It's lingered far longer than anybody expected or wanted, but it's still here...I'm referring, of course, to the tradition of the annual ICBW predictions post.  As always, we begin by reviewing last year's predictions: 

• The vaccine-induced abatement of the COVID epidemic in the US and other Western countries will release a great deal of pent-up demand, gradually heating up the economy throughout the year.  Stock indices will again rise slightly from their already overinflated highs, oil and real estate prices will rebound, and interest rates will begin to creep upward towards the end of the year.

This was a reasonably on-target prediction--and it wasn't a hard one, under the circumstances.  (It also failed to include the big economic news of the year:  the inflation surge.)  It gets worse from here:

• Polls notwithstanding, Republicans will win both Georgia Senate seats in the January runoff, leaving Congress deadlocked with a barely-Democratic House and a barely-Republican Senate.  Hence, as in the last couple of administrations, the US government’s direction will be set by the presidency, rather than by Congress.

The factual element of this prediction having turned out to be mistaken, the rest was predictably misguided as well. Virtually all this year's political action was centered in Congress, not the White House.

• The Biden administration will use its executive powers to reinstate some of the Obama administration initiatives rolled back by Trump, such as renewed negotiations with Iran, looser immigration enforcement, and requirements for universities to impose a presumption of guilt on students accused of sexual misconduct.  However, it’ll stop short of a full reinstatement of the status quo ante:  neither the JCPOA (“Iran deal”), nor DACA (legalization of “dreamers”), nor the Obama administration’s “dear colleague” letter to Universities (threatening them with punishment for insufficient zeal in presuming the accused guilty in sexual misconduct cases) will be fully restored.  In other respects as well, such as policing and racial policy, the new administration will pursue a moderate liberal course, rather than a progressive one.  As a result, many journalists and (other) leftist activists will cast Biden and his administration as centrist and even quasi-Republican, and will attack it relentlessly.  Stories that have so far been taboo, like the Biden family’s corruption and Biden’s own fading mental acuity, will gradually be taken up by leftists, much as Bill Clinton’s early-administration scandals were pushed primarily by leftist journalists.  Biden will thus end the year with very weak public approval numbers.

In retrospect, I should have guessed that Biden would choose Jimmy Carter--a politician more of his generation--than Bill Clinton as his model.  While he didn't go to the extremes of Obama-era restoration discussed here, he's come very close, kowtowing endlessly to a recalcitrant Iran, opening the borders wide to illegal immigrants, and allying firmly with radical pro-crime, racialist progressives.  As a result, his popularity has tanked to Jimmy Carter levels, but the press has maintained its steadfast loyalty to him, ignoring scandal after scandal and focusing on residual outrage at now-ex-President Trump.

• Partly in response to such stories, US policy towards China will resemble Russia policy under Trump:  extremely self-contradictory, with alternating messages of friendship and hostility.  The Biden administration will resist imposing sanctions and trade restrictions, but will maintain or strengthen mutual defense arrangements with China’s near neighbors, and occasionally remark on human rights issues (without taking significant action).

This prediction actually looks fairly good in retrospect, although one might argue that a "middle ground" prediction like this one is hard to get terribly wrong...

• The upcoming election will finally evict Benjamin Netanyahu from office in Israel, with Gideon Sa’ar’s new party ultimately making possible a ruling coalition that includes Likud but is not dominated by it.  As a result, the prosecution of Netanyahu on corruption charges will be allowed to proceed, but it will not result in a conviction by the end of 2021.

I got everything right here except for the composition of the new government--it's an everybody-but-Likud coalition, not an everybody-but-Bibi one.

• At least one of the following elderly and/or rumored-ill international leaders will be said to have had a (possibly secretly) life-threatening medical episode during 2021:  Joe Biden, Vladimir Putin (rumored to suffer from Parkinson’s disease), Ayatollah Khamenei, Raoul Castro, Queen Elizabeth II.

Every time I make one of these a-very-old-leader-will-die predictions, it fails spectacularly.  I sometimes think I'm single-handedly responsible for keeping these people alive...

• US university enrollments will continue to decline in 2021—COVID-related deferments in 2020 notwithstanding—and several small colleges will announce plans to close down completely.  (Furthermore, any Biden administration program to reduce the cost of Community College enrollment will largely cannibalize university enrollment.)  Similarly, the exodus of businesses and employees from expensive downtowns such as New York and San Francisco, jump-started by the move to remote work during the pandemic, will continue in 2021.  And movie theaters will close in large numbers, in response to a very anemic post-pandemic audience recovery.  (Bars and restaurants, on the other hand, will experience a much larger surge in returning customers, and those that survived the pandemic will prosper, with many new ones opening to meet the demand.)

