Inaccurate ●●●●●
China's GDP growth in 2024 will be only slightly above 4%, helped by a moderate stimulus.
“China will most likely implement a moderate stimulus that is sufficient to get growth slightly above 4% in 2024.”Economy
Who gets the future right?
A public record of predictions made by well-known people: their exact words, when they said them, and how things turned out.
Scorecard
| Person | Category | Predictions | Scored | Accurate | Late | Partial | Wrong | Accuracy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Al Gore | Politician | 8 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 25% |
| Allan Lichtman | Academic | 8 | 7 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 79% |
| Gary Marcus | AI researcher | 12 | 9 | 9 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 100% |
| Gordon Chang | Commentator | 3 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 33% |
| Jim Cramer | Commentator | 18 | 17 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 14 | 15% |
| Nouriel Roubini | Economist | 21 | 17 | 5 | 0 | 2 | 10 | 35% |
| Paul Ehrlich | Scientist | 9 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 0% |
| Paul Krugman | Economist | 17 | 15 | 6 | 0 | 1 | 8 | 43% |
| Peter Schiff | Investor | 24 | 20 | 5 | 2 | 0 | 13 | 30% |
| Peter Zeihan | Commentator | 9 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 38% |
| Robert Kiyosaki | Commentator | 9 | 7 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 21% |
| Thomas Friedman | Commentator | 5 | 5 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 80% |
Accuracy counts accurate as 1, late or partial as ½, inaccurate as 0. Pending predictions don't count.
Predictions
Inaccurate ●●●●●
After US spot bitcoin ETFs launch (January 2024), expected investor demand will fail to appear and bitcoin's price (then about $45,000) will fall sharply (read as during 2024).
“Once the ETFs are launched and the highly anticipated institutional and other new investor demand does not show up, look out below!”Crypto
Unresolvable ●●●●●
The S&P 500 will reach 5,000 by the end of 2024 (from about 4,538 in November 2023).
“Broadly speaking, I actually agree with Savita Subramanian at Bank of America that we could go to 5000 on the S&P”Markets
Pending ●●●●●
Germany will cease to be an industrial power by October 2038 at the latest (within 10 to 15 years of October 2023).
“we're looking at the end of Germany as an industrial power within 10, probably no more than 15 years”Economy
Inaccurate ●●●●●
Bitcoin will soon fall sharply from its roughly $27,000 price in October 2023.
“I can't go out with bitcoin [BTC] because I can't be in something where Mr. Bitcoin is about to go down big”CryptoMarkets
Accurate ●●●●●
China's GDP growth for the first half of 2023 will come in below the 6.2% officially forecast.
“Moreover, the economy will not grow 6.2 percent in the first half, as official sources are predicting.”Economy
Accurate ●●●●●
From late June 2023, the Fed, ECB and Bank of England will each raise interest rates further before pausing (inferred window: rest of 2023).
“The US Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, the Bank of England, and most other major central banks will have to raise rates even more before they can pause.”EconomyMarkets
Pending ●●●●●
AI chatbots like ChatGPT will not have large macroeconomic effects (e.g. on productivity) until the 2030s.
“ChatGPT and whatever follows are probably an economic story for the 2030s, not for the next few years.”AIEconomy
Inaccurate ●●●●●
US inflation (CPI then about 6%) will rise much higher because of the March 2023 bank bailouts (read as within about a year).
“Rate hikes don't matter. Inflation is headed much higher, thanks to bank bailouts”EconomyBanking
Inaccurate ●●●●●
The 2023 banking crisis (after Silicon Valley Bank's failure) will be worse than the 2008 financial crisis.
“One reason we had the 2008 financial crisis was too much government regulation. That's why this crisis will be worse.”BankingEconomy
Inaccurate ●●●●●
By the end of 2025, gold will reach $5,000/oz, silver $500/oz and Bitcoin $500,000.
“By 2025 gold at $5,000 silver at $500 and Bitcoin at $500,000.”MarketsCrypto
Pending ●●●●●
China will dissolve as a functioning economic entity (economic collapse) before the end of 2029.
