Time to be wrong about the future: what is your best prediction about what 2025 would look like?

[loutfard]

The risk of Russian tanks within the next 5 years n Warsaw, Prague, Bucharest or Helsinki would fall considerably if the cease fire is signed. That should definitely help the markets of countries which border with Russia.

I respectfully disagree with this train of thought to the extent your prediction reaches beyond 2025. A ceasefire in .ua could benefit markets short term. It could also free up resources for violent disruption elsewhere on the borders of Russia, and as such influence markets negatively medium term.

[chenda]

I respectfully disagree with this train of thought to the extent your prediction reaches beyond 2025. A ceasefire in .ua could benefit markets short term. It could also free up resources for violent disruption elsewhere on the borders of Russia, and as such influence markets negatively medium term.

Jacob has asked that we don't discuss geopolitics so whilst I have a lot of opinions on this we should probably leave it here

[loutfard]

Jacob has asked that we don't discuss geopolitics so whilst I have a lot of opinions on this we should probably leave it here

I might not have succeeded sufficiently at keeping Jacob's wish in mind when posting, but I tried:
- I tried to stay very close to the topic of 2025 portfolio impact predictions only.
- I tried not to express any political opinion while hopefully still adding a useful view to the predictions.
- I slept on this comment for a night.
- I preemptively scrapped a second remark that I thought wouldn't make the bar of avoiding political expression.

Jacob, should you feel my contributions to this thread didn't meet your criteria, please feel free to remove them. In which case, my apologies for the inconvenience caused.

[sky]

There will be conflict in Europe.

The internet will be flooded with AI messages exchanging misinformation. Humans will begin to withdraw from the internet as we know it today.

After a few setbacks, the US financial markets will remain in a frothy bubblelicious state punctuated by business failures of older industry.

Homelessness will increase, as will the percentage of homes that are vacant.

There will be intense conflict within the Republican Party on which conspiracy theory best aligns with party dogma.

Kleptocracy will become the new form of American government. New billionaires will be created by our kleptocratic system.

Inflation will devalue the $USD however the $USD will remain strong against other currencies.

Fossil consumption will fall 10%. The US government will try to stablilize the economy by coordinating industrial and energy production through quotas and directives, but efforts will not be helpful because the rise of solar/wind/batteries will completely change the direction of the economy.

Chinese companies will move highly automated industrial production to the US and Mexico to avoid tariffs.

The United States government will nationalize at least one sector of the economy. Candidates are the health, energy and automotive sectors.

US manufacturing will flounder with some business failures but many US companies will become highly profitable. New technologies will be led by new startups while legacy dies on the vine.

Sun rich areas will boom due to low energy cost. Globally, sun rich areas which do not try to regulate against electrification will lead in economic growth.

[jacob]

I predict that misinformation and anger as well as anger resulting from misinformation and divisiveness resulting from that anger will see a resurgence.
I predict the increase will be strong enough to lead to people breaking ties with friends, family, and communities.

Please help me avoid that by not adding any fuel to the fire. I've already had to delete one post in this thread.

I'm allowing some political content here because it's pertinent to various predictions but debates over political matters are discouraged.

[Jean]

I was already wrong. Elon didn't massively play POE2, he payed someone to level his account for him

[ffj]

Fun exercise but it's kind of hard to predict the future without the option of discussing politics.

There will be change. Why? I can't tell you why, it might upset someone. They'll call it misinformation and complain.

A better exercise would be to make your predictions for whatever time frame and then return to the arguments and discuss why one was right or wrong and if their particular sources of information were credible or not after that time frame had expired. That way everybody could learn from others. Lots of benefits to be had, everything from psychology, influence of peers/location, news sources, generational biases, personality type, endless really.

Everybody would have to behave however. They would have to explain why they believed what they believed and own up if they were wrong. And explore why they were wrong without defensiveness. And others would have to respect when one was correct.

Is this too much to ask?

[theanimal]

Prediction (level of confidence)
- The US dollar remains strong, finishing above 2024 level (95%)
-Canada remains a sovereign nation (95%)
-US and world demand for oil sets new highs (90%}
-Opiod deaths and other deaths of despair continue to drop (80%)
-The US maintains an annual budgetary deficit (65%)
-Memory stocks go bonkers as companies start to focus on local AI within smartphones and other devices (60%)
-US domestic and international natural gas prices finally converge with the Permian basin passing its peak and new export facilities coming online. (40%)
-Greeenland becomes a US territory (35%)

[IlliniDave]

Zuckerburg dismantling his Orwellian 'fact' checkers was not one I had on my bingo card.