Congratulations--you've made it through 2025!  Your reward is ICBW's annual predictions post.  First, we'll review our predictions for the past year:

• The economy will be strong through the first half of 2025, then weaken considerably, led by an asset bubble collapse some time during the year (the timing of such crashes is of course impossible to predict with any confidence).  A recession will be avoided, but the slowdown will result in asset markets being net negative by the end of the year.

This was exactly correct--except for the order of the halves.  The S&P 500 dropped about 20% in April, following a negative-growth first quarter, but then rebounded with strong second and third quarters, both in terms of GDP and asset values.

• The incoming Trump administration will, similarly, enjoy a honeymoon for the first half of the year, as it focuses on low-hanging fruit like immigration enforcement, anti-crime measures, and elimination of various "woke" programs initiated by the previous administration.  However, the popularity surge will gradually dissipate over the second half, as infighting among Republicans resurfaces--along with Trump's trademark verbal intemperance--and Democrats identify a few attack lines to focus on.  Trump's approval rating will thus be net negative by the end of the year.

Politics is always easier to predict than economics, and this prediction looks more like an end-of-year summary of the Trump administration's first year in office than a prognostication at the beginning.

• The war in Gaza will wrap up this year and proceed to the predicted next phase--reconstitution of a new government and reconstruction.  However, there will be no hostage deal, and absent rescue operations, no hostages will be released alive.  In Lebanon, Israel will resume hostilities after the ceasefire, and continue creating a Hezbollah-free buffer zone south of the Litani river.  However, Hezbollah, while weakened, will remain dominant in the rest of Lebanon, and a ceasefire deal will eventually be reached that nominally concedes the buffer zone that (both sides recognize) Hezbollah will spend the next few years gradually re-infiltrating.

This prediction was incorrect about Gaza in an interesting way:  Israel decided to forgo the predicted wrap-up of fighting in return for the release of the remaining hostages, with the result that Hamas remains in control of about half of Gaza and almost all Gazans, under a "ceasefire" which amounts to a continuation of the low-intensity conflict that prevailed during much of the war.  The situation is thus similar to the one correctly predicted for Lebanon:  a "ceasefire" that stipulates the dismantling of Israel's primary terrorist enemy there (Hezbollah), but in fact allows it to survive and strive to regain its previous level of political control and military/terrorist capability.

• Elsewhere in the Middle East, Syria's new regime will increasingly show itself to be a radical Islamist stronghold under Turkey's protection; the US and Israel will cooperate in suppressing the Houthis' offensive capacity, thus reopening the Red Sea-Suez Canal route to regular shipping; and Ayatollah Khamenei's son Mojtaba will consolidate his position as heir to the weakened-but-surviving Iranian regime.  In Israel, the wind-down of the war will refocus the public on domestic concerns, and Bibi's popularity will decline accordingly.  However, his coalition will manage to hold together and retain power through the year.

The prediction about Syria is largely accurate--although many appear to continue to be seduced by the Syrian leader's charm offensive into mistakenly believing that he's not an Islamist satrap of Turkey.  (The Israeli security establishment, however, is clearly not among them.)  The prediction about the Houthis was, in retrospect, reckless--it will take much more time and effort to extirpate them than a single year's worth.  In Iran, Khamenei fils may not be in as dominant a postition at the end of 2025 as he was a year ago, and in Israel, Bibi seems not yet to have entirely run out of his legendary nine political lives, thanks to his having extracted the final live hostages from Gaza, with the help of the Trump administration.

• Despite the Trump administration's efforts, there will be no ceasefire deal in the Ukraine.  Ukraine's military position will continue to deteriorate, prompting significant European efforts to rescue it from defeat despite relative American indifference.  Those efforts will increase direct confrontations between Russia and Europe, leading to an expansion of direct Russian attacks on Europe along the lines of Russia's recent destruction of European undersea cables.

This is another prediction that looks more like an end-of-year summary, given the frequent Russian drone incursions into European territory over the past several months.