I'd say I got the direction right for academia, cities and movies, but not for the hospitality industry, which is still suffering from the lingering COVID pandemic.

And now for this year's predictions, sure to be as erratic as last year's:

• The omicron stage of the COVID-19 pandemic will turn out to have a low casualty rate, and will peter out over a couple of months, but the spike in cases will cause a temporary tightening of COVID-related rules in COVID-hawkish states and locales--mask mandates, school and travel restrictions, and the like--that will only relax slowly over the course of 2022.  By the end of the year, however, the entire country will be more or less back to pre-COVID rules and conventions.
• A weaker economy (very slow growth, though not a recession) and tightening by the Federal Reserve will slow US inflation in 2022, but it will remain uncomfortably elevated.  Asset markets--stocks, real estate, oil and cryptocurrency--will decline significantly in real terms, but not to bubble-bursting levels.  (That will require much stronger action by the Fed than the Biden administration will allow.)
• The "Build Back Better" bill currently being pushed by Democrats in Congress will not pass--not even in massively scaled-back form--nor will any other of the Democratic Congress' proposed "reform" initiatives, such as loosening voting rules, strengthening organized labor, ending the filibuster, expanding the Supreme Court and adding states.  On the other hand, despite some tough-on-crime noises by local Black leaders and backtracking on open borders from the Biden administration, law and border enforcement will remain lax. (Both have far too much momentum among Democrats to be easily reversed just because of their disastrous implications for the party.)  Hence crime will continue to rise significantly, and illegal immigration, while dropping from its 2021 peak due to economic weakness, will remain far above Trump-era levels. 
• The GOP will handily win back control of the House and Senate in the 2022 midterm elections, gaining a significant-but-not-spectacular number of seats in both houses--mostly because their current near-equal holdings offer less room for huge gains.
• The US Supreme Court will issue a muddled ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson (a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a Mississippi law forbidding abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy) that will allow the abortion restriction to stand, while retaining some weakened version of the Constitutional right to abortion introduced in the Roe v. Wade decision.
• Russia will launch a major military action in Eastern Ukraine, seizing territory and demanding extreme concessions in return for withdrawal.  Western nations will heavily sanction the Putin regime in response, but will otherwise do little to counter the Russian incursion.
• China will continue its aggressive posture towards neighbors and the West in general, but will not launch any large-scale military actions, including against Taiwan.  It will settle for continued skirmishes similar to its actions on the Indian border last year, as well as general expansion of its global military presence and tightening of its partnerships with Russia and Iran.  Iran will also make announce a major milestone in the progress of its nuclear weapons program--possibly even a nuclear weapons test, although more likely something short of that, such as a vague claim of having constructed a nuclear weapon.  Hence there will be no renewed US nuclear agreement with Iran, although the Biden administration will continue to repeatedly grant unilateral concessions such as sanctions relief in the absurdly feckless hope of moderating Iranian behavior.
• The Supreme Court will hear the appeal of Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, in which an Asian-American student group is accusing Harvard of racial discrimination against Asians.  And as in the Dobbs case, the court will issue a muddled ruling that devises some new, complicated compromise between precedent and principle--in this case, a criterion for Constitutional racial discrimination that allows "affirmative action" in general to continue while forbidding some form of it that includes the anti-Asian discrimination being practiced by Harvard.  Prestigious universities will react to (or anticipate) this ruling by further diminishing the role of academic criteria such as standardized test scores in their admissions processes, allowing them to continue their discrimination largely unhindered, at the cost of gutting their own academic standards and the value of the credentials they award.
• In the wake of COVID-related disruptions to the professional sports leagues and a controversy-marred winter Olympic games in Beijing, e-sports will make a significant leap into mainstream culture--perhaps a deal with a broadcasting network or streaming service, or an e-sports competition or competitor receiving major (non-scandalous) news coverage.

As always, readers are invited to respond to these predictions--or submit their own competing predictions--via comments to this post.  Any of the latter that are submitted this way will be assessed at the end of the year along with the ones listed above.

