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.

 The election edition of the ICBW podcast is now available for download or streaming.  In part 1 and part 2, we discuss the recent US presidential election, with a brief digression into the topic of academic freedom (a perennial favorite of the podcast).  In part 3 we discuss, among other things, political intrigue in Israel, Islam in Europe, and Iranians in the Biden administration.  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 the Israeli operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon; in part 2, the topic is the US election--particularly the assassination attempts on Trump and the political implications of the immigration issue; and in part 3, we consider the possibility that the overall competence of government is in decline, in the context of the Hurricane rescue and recovery efforts going on in the Southeastern US.  As always, listeners are invited to participate in the conversation themselves via comments on this blog post.

 The September edition of the ICBW podcast is now available for download or streaming.  In part 1 we discuss RFK Jr.'s exit from the US presidential race and the ceasefire negotiations between Israel in Hamas--a conversation that evolves into part 2's general discussion of how political coalitions work in practice in democracies.  In part 3 we return to the US presidential race--focusing on policy this time--and in part 4 we touch on recent attacks on free speech in the US and Great Britain.  As always, listeners are invited to participate in the discussion via comments on this blog post.

 The August edition of the ICBW podcast is now available for download or streaming.  In part 1, we discuss the assassination attempt against Trump, and what it tells us about quality control in critical security agencies; in part 2, we finish that discussion before tackling Joe Biden's withdrawal from the presidential race; and in part 3, we cover the assassination of Ismael Haniyeh and the recent anti-immigration riots in Britain.  As always, listeners are invited to participate in the discussion by leaving comments on this post.

 The July edition of the ICBW podcast is now available for download or streaming.  It's POTUS/SCOTUS month--in part 1, we discuss the president's mental and political condition, and in part 2 we review some of the big rulings from the end of the Supreme Court's term.  As always, listeners are welcome to join the conversation via comments on this post...

 The June edition of the ICBW podcast is now available for download or streaming.  In part 1 we discuss the ceasefire negotiations over Gaza (we recorded pre-rescue).  Part 2 covers European attitudes towards immigration, and part 3 dissects the Trump trial and conviction.  As always, listeners are invited to participate in the discussion via comments on this post.

 The May edition of the ICBW blog podcast is now available for download or streaming.  Appropriately for the time of year, we focus on universities:  in part 1, we discuss the rash of pro-Hamas protests plaguing numerous campuses, as well as MIT's decision to abandon mandatory faculty DEI statements; in part 2, we discuss the problem of imposing governance and accountability on weakly governed institutions such as universities, with a digression into college athletics; and in part 3, we discuss anti-discrimination law, particularly (though not exclusively) as it applies to academia.  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.  In part 1, we discuss the latest developments in the Middle East and reactions to them in North America, while in part 2, we consider a recent experiment in climate engineering and its implications, with some digressions into transportation policy.  As always, listeners are invited to join the debate via comments on this blog post.

 The March edition of the ICBW podcast is now available for download or streaming.  In part 1, we hold a discussion of the current state of the conflict in Gaza, broadening it in part 2 to cover Hamas' Western supporters and the possible future of the territory.  In part 3, we touch on recent problems with Google's Gemini AI tool, and as well as recent remarks by the makers of the film, "The Zone of Interest".  As always, listeners are encouraged to participate in the discussion via comments on this post.

 The February ICBW podcast is now available for download or streaming.  Part 1 covers the border, so to speak, delving into the US "border crisis", with digressions into the properties of various democratic systems as well as Israeli politics.  Part 2 explores DEI, merit and employment policy--with additional discussion of presidential administration staffing--and in part 3 we consider the question of politically motivated disparities in the application of justice, in historical context.  As always, listeners are invited to participate in the discussion via comments on this post.

 The first ICBW podcast of 2024 is now available for download or streaming.  In part 1, we discuss GOP candidate Nikki Haley's recent gaffe regarding the causes of the Civil War; in part 2, we review the annual ICBW predictions, 2024 edition; and in part 3, we discuss the ouster of Harvard's president amid her controversial Congressional testimony and allegations of plagiarism (with a digression on our part into the distinction between "ethics" and "morality").  As always, listeners are invited to participate in the conversation via the comments section for this post.

(An additional note:  if you've had trouble with the links for this podcast recently, we believe we've fixed the problem now.  If you're still experiencing difficulties, please let us know...)