• Justin Trudeau will resign as prime minister of Canada, handing the reins over to a new Liberal Party leader who will govern briefly before being utterly demolished by Pierre Poilievre's Conservative Party in a fall election.

This prediction, as well, is incorrect in an interesting way:  by calling an early election and capitalizing on Trump's unpopularity in Canada, the new Liberal Party leader, Mark Carney, was able not only to avoid impending electoral disaster but to vault to a near-majority re-election, cannibalizing small-party votes into near-elimination.  Moreover, by adopting some moderate stances, Carney has been able to continue his lead in the polls over his first year, eliminating the motivation for the smaller parties to join the Conservatives in toppling the government.

• The decline of the dine-in restaurant business, driven by the COVID-inspired trend towards take-out, will spawn a new popular mode of dining out:  couples, groups or families ordering take-out meals--possibly from multiple outlets--to eat at a separate location outside the home.  Eventually, some imaginative entrepreneur will establish "dine-in only" establishments, which provide pleasant environments and amenities for take-out diners--but no actual food.

As usual, my "cultural" prediction is intended as a longer-term one...

And now for my predictions for 2026:

• Juiced by continued low interest rates, the economy will continue to grow strongly through 2026, at the cost of continued elevated inflation (3% or greater year-on-year).  Asset prices will likewise be prevented from correcting, though their gains will be limited.
• The Democrats will capture a majority in the House of Representatives, and make gains in the Senate (without gaining control).  Trump's popularity will bounce along in the low 40s through most of the year, buoyed only by the Democrats' own set of political albatrosses.  (The Minnesota welfare fraud scandal, for example, will have counterparts in multiple Democratic party-controlled states across the country, and the Mamdani administration in New York City will generate embarrassing headlines at a steady clip.)  The Republican "woke right", on the other hand--and particularly the extremist social media personalities that garner the most attention--will fade in prominence over the course of the year, as more mainstream Republican politicians begin to find their footing in the Trump-era environment. 
• There will be no multinational force in Gaza, nor will there be a full Israeli invasion of Hamas-held territory.  Instead, there will be a slow build-up of Hamas alternative militias in Israeli-controlled areas, into which a trickle of Gazan civilians will gradually move.  Meanwhile, Israel will continue to interdict Hezbollah's reconstruction of its infrastructure in Lebanon, which will be hindered but not halted.  A similar dynamic will persist in Syria, where Israel will periodically intervene to protect its Druze-controlled buffer zone in the south. 
• Canadian prime minister Mark Carney will survive the year as prime minister. Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu, on the other hand, will be replaced by Naftali Bennett by the end of the year.
• The war in Ukraine will drag on for another year, despite the Trump administrations efforts at brokering a settlement, and with little movement in either direction.  European frontline states will increase their assistance to Ukraine, and their conflicts with Russia will thus escalate, although not to the point of actual ground skirmishes.
• Following 2024's "skibbety toilet" and 2025's "six-seven", a new stupid, meaningless phrase will arise among children and spread to society-at-large, killing brain cells at a staggering clip as it grows in popularity.

Readers are invited to add their own predictions in the comments--we'll evaluate them along with our own at the end of the year...

 The December edition of the ICBW podcast is now available for download or streaming.  Part 1 covers Venezuelan drug boats, part 2 covers Somalian fraudsters, and part 3 covers...well, a few random odds and ends.  As always, listeners are encouraged to participate in the discussion via comments on this post.

 The jam-packed November edition of the ICBW podcast is now available for download or streaming.  Part 1 goes over the results of the recent US elections; part 2 deals with the problem of executive abuse of (particularly prosecutorial) power, then segues to an analysis of the current situation in Gaza; and part 3 considers space exploration and the scientific investigation of the origins of life.  As always, listeners are invited to participate in the discussion via comments on this post.

 The October edition of the ICBW podcast is now available for download or streaming.  In part 1, we discuss Gaza in the context of America's complex relations with various regional powers.  In part 2, we explore the evolving meaning of the political "left" and "right" in an era of extremist factions like radical Islamism and bizarre characters like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens.  And in part 3, we discuss abuses of executive power, especially to suppress speech or target political opponents.  As always, listeners are invited to participate in the discussion by commenting on this post.

