George Rebane
2022 will be another pivotal year in a growing string of such recent years. Most predictions, save the premature happy dancing by Republicans, range between dour and cataclysmic. A reader gives us a taste of that by pointing to James Howard Kunstler’s entry in Clusterfuck Nation with his ‘Forecast 2022 – Dumpster Fire Blazing on the Frontier of a Dark Age’. So here are some of my prognostications with an invite for readers to add their own. Please try to submit your entries before the first week of 2022 becomes history.
Since we know predicting is hard, especially about the future, and very little is certain, I will attach some quantitative probabilities to my efforts, and invite others to do the same. We can then even determine who wins the 2022 Nostradamus Award, as I demonstrate in the coda.
- Bumblebrain will not be president on 1 January 2023 (0.5); will not be president on 21 January 2025 (0.4); will serve out his full term (0.1).
- Kamala will resign before 2022 election (0.6).
- Covid will revert from pandemic to declared endemic (like the flu) status before 4 July 2022 (0.7).
- Republicans will win the House in 2022 (0.8).
- Republicans will win the Senate in 2022 (0.7).
- Russia will invade Ukraine in 2022 (0.55).
- China will invade Taiwan in 2022 (0.25).
- Fed declared inflation will exceed 10% in 2022 (0.25).
- Republicans will win at least 14 House seats from California (0.8).
- The 25th Amendment will be used to designate a new Vice President before the 2024 election (0.75).
More later, maybe.
Such a list of probability tagged predictions may be scored simply by taking the average of the ‘correct’ probabilities – i.e. probabilities that associate with the cases that come to pass. For instance, in my list, if everything comes to pass with with Biden serving out a full term, Kamala does not resign, and China does not invade Taiwan, then my Nostradamus score – which ranges between 0 and 1 – would be (0.1+0.4+0.7+0.8+0.7+0.55+0.75+0.25+0.8+0.75)/10 = 0.58.
Jo Ann and I wish all of our readers and correspondents a productive and healthy new year.
[1jan22 update] I just want to emphasize the reason for my #6 and #7 predictions. Everyone in the world save America’s Democrat-prone electorate knows that the Team Biden is the weakest, most feckless, incompetent, and ignorant leadership the US has installed in the last 50 years (yes, even beating out the peanut farmer). For either of Putin or Xi to invade would be a win for them ou two counts. First, whatever our response, Americans tend to support their president during times of crisis. That will assure a continuance in power of the weak and feckless Democrats. Second, they get to achieve the next notch in their geo-strategic goals with the new territory they will then control. What’s not to like in creating another crisis that Bumblebrain can’t handle?
rebanesruminations.com 
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