Guess the date of the Musk-Trump rupture. I say May.
Justin Trudeau has just a few hours left to prove MattD wrong.
3: I was so close! One or more of the scenarios I predicted are almost certainly going to happen in the next 6 weeks.
There's six hours left. It's still probably an even money bet.
1: early in the year, definitely. April. He started shedding senior officials pretty early last time around; Mike Flynn left in Feb 17. By the end of 2017 he'd lost COS, DCOS, NSA, DNSA, another COS, and several communications people.
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/tracking-turnover-in-the-trump-administration/
How did I do?
Lai Ching-te wins the presidency; the legislature is divided. [right]So, not bad? Pleasant surprises in Asia, unpleasant in America.
The RSF win Khartoum. [wrong. Mostly, anyway.]
Biden and the Awami league are re-elected, with smaller majorities. [Biden definitely got a smaller majority, haha. Directionally wrong on the election]
Actually the opposition is boycotting, so Awami will have a bigger majority. [Right on the actual election, spectacularly wrong on BG at large]
Putin and the BJP are re-elected, with bigger majorities. [right, wrong]
Ukraine loses ground (but not very much). [right]
There's a chart in 8 where I don't understand if they're only counting everyone's first terms, or if they're somehow summarizing across two terms where appropriate.
I assumed it's everyone's first terms - otherwise it's not a fair comparison - but I agree it should be made explicit.
9: I played shamefully safe.
I think we had a Trump-court-cases prediction thread somewhere, possibly back when he first got indicted. I'd go with convicted on some charges, but immediately appealling against them. [correct]
I'd agree that the most likely outcome is Biden winning with a larger margin. Wouldn't like to bet on it though. [coward!]
Over here we have an election as well, now looking like May according to the rumour mill - the outcome isn't really in doubt, though there's the question of whether Sunak will still be PM by then. [correct, but really obvious]
My best guess would be that Ukraine will continue to inflict heavy losses on Russia... If the US reduces support, I think we see no real movement. If the US maintains support, I think continued attrition for the first half of the year followed by an operational-level breakthrough in, say, September. [correct, because the US did reduce support, in fact it halted it until about May 2024]
"We won't know who the president-elect is on the morning of November 6" Or, at least, the main TV channels won't have agreed who it is. [wrong!]
So here's mine for 2025, and I'm going to go out on rather more of a limb.
By 31 December 2025:
1. The Ukraine War will have ended or at least massively decreased in intensity.
2. Vladimir Putin will no longer be president of Russia.
3. There will be further bad economic news from China and economic growth will be estimated at below 4%.
4. A Chinese ship or aircraft will fire on a foreign ship or aircraft somewhere in the South China Sea.
5. Benjamin Netanyahu will no longer be prime minister of Israel.
1: March.
Xi goes swimming.
CCP launches a campaign against pet ownership, especially by women.
Major unrest in Nigeria (more than normal).
Major unrest in India, should there be a bad harvest.
Major jihadi advances in at least one of Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger.
Record global deaths from dengue, chikungunya, zika.
Stuff Happens in Myanmar. At least one of: junta falls, PRC intervenes (probably with sheep-dipped PLA contractors).
Sudan and Congo wars continue, unabated and unremarked.
Iran attempts a nuclear breakout.
Ukraine 1: the war will not be over.
Ukraine 2: (optimistic) current Russian advances culminate by summer, with lines stabilizing before Siversk, Kostiantyniivka, and Pokrovsk (I'm referring here to three different sectors, not one continual line).
Ukraine 3: (pessimistic) current Russian advances culminate by summer, lines stabilizing somewhere between Siversk and a line Lyman-Slovyansk-Kramatorsk-Kostiantyniivka.
1. Trump will have a public falling out with Elon (easy prediction), but also with the Chief Justice (while still winning most cases at the Supreme Court).
2. There will not be significant new tariffs, but there will be a disproportionate amount of sturm and drang about the small tariffs that do exist.
3. Gay marriage will still be the law of the land.
4. Israel will formally annex a significant portion (25% or larger) of the West Bank.
5. Novak Djokovic will not win a tournament.
6. Liverpool wins two trophies, but not three.
7. The Trump justice department starts one or two (but not more) high profile completely ridiculous prosecutions of a political opponent.
