Predictions for 2008

Back in October we spent some time talking about predictions. In particular there was this post:

Is it possible to predict the future?

It had a lot of doom and gloom, like world famine and a climate catastrophe.

There was also this prediction from Fortune magazine:

An amazing prediction for us to check a year or two from now

It talked about a stock market meltdown, and then there was this political prediction:

A meltdown for Rudy Giuliani

Now it is the time of year when people start making their predictions for 2008. And there are a lot them. Especially on the tecnology front. For example, Economist.com offers three tech predictions here:

Technology in 2008

[See also this rebuttal]

PC Magazine has its 2008 predictions here:

Tech Predictions for 2008

CNet offers its top 5 predictions for 2008 in video form:

Some of these are no-brainers - you simply look at trends in 2007 and you can see what will happen in 2008. For example, PC Magazine predicts: “Next year we will see a real push to create “basic PCs,” bare-bones computers priced around $275 to $350 and targeted at emerging markets.” It’s not clear why they limit it to “emerging markets” - this trend will sweep the U.S. as well. The Eee PC alone (priced at $350 to $400) is expected to sell something like 4 million copies in 2008, and there will be lots of variations on that theme from other manufacturers (see this post on the CloudBook and this post on the future of Windows for details). Wal-Mart already has several desktop models priced between $200 and $300 (one running Linux, one XP and one Vista), and these machines have everything a “typical PC user” needs.

But out of all of the predictions acticles I’ve seen, this is one is probably the most interesting:

Saxo Bank’s Outrageous Predictions 2008

Saxo is a large (1,200 employees) Internet bank based in Copenhagen. And some of their 2007 predictions were pretty good. Here are the predictions that apply to the United States:

1) Ron Paul elected President of the United States

2) S&P500 falls 25% from its 2007 high to 1182 (today it will open at 1,476)

6) At least three of the largest 10 US homebuilders will go bankrupt

7) Chinese stock market falls 40% by late summer

Grain Prices to double – again!

9) World oil prices accelerate to $175

In 365 days, we will know how close or far all of these predictions are from the mark…