As is my custom, I review herein my predictions from the start of 2011.
“No nuclear weapon for Iran, no overt military activity involving Iran.” Check. Indeed, Iran may be farther away from a weapon now than it was a year ago.
“U.S. offers to broker peace settlement between India and Pakistan; both countries accept but no resolution reached.” Did not happen, at least not above the board.
“The civilized world, following a cue for the U.S. and China, will puss out and give more money and food to North Korea in exchange for their promise to not kill any more South Koreans until they do again.” Check, compounded by the recent death of North Korea’s dictator.
“Turkey will cease attempting to gain membership in the European Union and make noises about withdrawing from NATO but not actually go through with it.” Did not happen; Turkey seems closer to the west now than it was a year ago other than a spat with Israel.
“Watch for religiously-motivated violence to dovetail in to Presidential elections in Nigeria, Mexico’s drug violence to spread south of the border into Guatemala, and for Taliban/Al-Qaeda activity to spread from Afghanistan into Tajikistan.” Did not happen, fortunately.
“Congress will fail to impose meaningful spending cuts and by New Years’ Day 2012, the U.S.A. will be more than fifteen trillion dollars in debt.” Check. Unfortunately. Easy to predict a repeat of this.
“Candidates announcing for the Republican nomination for President before year’s end and will include at least Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Tim Pawlenty, Ron Paul, Mike Pence, and John Thune.” Wow, was I off base on that; of that list, Palin, Huckabee, Pence, and Thune did not even declare; Pawlenty withdraw after taking only one punch. Let this be a lesson — a lot can change in politics over the course of a year.
“The Republicans will shut down the Federal government and walk away from doing so with no significant gains to show for it.” A near miss.
“Emboldened by the prospect of such weak Republican competition, President Obama will announce no changes to his top Cabinet officers and no serious primary challenge to him will manifest in 2011.” Got that one right.
“There are three gubernatorial elections in 2011 (Kentucky, Louisiana, and Mississippi), and Republicans will win them all.” Two out of three; however, Democrat Steve Beshear won re-election in Kentucky.
“The Senate will consider filibuster reform and everyone will agree that the existing system has significant imperfections, but any attempt to actually change the filibuster rule for future Congresses will be, itself, filibustered.” Half right; there was filibuster reform talk by frustrated Democrats but no one seriously did anything about changing the rules.
“Will muddle along with little significant improvement or decline in jobs or construction. (I feel that I’m being optimistic when I say this.)” I think that pretty much is what happened.
“Inflation will rise above an annualized rate of 4% and there will be much wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth, to little effect.” Final numbers aren’t in yet, but it’s safe to predict that inflation will be lower than this.
“The government will attempt to kick-start mortgage lending and consumer credit with loan guarantees to banks; this will result in little economic growth, more bankruptcies, and increased governmental debt.” The loan guarantees contemplated at the end of 2010 never really happened; instead, interest rates fell even more and what murky economic growth we’ve seen can probably be credited to what credit has been parsimoniously doled out has been very, very cheap.
“The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals will affirm the trial court’s ruling in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, on the grounds that no party with standing to do so lodged a challenge to the plaintiffs’ claims, and offer no binding legal authority on the Fourteenth Amendment claims. This ruling will be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which will grant certiorari for an expected oral argument in early 2012.” I thought this would be the easiest way for the Ninth to reach its result, but instead they surprised me and seem to have taken on the issue squarely. The California Supreme Court says that the intervenors do have standing and a decision on the merits has not yet been reached (but is expected reasonably soon).
“There will be no nomination to the Supreme Court.” Check.
“Governor Jerry Brown will propose an austerity budget and quickly find himself at odds with his own party.” Check.
“Republicans will be all but completely ignored in the ensuing mess, and the annual budget kabuki will last even longer than it did this record-breaking year.” Check.
“The state will fall once again into drought, and unemployment will remain at functionally its current level most of the year, measured in jobs created versus jobs lost. (Again, it’s my opinion that I’m being optimistic here.)” Check.
“There will be very serious wildfires in the Sierra Nevadas, possibly affecting parts of the southern Sierra national parks like Kings Canyon and Sequoia.” Fortunately, no.
“It’ll be a big year for superheroes and quasi-superheroes: Pirates of the Caribbean 4, Thor, Green Lantern, Harry Potter 7 (Part 2), and I Am Number Four should all do very well. Captain America: The First Avenger a little less so; the X-Men, Hangover, and Transformers sequels will also disappoint.” I Am Number Four did not do well, and Captain America was very much a success. X-Men was quite good. Other than that, I’m calling this one a hit.
“Speaking of which, we will learn that the villains in the third and final Christopher Nolan Batman movie (which we won’t see until 2012) will be Catwoman (who we will learn trained with Ra’s al-Ghul before his demise in the first movie) and a lesser-known villain named Black Mask.” Half right. Catwoman yes, Black Mask no — instead, we get Bane. Good call. I wonder if he’ll break Batman’s back.
“I’ll be most looking forward to Jon Favreau’s Cowboys and Aliens.” You know, I’ve still never got around to seeing it, even on DVD.
“Someone will make “WikiLeaks: The Movie” (it’ll have a better name than that, I hope) and it will lose money.” Remember how up in arms we all were about WikiLeaks in 2010? Yeah, not so much anymore.
“After seeing the financial success of reality television, we will see the first of several “unscripted” reality movies starring “real people” and it will make money, inspiring numerous dreary, insipid imitators.” Not yet. Then again, I suppose in many cases those are called “documentaries” and it takes quite a lot of work before they become interesting.
I’m calling my 2011 predictions “mostly good,” with more hits than misses. And I’m happy about quite a lot of my more pessimistic misses being wrong. And Britney Spears is still not yet wearing a for-public-consumption version of evangelical Christianity in everyone’s faces. That media void was filled instead by Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow.