8. The US deports fewer than 10k people.
9. Twitter use fully collapses.
10. Trump controversially fires a high ranking military officer.
16:10 He'll controversially fire dozens, by February. He already has a blacklist from from 1.0.
I love Putin and Netanyahu being out of office, but am I missing something? Are these fun guesses or based in something that's brewing?
Either Brad Pitt or Billie Eilish (or maybe Sexyy Redd) will reveal themselves to be archmages, capable of reading the future and bending the will of those around them. Their warnings will go unheeded, and they will fritter away their talents in pointless unfocussed activity.
17: I predict more than 1 and less than 6.
Taylor Swift will release an album that's better than TTPD, but worse than Midnights.
The last Mission Impossible music will be loved by critics, but disappoint at the box office.
Wicked Part 2 will be hated by critics, and will make less money than Part 1 (but still a lot of money).
Total box office down 10% from this year.
Netanyahu lost his prostate, so he's bound to lose power soon. His butthole is the key to his power.
Taylor Swift's album will have a one-word title.
Interest rates, inflation, and the S&P 500 will all be higher at this time next year.
Disagree re S&P 500. The AI stock bubble will pop and take the S&P down with it. Nvidia, Alphabet, and Meta all way down. Tesla going down also. Overall market lower.
Investment tip for 2025: Sell Artificial Intelligence. Buy Natural Stupidity.
I predict that the S&P 500 will fluctuate.
I've now got some money riding on a Musk/Trump fallout (shorted Tesla a week after the election when it seemed to be on a high).
This isn't a prediction (or a suggestion), but just a note. If revulsion of Musk gets strong enough and there does not seem to be a political process capable of countering him, the obvious remedy is to start vandalizing random Teslas on the street.
Overall market lower.
My theory is that the market will be higher due to all the new, more accommodating attitudes toward the corporate looting of society.
My theory is that the rich will always come out on top.
Usually, but it's pretty clear the lots of the rich are mispricing risk. They are discounting possibilities that are not very probable but that are complete disasters if they do happen (the 2007 housing crash, Boeing, etc). But it's not really much of a prediction to say that something bad is going to happen, I don't know when or what, but it will be really bad.
Canadian politics predictions:
Trudeau won't be Liberal leader for the election.
Poilievre will win a large majority (no points for getting this one right).
The Liberals will win fewer than 40 seats. The Bloc Québécois will be Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition.
At the end of 2025, neither Crystia Freeland nor Mark Carney will be Liberal leader. (Sub-prediction: if Carney does get it, he will be so bad it will make the Liberals' Michael Ignatieff experiment look good by comparison.)
In Ontario, Doug Ford won't be able to have a provincial election before the federal one happens, but he will have one shortly after and will still win a majority. By the end of the year, though, his approval rating will be below 30%.
Canada will not end the year on a path toward US statehood, but Trump is going to relentlessly bully Poilievre, who has the most punchable face in North American politics.
Just realized it's now *His* Majesty's Loyal Opposition! And I remembered that Stephen Miller's face is more punchable than PP's. I regret the errors.
I correctly predicted Trump would be convicted of at least one felony as of Election Day.
I deliberately avoided making predictions about anything important, but still managed to achieve perfect wrongness.
I'll say it again: happy new year reprobates!
It's no fair that some of the predictors here are fuckin time travellers.
Best Picture is very important, peep.
39: No. I could see an argument that Taylor and Travis staying together is important for the two of them and the national psyche, but who wins Best Picture is completely insignificant.
In that spirit I predict that Timothy Chalamet will win the Academy Award for Best Actor for A Complete Unknown.
42: I saw that movie last night, and I had a great idea for anyone who plans activities for octogenerian folkies. Take them to see that movie, and they can heckle and throw popcorn at the screen when Dylan goes electric .
I finished backing up my 2007 LiveJournal. Next up: 2006. I cannot believe I used to write so goddamn much. (I just erased, "I can't believe I used to blog almost every single day" because I suppose that's easy to believe. But I used to personal-blog almost every day! How did I have so much to say?!)
Gerard Butler for Den of Thieves 2: Pantera. (Which I have not yet seen. That's how much I liked the first one.)
Eggers' Nosferatu was just OK-- well-done atmosphere, but his composition leans heavily on symmetric closeups of an actor's face, which gets noticeable on a big screen. Great soundtrack and sound design.