 The September edition of the ICBW podcast is now available for download or streaming.  In part 1, we discuss free speech and immigration in the UK and elsewhere, and in part 2 we cover partisan differences in corruption and institutional capture.  As always, listeners are invited to participate in the discussion by commenting on this post.

 The August edition of the ICBW podcast is now available for download or streaming.  In part 1, we discuss the state of Israel's operations in Gaza; in part 2 we tackle recent rumblings about an immigration "amnesty" and academic researchers' complaints about cuts in research funding; and in part 3 we consider the controversies surrounding Steven Colbert and Sydney Sweeney.  As always, listeners are invited to participate in the debate by commenting on this post.

 The July edition of the ICBW podcast is now available for download or streaming.  In part 1, we discuss the 12-day war between Israel and Iran, with a bonus digression into the Manhattan Project.  In part 2 we delve into American urban politics--chiefly the Zohran Mamdani phenomenon in New York City and the recent unrest in Los Angeles.  As always, listeners are invited to participate in the discussion via comments on this post.

 The June edition of the ICBW podcast is now available for download or streaming.  Part 1 covers recent developments in Israel and Ukraine; part 2 discusses US foreign policy more broadly, as well as the recent revelations about Biden's condition while in office; and part 3 deals with the Trump administration's measures to defund universities and research, including NASA.  As always, listeners are invited to participate in the discussion via comments on this post.

 The May edition of the ICBW podcast is now available for download or streaming.  It's a real pot pourri of topics this month:  part 1 covers the Canadian election, democracy in Europe, and fictional films with implicit political themes.  In part 2, we explore various aspects of the current state of US politics, including political violence, immigration policy and democratic governance.  And in part 3 we consider two currently controversial civil liberties issues:  academic freedom and "trans rights" in sports competitions.  As always, listeners are invited to participate in the discussion via comments on this post.

 The April edition of the ICBW podcast is now available for download or streaming.  (Apologies for the lack of a March podcast, which was unavailable due to technical difficulties.)  Part 1 covers the Canadian election, Trump's tariffs, the judicial actions blocking Trump's executive orders, and the recent Pentagon Signal conversation that unintentionally included a journalist.  Part 2 delves into the separation of powers implications of Trump's executive orders, as well as the possible repercussions of the orders cutting funding to US universities.  As always, listeners are invited to participate in the conversation via comments on this post.

 The February edition of the ICBW podcast is now available for download or streaming.  Part 1 deals with the (short-lived) trade war initiated by the Trump administration against Canada and Mexico; part 2 covers various Trump administration appointees and their confirmation hearings; part 3 looks at the ceasefire and hostage/prisoner exchanges between Israel and Hamas; and part 4 discusses the LA wildfires, their press coverage, and more general lessons about the press.  As always, listeners are invited to participate in the discussion via comments on this post.

 The jam-packed, multi-topic January edition of the ICBW podcast is now available for download or streaming.  Part 1 reviews the predictions for 2024, before covering two issues that have received considerable attention on social media: "grooming gangs" in Britain and drone sightings in the US.  Part 2 touches on the fall of the Syrian government and the H1-B visa issue; part 3 considers the possibility that the federal bureaucracy and the criminal justice system in the US have "gone rogue"; and finally, part 4 uses the topic of "climate change" as a jumping-off point for a debate on how, if at all, academic research can be freed from politicized, dissent-stifling top-down control.  As always, listeners are invited to participate in the discussion via comments on this post.

It seems like only a year ago that the last ICBW annual predictions were posted...which means that it's time for yet another ICBW annual predictions post.  First, let's review last year's predictions:

• Juiced by the Fed's already-tipped plans to further ease its monetary policy, the economy and asset markets will continue to rise overall in 2024, with the caveat that inflation will also tick upward from its current 3% level, pulling bonds down slightly.  Even cryptocurrencies will participate in the Fed-induced market frothiness.

The only error here was that inflation fell slightly instead of ticking upwards.  Otherwise, this prediction was pretty accurate.

• Donald Trump will defeat Joe Biden in the 2024 presidential election, after the Supreme Court blocks states from removing him from the ballot on 14th-Amendment grounds, and his lawyers succeed in getting his criminal trials postponed until after the election.  Republicans will also take control of the Senate and expand their lead in the House, but by very little in both cases.  The election will be accompanied by considerable unrest, but it will consist mostly of marches, sit-ins and the like, with relatively little 2020-style rioting.  In fact, the press and other institutions will be remarkably resigned to the result, having recognized in advance this time that such an outcome was a real possibility.  There will be the usual predictions of doom and threats to move to Canada, but nothing like the hysteria of 2016.

One of the predicted candidates was incorrect, of course--I blame Joe Biden's health scare in July, without which he would never have been forced out of the race.  The health of public figures is nearly impossible to predict--I tried unsuccessfully for years--so I consider this error understandable.  The prediction was also incorrect in one other minor detail:  Trump did get tried and convicted on one set of charges, although sentencing was postponed till after the election.  Otherwise, the prediction looks fairly accurate.

• The war in Ukraine will continue to grind on at a low level, with both sides too resource- and manpower-constrained, and too uncertain about the outcome of the US presidential election--with its enormous potential effects on the conflict--to make any bold moves.

The Ukrainians did attempt an invasion of Russian territory, and began firing missiles at major installations in Russian territory, after finally getting US permission to do so.  But otherwise the war unfolded roughly as predicted.

• Israel will continue to grind down Hamas in Gaza for a few more months, as Western pro-Hamas protests gradually peter out. Eventually,  political authority in Gaza will be transferred to some new entity--possibly Gulf-sponsored.  Israel will also make some sort of deal with Hezbollah that involves a buffer zone on the Lebanese side of the border--as mandated by UN resolution 1701--thus averting a full-scale war between the two sides.  Regardless, PM Netanyahu will not last the year as prime minister--his government, stained by the October 7th debacle, will fall, and a center-left coalition, probably led by Benny Gantz, will win the subsequent election.

This prediction was incorrect in almost every respect, for one simple reason:  the Biden administration turned sharply against Israel early in 2024, placing all sorts of demands on Israel and impeding its military operations against its enemies in various ways, including various threats of harsh actions against Israel if it didn't delay or forgo various moves.  This stance slowed down Israeli operations in Gaza to the point where they are currently where they would have been expected to have been months ago, with the result that no "day after" plan for Gaza has even been decided on, much less implemented.  Similar impediments to Israel in Lebanon encouraged Hezbollah to reject all ceasefire proposals, forcing Israel to take decisive action there.  Finally, Benny Gantz' decision to side with the US administration against Netanyahu basically saved the latter's career, severely weakening Gantz domestically and persuading enough voters to return to Bibi that his political position is no longer in immediate peril.  

• Elsewhere, the Iranian regime will continue to harass US troops via its proxies, and the US will continue to do only the barest minimum necessary not to appear to be abjectly capitulating to Iranian pressure.  The alliance among China, Russia and Iran will further deepen, but China will continue its cautious, incremental power projection strategy--as its economic implosion continues--rather than launch any major attacks or invasions (e.g., of Taiwan). 

An easy prediction to get 100% correct--as indeed it was.

• Claudine Gay will eventually resign the presidency of Harvard, but otherwise the Ivy League, and the rest of elite academia, will make only token gestures towards addressing their collective reputational collapse.  Instead, they will focus on their rapidly mounting financial problems, as both donors and students flee in droves, the former in response to the institutions' declining prestige and the latter driven by newfound cost-consciousness.

