New Years Eve AMA Forecasts Archive
20 Jan 2020
2020 AMA Forecasts Overview
An Annual Tradition I continued the New Year’s Eve tradition where Facebook users could “Ask me Anything” (AMA) and receive an improvised, off-the-cuff, unsourced, but what I hope is an interesting forecast on where we’re going in 2020. This year the questions were harder, more varied, and reflected what I sensed was a growing pessimism
19 Jan 2020
Q1: Which is more dangerous to the Iranian people, suppression by the regime in Tehran or a violent fall of the government and the chaos that may result?
2020AMA Forecast to the Question: Which is more dangerous to the Iranian people, suppression by the regime in Tehran or a violent fall of the government and the chaos that may result?
18 Jan 2020
Q2 Who fares better in the 2020 Presidential Election?
New Year’s Eve 2019 Forecast (What is this?) Barring certain contingencies, President Trump gets re-elected by a narrow electoral margin but loses the Senate and House. This is due to Trump leveraging a success-to-the-successful archetype in turning out “missing white” voters who mobilize to vote for him. But the success-to-him of this strategy costs the
17 Jan 2020
Q3 Will the Impeachment process heal or harm the current world opinion of the United States?
New Year’s Eve 2019 Forecast (What is this?) Most of the world bases its opinion on the US as to whether it acts, collectively, more as an ally as a threat. Administrations serve as a proxy for this understanding both by their action and signaling of action. Trump is the biggest signaling President to ever
16 Jan 2020
Q4 Does impeachment cost the Democrats the House?
New Year’s Eve 2019 Forecast (What is this?) No. Per my forecast response to Q2 above, I’m predicting the Democrats retain the House and take the Senate. Specifics to the election are contained in that post. Here I’m going to focus on why. What we’ve seen as the reliable dynamic throughout the impeachment process is
15 Jan 2020
Q5 If he is re-elected with a GOP friendly House will President Trump be able to do a better job of actually implementing policies than he did the last time he had complete control of government?
New Year’s Eve 2019 Forecast (What is this?) No. Let’s assume the premise that I’m wrong on all my forecasts above and Republicans take the House & Senate. (Scientific studies have placed the probability of me being wrong at 12.5%.)* Competence in the Executive Branch is related to the stock (number) of qualified personnel you
14 Jan 2020
Q6 What causes (e.g. corruption of government) would be sufficient to get citizen mobilization to the level of Hong Kong?
New Year’s Eve 2019 Forecast (What’s this?) In Q7 I cover some of the demographic barriers to widespread mobilization and uprising in terms of youth bulge, unemployment, and expectation formation. Here I want to cover something more visceral – which is the personal motivations that lead to mass protests. First I’m starting with a premise
13 Jan 2020
Q7 What areas in the US are ripe for civil unrest in 2020? What factors are feeding the potential conflict and how might it play out?
New Year’s Eve 2019 Forecast (What’s this?) I forecast no major sustained civil unrest in 2020. There may be a few riots. Property destruction riots emerging out of protest and police-overreaction after shooting incidents. Or self-defensive riots between opposed political groups. But those of these that are violent are going to be few in number
12 Jan 2020
Q8 What will ISIS look like by the end of 2020 in the Middle East specifically in terms of strength and structure? Will it continue to be a degraded and simmering problem, eradicated, or reform into something more enduring and virulent?
New Year’s Eve 2019 Forecast (What’s this?) I actually made this forecast back in 2016, at a conference in Europe where I was presenting on ISIS and what would happen if they were collapsed as an emerging-state actor. I describe some of that presentation in this link below, but the TLDR is that ISIS
11 Jan 2020
Q9 Where will the stock market be in a year, relative to where it is now?
New Year’s Eve 2019 Forecast (What’s this?) I’m forecasting that there will be no recession in 2020 and thus NYSE will be higher than it is today. By how much is a question mark, though I see slowing (rather than accelerating) growth rates as we continue the historic boom in stock market prices. Wall Street
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