Loved the Dylan movie. Norton as Seeger was terrific: best supporting actor.
I was wrong last year saying Tester's race would be close. I wasn't factoring enough our pandemic immigrants from SoCal, Colorado, and Texas who brought their shit-for-brains politics with them.
I think Trump's going to try to do more than suggested in 16, and maybe have more success. Guardrails are sufficiently less sturdy than last time.
Trump has to avoid losing the House in the midterms, which is a very tall order, given (a) the history and (b) the margins. He'll be obsessed with this by the end of 2025. He needs a 9/11 level event -- even an other attempted assassination won't cut it. Will trying to force the midterm results end up being enough of a mad king event to lead to his removal? I expect that Theil and his ilk are focused on the 25th amendment as they suggest people for cabinet positions, and as they find ways to take down MAGA appointees they can't control.
I'm not sure Trump and Musk really break up. Trump was willing to turn on MAGA over H1B to satisfy Musk, and I'm not sure I see what/how Trump ends up taking a stand that Musk can't tolerate. They were briefly on opposite sides on the continuing resolution: Musk showed Trump his power, then graciously let Trump get his way. Neither of them cares as much about policy as power, and I think it's been shown clearly enough that Musk has the power. I guess where it could falter is if Musk gets too far out in front of where Trump thinks he can go in cutting social security. But even there, there's a compromise: cut benefits for people now under 50. You don't get anything of budgetary value right now, but the long terms prospects are enough to justify a tax cut. And people under 50 aren't as organized as oldsters (and have been told their whole lives that SS might go away . . .)
I'm going to blow up at any cut in Social Security that affects me, as is proper to my stage of life. I'll probably feel that a cut for those younger than me is a direct threat of a cut to me. I want to do the equivalent of pounding on Rostinkowski's car.
Son is home from college and the thesis of his first paper was apparently about how Reagan is the reason we now have economic growth paired with increasing poverty.
It's already 2025 here, so I'm late with predictions, but:
- no significant change in EU refugee situation (border states doing pushbacks with tacit approval of others; rhetoric hardening in DE/AT/SW but no real change in non-deportability).
- black-green federal govt in DE
- turkish support for Syrian offensive vs Kurds, situation awful at end of year
Trump gets more and more ill, both bodily and dementia. Vance takes his first opportunity to oust him via the 25th Amendment. (might take until 2026)
Blah blah blah bad climate stuff that Trump will handle horribly.
The Republicans in the House will force a government shutdown as an own goal.
The Kings will not make the playoffs or even the playins.
A legit politician that criticizes Trump within the normal political process will get assassinated by a Trump supporter and Trump will say they deserved it.
The "Resistance" will not organize large marches this time. Wouldn't get traction if they did.
Reasons for a stock market decline this year:
1. It's gone way the fuck up in the past two year for no good reason.
2. Really stupid stocks like Truth Social, Microstrategy, and Tesla are way, WAY the fuck up and have to crash sooner or later.
3. One thing pushing the market up this year was the hope that capital gains taxes will be cut in 2025, so lots of rich folks held off on selling stock in 2024.
4. Republican presidents replacing Democrats cause recessions within a year. Since WWII, Five Republican presidents replaced Democrats. We enjoyed a recesssion within the first year in office of Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, and W. The only exception was Trump's first term (although we did have a recession later on).
5. I may be retiring in 2025, which means I will have to start selling for the first time in my life. Inevitably the market will crash before I do that.
Re 30: Agree that fraud will increase. This is good only for the fraudsters, though, it will tend to lower non-fraudulent stock prices simply becasue people get scared of the market.
Re 31: Agree, but see point 2. The rich will do fine even if the market goes down.
Happy new year!
jihadis + Chad
unfashionable wars + Manipur
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"The cardinal importance of the rule of law was reiterated by the East African Court of Justice in Appeal 6 of 2014 Henry Kyarimpa vs Attorney General of Uganda, quoting a famous passage by American jurist Louis Brandeis: 'Our Government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the Government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that, in the administration of the criminal law, the end justifies the means - to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal - would bring terrible retribution" he said.|>
Von wafer was wrong about my lizard. (It did leave my house eventually, but months later, and only with my direct intervention.)
I don't disagree with any of 54, I just think its going to take another year to set in. One thing I've noticed about markets is that they stay stupid a lot longer than they should.
