

President Trump will have another Supreme Court nomination to make by the end of the year

This was my choke point.  I thought that Clarence Thomas might see the opportunity to resign and get a strict constructionist, a much younger one, to replace him.  Instead, Thomas is having the time of his life and shows no sign of leaving.  RBG is apparently much sicker than was known this time last year but I saw a Thomas graceful exit as more likely than Ruth Bader Ginsberg being carried out.

So that gives me an 80% success rate this year.  Let’s see if I can maintain that level of success next year!

Predictions for 2019

With only a 40% accuracy rate for my 2018 predictions, I didn’t exactly excel, however on the other hand, I’m not putting money down on these, so why not?

Mueller’s Investigation will not show any collusion between Trump or the Trump campaign and Russia to “hack” the election.

This is in danger of becoming a perennial; however I feel pretty strongly that the end of the investigation, whenever it comes, will, try though it may, not show any collusion between either the President or his campaign with the Russians.

The House Judiciary Committee will vote on articles of impeachment this year.

I’m not going to guess whether there will be enough votes to bring the issue to the floor of the House, but the Judiciary Committee will for sure be voting on it.  It’s too tempting to leave that candy in the pantry.

Sorry Bill Maher, but no recession by the end of this year.

Maher famously said that he hoped the economy would crash so that Trump would be voted out of office, but even though there seems to be a global slowdown, I’m going to call that the US will not enter a recession this year.  Plus, just about every business and economic talking head has predicted one, so therefore it won’t happen.

President Trump will have another Supreme Court nomination to make by the end of the year.

The common pundit bet seems to be that Ruth Bader Ginsburg will have to retire for health reasons, but I suspect a possible more likely scenario is that Clarence Thomas will retire at the end of the session sometime in the spring.  Why?  It would be the perfect troll.

No Brexit.

The Brits should really just take a tip from their American cousins and issue a Declaration of Independence and GTFO.  However, in a situation in which nobody in the establishment really wants to Brexit, it’s pretty obvious that they are just trying to run out the clock and pass the buck.

Another, not quite prediction:

I wouldn’t really say this is a prediction, both because it’s outside the one year window of this post and because at this point it’s more guess than prediction, but this could move up to a full blown prediction in the future (but that’s just a prediction).

The top of the ticket for the Democratic nominee will not be a white male.  I think their time is done in the Democratic Party.

 

 

2018 Prediction Wrap Up

It’s been another so-so year in the predictions biz, which puts me way ahead of virtually any cable TV pundit.  So let’s review my predictions shall we?

Financing will be secured for a southern border wall and construction will begin.

I really held out hope that this would come true and it did provide just about the only real end-of-the year news drama, but no,  no cigar and no wall, as I begin to suspect would be the case when I wrote this.

The Mueller investigation will officially wrap up before the fall midterm elections.

This didn’t happen either.  Is it possible that Mueller really thinks there is Russian collusion, and if he just digs deep enough, he’s going to find it?  If so…what an idiot.  In any case, that invalidates my third prediction…

Mueller’s Investigation will not show any collusion between Trump or the Trump campaign and Russia to “hack” the election.  Derp.

Finally, I get one right:  The Republicans will keep control of the Senate after the 2018 elections.  But then…

The Republicans will keep control of the House after the 2018 elections.  So that’s another wrong one, but at least I’m clearer on why I got this wrong.  But as I wrote after the mid-terms, I totally underestimated

The price of Bitcoin will crash in 2018.  On January 1, 2018, the price was $14,560.84, and on December 31^st, it was  $3876.60.  That sounds like the bubble burst to me.

At least 3 terrorist attacks in Western Europe with double digit casualties (Injuries and or deaths).  Although I got this one wrong, it’s happy news that I got this wrong.  Western European terrorism has continued to decline, with only 8 deaths from terrorism in Western Europe.

Kim Jong-un will still be the supreme head honcho of North Korea throughout 2018.  This seems ridiculous now but at the beginning of the year all of the “smartest people” thought there was a real possibility that Kim would be overthrown.

US Housing prices will continue to steadily increase throughout the year.  Although the latest data I can find only goes through October, housing continues to show a steady increase.

There will be an infrastructure bill that will pass with some Democratic votes.   Not even close.

So out of 10 predictions, I got 6 of them wrong, giving me a failing grade of 40%.  Not great in my own terms, but still better than Bill Kristol or any cable TV pundit.

 

 

 

Predictions for 2018

In spite of my lackluster performance on my predictions for 2017, I thought I would give it another try.  Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Financing will be secured for a southern border wall and construction will begin.  In spite of Anne Coulter’s frowny face, there will finally be movement on the wall.

The Mueller investigation will officially wrap up before the fall midterm elections.  You can’t continue to draw a paycheck for nothing forever.  Muller will have to wrap this nonsense up this year and what better time to do it than before the midterms?

Mueller’s Investigation will not show any collusion between Trump or the Trump campaign and Russia to “hack” the election.  But how could it?  It’s ridiculous.  If there really was any information along these lines, it would have leaked long ago.

The Republicans will keep control of the Senate after the 2018 elections.  This isn’t a prediction so much as a statement of math.  The Democrats are defending more senate seats than the Republicans and 5 of them are in red States.

The Republicans will keep control of the House after the 2018 elections.  The conventional wisdom as of this writing is that there will be a blue wave that gives the Democrats a good shot at winning the House.  From that point, one assumes: Impeachment, then…magically Hillary?  Not holding my breath.

The price of Bitcoin will crash in 2018.  This is not because I know anything about digital currencies, but painful experience has taught me a lot about bubbles, and it looks like Bitcoin is in one.

At least 3 terrorist attacks in Western Europe with double digit casualties (Injuries and or deaths). This one came through last year, so I have to ask myself, have the Europeans learned anything?  I’m predicting no.  They have not.

Kim Jong-un will still be the supreme head honcho of North Korea throughout 2018.  So no successful coups and no major military assaults that will take down the regime.

US Housing prices will continue to steadily increase throughout the year.  Again with the bubbles, we’re not near one for housing.  So don’t sell your home and put the profits into Bitcoin.

There will be an infrastructure bill that will pass with some Democratic votes.  The Democrats have been in lockstep in voting no the past year but the promise of money going to localities and union pressure will peel off the normal leadership opposition.