 The final (December) 2021 edition of the ICBW podcast is now available for download or streaming.  Part 1 delves into the mystery of "supply chain issues"--what causes them, and how long they're likely to last.  Part 2 is legal-themed, covering the January 6th defendants, the George Floyd rioters, the Molotov cocktail-throwing New York lawyers, Kyle Rittenhouse, and the general question of political bias in the justice system.  Part 3 continues the legal theme with a discussion of the practice of designating certain crimes as "terrorism" or "hate crimes", highlighted by the recent vehicular homicide in Waukesha and the school shooting in Michigan.

As always, we encourage listeners to respond via comments on this post--we'll do our best to include you in our conversation. 

 The November edition of the ICBW podcast is now available for download or streaming.  In part 1, we discuss the political dynamics of the "infrastructure" and "reconciliation" bills being considered in Congress, as well as the issue of "Critical Race Theory" in public schools highlighted by the recent election in Virginia.  In part 2, we cover the related story of a Yale law student who recorded two administrators trying to browbeat him into apologizing for an email he'd sent, as well as the case of basketballer Enes Kanter's condemnations of China and China's response to them.  As always, listeners are encouraged to respond to this blog post via comments--we're happy to engage with thoughtful arguments or criticisms.

 The October edition of the ICBW podcast is now available for download or streaming.  In part 1, we consider the possible political and economic ramifications of the 3.5 trillion-dollar "reconciliation bill" slated to be introduced by Congressional Democrats in the not-too-distant future.  Then, in part 2, we dive into two reconciliation-related topics:  first, the general question of the filibuster, along with other laws and rules that impede or facilitate majoritarian democracy; and second, the recent harassment of Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema, who has voiced reluctance to vote for the reconciliation bill as proposed.  Finally, in part 3, we cover the current US "border crisis" and analyze the politics that has produced it.  

As always, listeners are invited to respond via comments on this post.

 The September edition of the ICBW podcast is now available--late again, unfortunately, but with the first part unusually well sound-edited--for download or streaming.  Part 1--the well-edited part--covers the US withdrawal from Afghanistan; part 2 discusses the CDC and other incompetent organizations, and how they go astray, and part 3 looks at the partisanship-scrambling case of the  rioter shot by a Capitol Hill police officer on January 6th of this year.  As always comments (posted here on the blog) are welcome, especially if they're about the quality of the sound editing...

 The August edition of the ICBW podcast is now available for download or streaming.  Part 1 deals with the threat of the new "delta" COVID variant, as well as future ones; part 2 explores increasing government regulation of--and private-sector use restrictions on--consumer goods; and part 3 discusses recent billionaire forays into space.  We hope this content helps you pass the time as you enter your umpteenth lockdown, mask firmly affixed to face, and we encourage you--as always--to respond via appropriately virus-free comments on this post.

 A bit late, the July ICBW blog podcast is now available, covering a whole smorgasbord of summer topics.  In part 1, we discuss Critical Race Theory and the political hustlers who promulgate and profit from it, while in part 2, the conversation ranges from the high art of Hunter Biden to the low art of contemporary journalism to the middle-of-the-road science of UFOs/UAPs.  Part 3 then dives deep into the details of voting systems, like the "ranked-choice" method recently introduced in New York's municipal primary, before once again revisiting the question of the origin of COVID-19.  As always, listeners are invited to respond via comments on this post, if the summer heat hasn't rendered such a task unthinkably draining...

 The June ICBW blog podcast is now available for download or streaming.  In part 1, we discuss the infamous COVID-19 "lab leak" theory, press coverage of which we use in part 2 as an excuse to heap scorn on the entire field of journalism, before wrapping up in part 3 with a discussion of the recent conflict in Gaza.  As always, listeners are invited to respond with their own perspectives via comments on this post--or, if they prefer, to ignore us altogether and simply enjoy the summer weather.

 The May "fully vaccinated" edition of the ICBW podcast is now available.  Part 1 is a discussion of the co-optation of various institutions in government, academia and even industry by political partisans, while part 2 covers the Biden administration's policies in the Middle East and on "climate change".  As always, listeners are welcome to respond via comments on this post.  (Also, feel free to listen and respond without wearing a mask.)

 The April Fools' edition of the ICBW podcast is now available for your foolish listening pleasure.  In this wide-ranging discussion of hot-button issues, we cover the current illegal immigration crisis (in part 1), the Chauvin trial (in part 2), and anti-Asian violence and the recent federal spending spree (in part 3).  As always, listeners are encouraged to respond as foolishly as they please by commenting on this blog post.  We'd love to hear from you...

 The March edition of the ICBW podcast is now available, and it's an all-Biden (well, two-thirds Biden) affair.  Part 1 covers the Dr. Seuss controversy, part 2 deals with the Biden administration's policies on Iran and immigration, and part 3 addresses its initiatives on election reform and trans rights.    One-stop shopping for executive branch analysis, from your trusted source for unconventional opinions...(As always, listeners are invited to respond via comments on this post.)

 The February edition of the ICBW podcast is now available.  Part 1 covers Gamestop and the political polarization of the business world; part 2 covers the press and how it should ideally operate; and part 3 delves into Congressional lunacy, individual and collective.  (As a bonus, you can listen to the co-bloggers agreeing with each other an uncanny--and unprecedented--number of times.)  As always, listeners are enthusiastically invited to respond via comments on this post, expressing agreement--or not, as desired.

 The inaugural ICBW podcast of 2021 is now posted.  Part 1 covers the kerfuffle at the Capitol, part 2 reviews the blog's annual predictions, and part 3 finishes the predictions review and revisits the Section 230 debate in light of recent political purges on social media.  Listening--and then commenting here--would be the perfect way to get the fresh new year off to a good start...

2020 having been a most unusual year, this will of course be a most unusual end-of-year predictions post.  Needless to say, our predictions this time around require a huge asterisk:  by December 31^st,  2019, this blog had completely failed to predict a massive global pandemic in 2020.  Readers can judge this lack of prescience as they see fit.

Notwithstanding this major (if utterly unsurprising) failure, though, the rest of the predictions don’t hold up too badly:

• As mentioned in the podcast, Joe Biden will win the Democratic party nomination, and be elected president.  (Bonus "alternative reality" prediction:  if Biden somehow fails to win the nomination, then Trump will be re-elected.)

Not only was the real-world prediction correct, but the closeness of the election suggests strongly that the hypothetical one would have been, as well.

• Following another election in which Likud weakens slightly but not enough for the opposition Blue-and-White party to forge its own coalition government, Likud and Blue-and-White will strike a deal on a unity government, with the leaders sharing prime ministerial duties.  In Britain, Brexit will go through under the deal negotiated by Boris Johnson (with perhaps a few minor amendments), with no major economic consequences for Britain in 2020.

These predictions were also dead-on, although admittedly both were widely considered fairly likely at the beginning of the year.

• The continuation of the Trump administration's absurdly expansionary economic policies will stave off an economic downturn through 2020 (at a likely serious cost in 2021, of course).  Equity markets will rise modestly, amid high volatility, and interest rates will finally be forced upwards, but only slightly, towards the end of the year.  Oil and real estate prices will follow a similar pattern.

Putting aside the failure to predict the COVID-related economic downturn, the stock market prediction actually fared well.  Interest rates, on the other hand, fell sharply in response to the pandemic, as did oil and real estate prices (although the latter were stable for most of the year, and home prices actually increased—offset, of course, by the decline in commercial real estate due to the pandemic proving the viability of office-less office work.)

• The civil unrest in Lebanon, Iraq and Iran will unfortunately be ruthlessly crushed, and will have completely disappeared by the end of 2020, with no significant interference by American forces (which will have quietly and all-but-completely withdrawn from Iraq, under Iranian pressure, by mid-year).  The strain of dealing with this unrest will however impede the Iranian regime from significant aggressive moves beyond this consolidation of power.  For example, as mentioned in the podcast, Afghanistan will not fall to the Taliban in 2020, although the latter will make significant progress following the reduction in US support for the ruling government.

This prediction got at least the directions correct, if not the magnitudes.  The number of US troops in Iraq, for example, was reduced in September to about half of its pre-2020 level.  And Iran has indeed spent 2020 consolidating its power rather than expanding it aggressively.

• Hong Kong will likewise be fully pacified at some point in 2020, and attention towards China will shift away from human rights issues in both Hong Kong and Xinjiang, and towards the increasingly dire state of the Chinese economy.

The first part of the prediction was correct, but the pandemic played havoc with the second part, as China’s ruthless and dishonest handling of its own (and the world’s) COVID crisis intensified attention on its totalitarianism, and the pandemic’s devastating effect on the global economy obscured China’s specific economic problems.

• Conditions in Mexico will continue to deteriorate, with criminal organizations scoring even more spectacular victories against government forces, and more Americans getting caught in the crossfire.  Crime in the US will also spike significantly, as soft-on-crime policies spread across more and more jurisdictions, driven by a strange-bedfellows coalition of radical leftists and libertarians.  Anti-Semitic attacks in the New York City area will continue to occur at a high rate, for example, as will incidents of homelessness-related disorder in West Coast cities.

The prediction about Mexico was, like many others, overshadowed by the pandemic—while crime rose slightly, less American travel to Mexico reduced the number of American victims.  The prediction of rising crime in the US, however, was quite accurate, and no doubt enhanced by the strengthening of the anti-police movement over the summer.

• In the US, there will be much attention given to the decline of non-online retail shopping, as "dead malls" and decaying downtowns prompt pundits to ponder this decline's dire consequences for society and propose solutions to the problem--mostly involving boycotting online retailers and pumping money into local ones.

This was a rare instance of a prediction accidentally made more accurate by the pandemic, as COVID-related lockdowns further decimated the brick-and-mortar retail sector and boosted its online counterpart.

Now for our predictions for 2021:

• The vaccine-induced abatement of the COVID epidemic in the US and other Western countries will release a great deal of pent-up demand, gradually heating up the economy throughout the year.  Stock indices will again rise slightly from their already overinflated highs, oil and real estate prices will rebound, and interest rates will begin to creep upward towards the end of the year.
• Polls notwithstanding, Republicans will win both Georgia Senate seats in the January runoff, leaving Congress deadlocked with a barely-Democratic House and a barely-Republican Senate.  Hence, as in the last couple of administrations, the US government’s direction will be set by the presidency, rather than by Congress.
• The Biden administration will use its executive powers to reinstate some of the Obama administration initiatives rolled back by Trump, such as renewed negotiations with Iran, looser immigration enforcement, and requirements for universities to impose a presumption of guilt on students accused of sexual misconduct.  However, it’ll stop short of a full reinstatement of the status quo ante:  neither the JCPOA (“Iran deal”), nor DACA (legalization of “dreamers”), nor the Obama administration’s “dear colleague” letter to Universities (threatening them with punishment for insufficient zeal in presuming the accused guilty in sexual misconduct cases) will be fully restored.  In other respects as well, such as policing and racial policy, the new administration will pursue a moderate liberal course, rather than a progressive one.  As a result, many journalists and (other) leftist activists will cast Biden and his administration as centrist and even quasi-Republican, and will attack it relentlessly.  Stories that have so far been taboo, like the Biden family’s corruption and Biden’s own fading mental acuity, will gradually be taken up by leftists, much as Bill Clinton’s early-administration scandals were pushed primarily by leftist journalists.  Biden will thus end the year with very weak public approval numbers.
• Partly in response to such stories, US policy towards China will resemble Russia policy under Trump:  extremely self-contradictory, with alternating messages of friendship and hostility.  The Biden administration will resist imposing sanctions and trade restrictions, but will maintain or strengthen mutual defense arrangements with China’s near neighbors, and occasionally remark on human rights issues (without taking significant action).
• The upcoming election will finally evict Benjamin Netanyahu from office in Israel, with Gideon Sa’ar’s new party ultimately making possible a ruling coalition that includes Likud but is not dominated by it.  As a result, the prosecution of Netanyahu on corruption charges will be allowed to proceed, but it will not result in a conviction by the end of 2021.
• At least one of the following elderly and/or rumored-ill international leaders will be said to have had a (possibly secretly) life-threatening medical episode during 2021:  Joe Biden, Vladimir Putin (rumored to suffer from Parkinson’s disease), Ayatollah Khamenei, Raoul Castro, Queen Elizabeth II.
• US university enrollments will continue to decline in 2021—COVID-related deferments in 2020 notwithstanding—and several small colleges will announce plans to close down completely.  (Furthermore, any Biden administration program to reduce the cost of Community College enrollment will largely cannibalize university enrollment.)  Similarly, the exodus of businesses and employees from expensive downtowns such as New York and San Francisco, jump-started by the move to remote work during the pandemic, will continue in 2021.  And movie theaters will close in large numbers, in response to a very anemic post-pandemic audience recovery.  (Bars and restaurants, on the other hand, will experience a much larger surge in returning customers, and those that survived the pandemic will prosper, with many new ones opening to meet the demand.)

Readers are invited to post comments containing their own predictions for 2021, or celebrating their (properly documented) correct predictions for 2020.