Trump keeps tweeting about tariffs. That's not good for the market.
How does twitter go bankrupt if Musk wants it to keep running?
61: He needs to keep selling Tesla stock to subsidize its losses. If that becomes less tenable for him, or he just gets sick of it, it could enter bankruptcy.
Its operating losses can't be that high. Its just a website. Elon can sustain losing a billion a year on it indefinitely.
It's not the operating losses, it's the payments on the loans he took to buy it. Not sure whether going bankrupt even helps with that?
It's possible it becomes too toxic to be useful and he let's it go broke.
63: See my second, "or he just gets sick of it". A billion a year (and it could be more; debt service is apparently $1.2b/year) is a lot even if you can afford it.
I apparently didn't make any predictions in last year's thread. I'm making that my new tradition.
Billionaires able to take annual losses on newspapers so far haven't shown a willingness to do that without also making cuts anyway.
I do suspect Musk could make his pet social media site profitable as an entirely right-wing thing. Or maybe as a platform that charges governments to make announcements.* But neither of those models really fit with him wanting to be able to tell himself that he owns the libs.
*Probably too public-spirited of a model for him to adopt, even for someone who's shown expensive tastes for government contracts in other businesses.
68.1: Well, you can't say he hasn't made cuts - he started out making cuts. Whether his actions also cut revenues enough for it to be a wash for him, hard to say.
68: You're right, I did lose a million dollars last year. I expect to lose a million dollars this year. I expect to lose a million dollars *next* year. You know, Mr. Thatcher, at the rate of a million dollars a year, I'll have to close this place in... sixty years.
To the extent that there's a division between new and old school newspaper barons, Kane falls into the old school. I thought Josh Marshall had a good observation about newspaper owners who basically do mostly the newspaper and its connected businesses and owners with lots of government-entangled businesses in multiple sectors.
16: "The US deports fewer than 10k people."
This would be a massive shift because it deported over 300 a year over the last eight years. Unlesd this is a matter of definitions? https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/biden-deportation-record
I love Putin and Netanyahu being out of office, but am I missing something? Are these fun guesses or based in something that's brewing?
Partly this is me deliberately making bold guesses, because improbable things happen, and everyone missed Assad being thrown out. Partly it's actual reasoning:
1. The Ukraine War will have ended or at least massively decreased in intensity. I think there is no way for Russia to sustain equipment losses at their current rate for another year. That would mean losing another 2000-4000 tanks and double that number of armoured vehicles, and I think it is unlikely that they have either the reserves or the manufacturing capacity. So either it stops or it steps down; it has to.
2. Vladimir Putin will no longer be president of Russia. This follows from 1. Putin is old, and overdue, by the standards of Russian history. I don't think he's likely to survive a struggling economy plus a major war that is if not a defeat at least not a clear victory.
3. There will be further bad economic news from China and economic growth will be estimated at below 4%. Guess, but seems plausible, and echoes other forecasts I've read.
4. A Chinese ship or aircraft will fire on a foreign ship or aircraft somewhere in the South China Sea.
The intensity of encounters, especially with the Philippines, has definitely been rising in 2024. I think it's likely that it will escalate a bit further in 2024.
5. Benjamin Netanyahu will no longer be prime minister of Israel.
This is the least confident one, because I noted that lots of people in December 2023 (including me) were expecting things to calm down in 2024 and they didn't. I think they will this year and I think that without an ongoing war Netanyahu's already wobbly position as PM will become untenable.
Ruskiy Moldavskiy mir.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/breakaway-moldovan-regions-power-plant-switches-coal-after-gas-cutoff-2025-01-02/
Further to my prediction no. 3, the WSJ reports that the ongoing Chinese financial crisis has now destroyed more Chinese household wealth than the 2008 financial crisis destroyed US household wealth. (More = a larger absolute number, not a higher percentage.) The growth target for 2024 was 5% and a lot of people worry that China will miss it.
I predict that Mike Johnson will lose the first speakership vote.
I predict that Workday will not make my work life better Thani was under Peoplesoft and is likely to make it worse.
OT: If one were going from Penn Station to Jamaica, would the E train or the LIRR be better? Assume a moderate amount of luggage and a spherical planet.
Trick question, his flight is leaving from Newark.
