About Predictions

Amusing … are predictions made by people using stars, planets, weather, random algorithms, machine learning, and econometrics to tell us what happens next. 2025 is no different. Bring it!

Before giving you predictions, a word about “predicting.” Unlike the spiritually grounded prophets, who rightly predicted 70 New Testament facts in the Old Testament, today’s predictions are a cheerful parlor game.

A parlor game? Ok, yes, parlors are gone – they used to be where people gathered to talk and play games. And yes, I know, talking and games are on their way out, but stay with me.

Most modern predictions are of two kinds, crazy and obvious. On the crazy side, you get turbaned predictors (who secretly buy billion-to-one lottery tickets) saying asteroids and floods are coming, cats will speak dog, cloned pigs will fly, and – incredibly – on the Wednesday after Jupiter, Mars, Saturn, and your barn’s weathervane align, expect an earthquake and blizzard.

On the boring end, financial markets will bounce, wars start and end, losses and joys come; technology will deliver a new diet drug, faster computers, and more artificial ways to live; evenings will see scattered darkness, mornings gradual light, and children will wonder, laugh, and fight.

With that all settled, why do we care about predictions? Why bother? Answers: We are curious. We wonder if someone is about to create anti-gravity boots, we like seeing how creative minds work, and whether the proverbial acorn promised to that blind pig may just appear this year.

I mean, who does not flip through a Farmer’s Almanac just to check storm dates, snowfall, and when we can expect spring? Who is not interested in knowing whether Oz got it right, or if Toto again pulled the curtain back and, after all, we are – none of us – much good at predicting?

On one hand, we could leave it here, share a laugh, shrug, and go on, but there’s a bit more. Honestly, “predicting” is not all fluff and stardust, or as Howie Carr says, for “wingnuts and moonbats,” tomfoolery, Jabberwocky talk. We predict all the time. We do it instinctively, applying what we know of the past we have lived to the future we anticipate.

Businesses use “predictive modeling” to assess converging facts, and get some visibility into the possible, probable, and imaginable. As Colin Powell used to say, “Try to see around corners.”

Predictions on good data and with good methods help minimize and manage risk, set priorities, do contingency planning, reduce costs, avoid errors, improve outcomes, and make better decisions. So, maybe there is some use to predicting, even allowing imagination and intuition off-leash.

Still, this time of year, we get an outpouring of fortunetellers, sudden seers, wizards, and sages. They are not all right.  In 1903, the president of a big bank warned Henry Ford that his car had no future. “The horse is here to stay … the automobile is a passing fad.” In 1904, the New York Times said: “It remains to be proved how fast the brain is capable of traveling.”

These days. artificial intelligence is the rage, but recall Edison’s enthusiasm for steel. “The baby of the 21st century will be rocked in a steel cradle; his father will sit in a steel chair at a steel dining table, and his mother’s boudoir will be sumptuously equipped with steel …” Or not.

Renowned composers boldly predicted recording devices would kill live music, while JP Morgan’s father told his son – the JP we know – not to invest in “electricity.” Young JP did.

In 1970, Harvard, Time Magazine, and the Washington Post predicted a climate tragedy, the end of the world by “ice age.” We are still waiting.

In the 1700s, Thomas Malthus warned the world would soon starve. He forgot about technology. Then, in 1956, a Soviet leader predicted we were done, because “History is on our side …We will bury you!” He forgot about America’s record and …Ronald Reagan.

Today? Who is to say? We are – of course – hearing more crazy and obvious, with one famed astrologist predicting “powerful cosmic influences.” Hmmm, sun storms and green aliens?

Optimists see markets going up, a stronger dollar, a rise of cryptocurrencies (good calls with Trump coming), an end to the Russia-Ukraine and Iran-Israel conflicts (ditto), a new space age (enter Musk), and people living longer and healthier. The Wall Street Journal just declared: “The Progressive Movement is Over.” Well, let’s hope. In all events, I say … Bring it!

Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC.