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.