Predictions

Every year at about this time, I review my predictions for the old year, and make my predictions for the new. And, of course, my predictions almost always turn out to be wrong. There is a reason why it is called “news.”

I missed the one biggest story of the past year: Pope Francis. But then, so did everyone else. I also wrote, last year at this time, “Turkey seems poised to surge ahead.” Turkey is looking quite lost in the surges these days.

I was listening to a Freakonomics podcast recently which pointed out that everybody is lousy at predictions. Experts are no better at making predictions in their field than is the man in the street. Neither does as well as the simple blanket prediction that “everything will go on more or less as it has.” People who become famous for accurate predictions are usually remembered for predicting one very surprising thing that came true; but it you check their prediction record on everything, these same people turn out to be unusually inaccurate. The strategy is to keep predicting the most improbable things, and, when on a rare occasion you get lucky, everyone remembers that and forgets all the wrong predictions.

That said, perhaps I should just predict the most improbable things I can think of. 

I was right last year, I think, in foreseeing the relative decline of Apple and rise of Google in the IT game. I was right in predicting that neither the US nor Israel was going to do anything violent to prevent the Iranians from getting nuclear weapons.  

For the coming year, I will predict, once again, the possible collapse of the Chinese government. It is going to happen one of these years. The recent sabre-rattling by China is an indication that the end might be near: it is entirely against the Chinese national interest. Their best policy is a silent, unthreatening rise. This makes me think it is driven by internal instability, internal leadership struggles.

I think the collapse of North Korea is also increasingly likely. The public dismissal and execution of your number two by feeding him to dogs does not really suggest a stable government. 

I expect Justin Trudeau’s popularity to decline, as I believe it lacks any foundation in his real performance. I believe it simply tracks Obama’s popularity—which looks now as though it is going into serious decline. I do not expect Stephen Harper to resign before he has fought another election. He has earned the right. I also think the inevitable bursting of the Trudeau bubble means Harper could win. 

I doubt there will be a federal election in 2014, but I expect the Conservatives to win the next election. The senate scandal is just not serious enough to warrant turfing out a government. It is really quite trivial. Given a little time, nobody will be able to figure out what the fuss was really about.

I expect large gains for the Republicans in the 2014 midterm elections. This is not a very risky prediction: the party out of the presidency usually gains in midterm elections. But Obama is also, as noted, on the decline in the polls. Because hopes in some quarters were so high for him, his fall will probably be comparably harsh. People don’t like being disappointed.

America will continue its decline in global influence—or rather, in interest in the rest of the globe. It is not natural for it to give a tinker’s dam what happens outside its borders. Now that there is no big obvious threat there, it will surely pull back. However, there is no one power obviously in a position to seize this opportunity. Russia is on borrowed time due to the shale oil boom; Europe is hobbled by its imploding welfare state; Japan is doomed by demographics; China is politically unstable. 

The world will have to muddle through on its own. 

I keep seeing suggestions recently that the situation in the world right now is uncannily similar to that just before the First World War. America is Britain, the declining hegemon. China is Germany, the rising new power. The Middle East is the Balkan tinderbox. Japan is perhaps Austria-Hungary, or France. Or maybe France is France.

There are indeed similarities. But I think crucial elements are missing. Germany went to war largely for fear that in a few years Russia would surpass her in military might. Where is the Russia now to China's Germany? Ergo, China, unlike Germany then, has every incentive to maintain the peace. And the second essential element was Austria-Hungary's perceived need to rattle the sabres to forestall her own collapse. Japan is a poor substitute for Austria-Hungary in that regard; it has a social cohesion most countries can only dream of.

The First World War surprised nearly everybody, and its origins are still subject to debate, precisely because it resulted from an improbable combination of factors. It remains improbable that those factors will recur. Good concept for selling books about WWI, though.

Africa will do well for now on cheap labour, but I think long-term prospects are limited in a way East Asia’s was not. It won’t move past heavy industry to the service sector. It does not have the long tradition of civilization and literacy. I suspect this is important, when it comes to clerical affairs.

The world will not end in 2014.