“we are on track for the dissolution of China as an economic entity before the end of the decade”EconomyGeopolitics
Accurate ●●●●●
The US economy will get a soft landing: inflation will keep falling, and any recession will be mild.
“And my own prediction is indeed for a softish landing: Inflation does seem to be coming down, and while we might not completely avoid a recession, if we have one it will probably be mild.”Economy
Inaccurate ●●●●●
Germany's entire manufacturing base will come to an end by January 2025 (within two years of January 2023).
“We're looking at the end of the entire German manufacturing base within two years”EconomyEnergy
Pending ●●●●●
Within the next few decades after 2023, the current form of human civilization will end.
“the next few decades will be the end of the kind of civilization we're used to”Climate
Accurate ●●●●●
OpenAI's upcoming GPT-4 will still commonly produce fluent hallucinations that are easy to induce.
“Fluent hallucinations will still be common, and easily induced”AITechnology
Accurate ●●●●●
OpenAI's upcoming GPT-4 will not be a general-purpose AGI capable of arbitrary tasks.
“GPT-4 by itself won’t be a general purpose artificial general intelligence capable of taking on arbitrary tasks.”AITechnology
Inaccurate ●●●●●
Bitcoin (then about $17,000) will not rise meaningfully above $17,000 and will fall to new lows in the ongoing bear market (read as through end of 2023).
“Don't make the mistake of thinking that #Bitcoin is forming a floor at $17K. It's forming the next ceiling.”Crypto
Inaccurate ●●●●●
U.S. stocks will do much better over the four weeks after November 18, 2022 (to about December 16, 2022).
“You've got to adjust your mindset to a world where the bears are finally in retreat, because I'm betting the next four weeks will be much better than what we've come to be used to”Markets
Pending ●●●●●
China's total population will fall below 650 million by 2050.
“by 2050 the entire population of China will have dropped below 650 million”Economy
Inaccurate ●●●●●
The US will enter a severe, long recession starting around end-2022 and lasting through 2023.
“It's not going to be a short and shallow recession; it's going to be severe, long, and ugly,”EconomyMarkets
Inaccurate ●●●●●
The S&P 500's June 2022 low (3,666.77 close on June 16) will hold as the bear-market bottom, with no lower close afterward.
“I'm betting the market will bend, not break, through a rough September, and when we get through that period, that June low will hold.”Markets
Inaccurate ●●●●●
US annual CPI inflation will print above the June 2022 peak of 9.1%.
“There's no doubt in my mind that we will get a higher number than 9.1 percent.”Economy
Inaccurate ●●●●●
War-driven malnutrition will reach at least 500 million people in late 2022 and roughly triple (to about 1.5 billion) during 2023.
“We're looking at malnutrition for a minimum of a half a billion people later this year. That will probably triple next year and it will get significantly worse from there before it gets better.”EconomyGeopolitics
Inaccurate ●●●●●
Bitcoin will fall to about $12,000 (from roughly $20,000 in June 2022).
“I think it goes to $12,000, where it was before this whole fiasco began.”Crypto
Inaccurate ●●●●●
Amazon, Meta and Alphabet shares had bottomed as of May 31, 2022 and were ready to rally rather than fall further.
“they’ve fallen so darn far that I think they’ve become metaphors for a whole host of stocks that are now ready to rally because they’ve got nowhere else to go but up”MarketsTechnology
Accurate ●●●●●
US inflation will come down without an early-1980s-style deep recession.
“So it probably won't be necessary to put the economy through an '80s-style wringer to get inflation down.”Economy
Accurate ●●●●●
After Russia's invasion of Ukraine, oil prices will spike to well above $100 a barrel in the short term (inferred window: 2022).
“Oil and natural gas prices will spike further – to well above $100 per barrel – as will many other commodity prices”EnergyGeopolitics
Inaccurate ●●●●●
The Fed will "wimp out" and postpone finishing its taper and raising interest rates in the face of stagflation (inferred window about one year, to end-2022).
“They are going to postpone any finishing of tapering or raising rates.”EconomyMarkets
Inaccurate ●●●●●
A giant US stock market crash will happen in October 2021.
“Giant stock market crash coming October.”Markets