In honor of the last days of the Biden administration, my flight is going into Penn Station.
The House has passed its new rules with no transgender bathroom clause. They do still ask that you feel a shit coming on, you try to hold it until you get home as the ventilation isn't great.
My prediction was wrong! (They held the vote open long enough for a couple of no's to switch.)
67 it's a mug's game
Yes, I'd like to make predictions, but I don't feel any confidence in my ability to make projections.
This is the least confident one, because I noted that lots of people in December 2023 (including me) were expecting things to calm down in 2024 and they didn't. I think they will this year and I think that without an ongoing war Netanyahu's already wobbly position as PM will become untenable.
The Bryan Walsh from Vox thinks his position looks stronger now than it did last year: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/392241/2025-new-year-predictions-trump-musk-artificial-intelligence
What a difference a year makes. In December 2023, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was incredibly unpopular, his image severely damaged by his government's total failure to anticipate the deadly October 7 attacks by Hamas. Polls indicated his Likud party might win only 17 of 120 seats in Israel's Knesset. Israel was on its way to becoming an international pariah because of the destructive way it was waging its war in Gaza, and Israelis were furious about the government's failure to rescue the hostages held by Hamas, even after a November 2023 deal to bring some home. Oh, and Netanyahu was only a few months removed from massive street protests and was facing corruption charges.
Fast-forward to December 2024, and polls suggest Netanyahu's Likud party would win 25 seats if elections were held today, more than any other party. Israel has all but destroyed Hezbollah, by far its most capable opponent, and has isolated Iran, arguably its most existential threat. After the sudden fall of Syria's Bashar al-Assad, Israel has even captured territory formerly under the Syrian government's control. And President Joe Biden, who at least occasionally pushed back against Netanyahu, is about to be replaced by President-elect Donald Trump, who has signaled that he will happily give Israel a freer hand in Gaza.
Netanyahu has been prime minister of Israel for roughly 17 of the past 28 years. Every time it seems like he's in an unwinnable position, he seems to find a way to wriggle out of it. I have every expectation that will continue in 2025. --BW
85: The E is my instinct too, but mostly because I spend all my time on the subway and the LIRR is less familiar. So the E is definitely fine, but the LIRR might be better and I wouldn't know.
Oh, never mind, trust Barry. He knows from Lawn Guyland.
I don't know what a lawn guy is. I heard lots of people go to Jamaica in February.
84: "One of Johnson's proposals would significantly heighten the requirements for a motion to vacate."
He wants to be able to keep on his throne.
88: that's a good argument, but there are two points: First, I am a lot less convinced than Walsh that Hezbollah has been "all but destroyed", and second, I think he overestimates the extent to which elections are driven by gratitude, especially gratitude for a recent military victory. (Ask George Bush!) The Israeli economy is not healthy, and could even be in recession - if not now, then soon. A recession, continuing corruption investigations, the risk of a successful attack from Iran... I don't think his position is good.
I agree that gratitude isn't that valuable, but in the case of Likud, I'd say maybe it's not gratitude so much as an absence of furious antipathy. People were mad a year ago. Anger has cooled, to some extent, as people are saying 'well, I don't like it, but maybe it's working.' Electorally, claiming that the strategy is working is way better than claiming that it has worked, and victory has been achieved.
Israel has made itself a partisan issue in American politics, after decades of carefully cultivating both parties and then a decade of Democrats having leaders conditioned on past behavior enough. I'm not sure how that will play out, but probably not in Israel's favor over the long run.
You could argue that with Israel and Saudi Arabia more and more closely aligned, and with the special Israel-Germany relationship, Israel doesn't really need bipartisan US support nearly as much as they did any more.
Germany doesn't have a permanent seat on the UNSC for running diplomatic interference like the US had been doing, nor does it supply weapons, ordnance, and intelligence in anywhere near the quantities the US has been doing. And besides, once the ICJ rules in the genocide question Germany is going to have a real come to Jesus moment, will it be Israel or the EU.
Probably a stupid question, but does the UNSC have any actual power? Like what would actually happen if the US stopped vetoing?
Why did no one tell me about Philomena Cunk?
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Att. esp. Charley:
https://player.fm/series/know-your-enemy/organizing-in-rural-america-w-luke-mayville
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Anyone care to compile a list of international treaties and organizations the US will withdraw from in the next four years?