I'd judge this prediction to be substantially correct--Gay did go; the surge of pro-terrorist protests on elite campuses in the spring gave those schools yet another opportunity to show their tolerance of anti-Semitism, which they enthusiastically chose not to pass up; and donations did plummet at Harvard, along with student applications.  (Interestingly, applications were actually up at other Ivy League schools--particularly Yale, which openly flouted the Supreme Court ruling in the SFFA case, actually boosting its non-Asian minority enrollment.  It's possible that it thereby encouraged a flood of applications from underqualified minority students hoping to benefit from Yale's renewed commitment to lowering academic standards for them.)

• The proliferation of AI tools for common personal and workplace tasks, such as document composition and summarization, will make AI more familiar to its users and hence somewhat counteract the hysterical fears being spread by some AI "experts" about a supposed imminent AI-triggered apocalypse.

This was a rather general prediction, so I don't give myself much credit for its accuracy, but scare stories about AI destroying humanity do seem to have abated lately...

And now for this year's predictions for 2025:

• The economy will be strong through the first half of 2025, then weaken considerably, led by an asset bubble collapse some time during the year (the timing of such crashes is of course impossible to predict with any confidence).  A recession will be avoided, but the slowdown will result in asset markets being net negative by the end of the year.
• The incoming Trump administration will, similarly, enjoy a honeymoon for the first half of the year, as it focuses on low-hanging fruit like immigration enforcement, anti-crime measures, and elimination of various "woke" programs initiated by the previous administration.  However, the popularity surge will gradually dissipate over the second half, as infighting among Republicans resurfaces--along with Trump's trademark verbal intemperance--and Democrats identify a few attack lines to focus on.  Trump's approval rating will thus be net negative by the end of the year.
• The war in Gaza will wrap up this year and proceed to the predicted next phase--reconstitution of a new government and reconstruction.  However, there will be no hostage deal, and absent rescue operations, no hostages will be released alive.  In Lebanon, Israel will resume hostilities after the ceasefire, and continue creating a Hezbollah-free buffer zone south of the Litani river.  However, Hezbollah, while weakened, will remain dominant in the rest of Lebanon, and a ceasefire deal will eventually be reached that nominally concedes the buffer zone that (both sides recognize) Hezbollah will spend the next few years gradually re-infiltrating.
• Elsewhere in the Middle East, Syria's new regime will increasingly show itself to be a radical Islamist stronghold under Turkey's protection; the US and Israel will cooperate in suppressing the Houthis' offensive capacity, thus reopening the Red Sea-Suez Canal route to regular shipping; and Ayatollah Khamenei's son Mojtaba will consolidate his position as heir to the weakened-but-surviving Iranian regime.  In Israel, the wind-down of the war will refocus the public on domestic concerns, and Bibi's popularity will decline accordingly.  However, his coalition will manage to hold together and retain power through the year.
• Despite the Trump administration's efforts, there will be no ceasefire deal in the Ukraine.  Ukraine's military position will continue to deteriorate, prompting significant European efforts to rescue it from defeat despite relative American indifference.  Those efforts will increase direct confrontations between Russia and Europe, leading to an expansion of direct Russian attacks on Europe along the lines of Russia's recent destruction of European undersea cables.
• Justin Trudeau will resign as prime minister of Canada, handing the reins over to a new Liberal Party leader who will govern briefly before being utterly demolished by Pierre Poilievre's Conservative Party in a fall election.
• The decline of the dine-in restaurant business, driven by the COVID-inspired trend towards take-out, will spawn a new popular mode of dining out:  couples, groups or families ordering take-out meals--possibly from multiple outlets--to eat at a separate location outside the home.  Eventually, some imaginative entrepreneur will establish "dine-in only" establishments, which provide pleasant environments and amenities for take-out diners--but no actual food.
  

Readers are of course invited to post their own predictions as comments, which we'll evaluate a year from now along with these...

 The December edition of the ICBW podcast is now available for download or streaming.  It was recorded prior to the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, so instead it covers Joe Biden's pardon of his son Hunter (in part 1), Democratic party post-mortems of the 2024 election (in part 2), and the state of modern art in the wake of the sale of "comedian" for over $6 million (in part 3).  As always, listeners are invited to participate in the conversation by commenting on this post.