2011 Predictions

In early 2011 the Libertarian SA site invited predictions for various indicators for 31st December 2011, as had been done for numerous years before. Five people responded, hoping to join the illustrious group of winners from the past. Unfortunately, for various reasons, I was very late in calculating the results, but finally, here they are.

Congratulations to Ron Weissenberg, our new future guru, and runner-up Stephen Van Jaarsveldt.

Despite Google Search and thousands of investment websites, it remains really difficult to obtain the values for specific indices at a date in the past. If anyone knows of a site that provides all this info quickly, easily and free, please let me know. Also, if you dispute any of these figures, I will be happy to correct them.

Herewith, the official results:

Predictions for 31st December 2011 made on Libsa website in January 2011
Average Difference Nett=Correct predictions JSE DOW FTSE Gold R/$ Oil/barrel Name Ron Weissenberg 0.572 5 36900 13500 6500 1850 7.10 115.0 Stephen Van Jaarsveldt 0.700 2 36300 10950 6250 750 6.80 95.0 Erich Viedge 1.025 5 38000 6500 6500 2000 6.50 100.0 Trevor Watkins 1.864 4 20000 7000 4000 3000 5.00 150.0 Bede Doherty(Australia) 4.515 0 Average 0.67 32800 9488 5813 1900 6.35 115.0 STD 8562 3334 1214 921 0.93 24.8 Actual 0.00 5 33792 12218 5572 1575 8.08 99.7 correct=1 Ron Weissenberg 1 SA ends the year with more Escom power without adding power stations due inter alia to a shrinking industrial base and lower power requirements. 1 Few to none “quality jobs” are created. Government policy moves to stop shedding of existing private sector jobs, not by alterning legistation but by employing more public servants. 1  SA Matric pass rate *declines* over 2010 results due to no 6 week July school holidays and no strikes ie: students denied the ability to educate themselves and show up that no teaching is better than existing average public schooling efforts. 1  No worldwide endemic plague yet to reduce population growth and numbers. 1  Bartering/no cash exchange websites and services proliferate as people try new economic order coping mechanisms. 0  First legal challenge to constitutionality and morality of income taxation is launched in SA. Stephen Van Jaarsveldt 1 An advanced economy will be said to have “collapsed” because it’s government is bankrupt (having cash flow issues) and that will be blamed on the free market. 0  Some wildly popular NEW scam will take hold, be exposed and disappear… like Power Balance Bracelets. 1  The SA government will come up with some NEW hairbrain scheme to steal our freedom i.e. NHI, restricted drinking hours, fixing LP gas prices, nationalising mines  Erich Viedge  1 Towards the end of the year the inherent dollar weakness will make itself felt in world markets. The dollar will weaken even further against other currencies. If even one African country starts to actively prefer the Euro or Yuan, that will cause catastrophic flight from the dollar. Catastrophic for Americans, anyway. 1  The Gold Price will increase (partly as people want safe investments, partly as the dollar weakens) 1  Mugabe will live another year. 1  The Oil Price will increase in dollars, also due largely to dollar weakness. 0  There will be no Muslim terror attacks on Western Nations in 2011 1  Steve Jobs will announce his semi-retirement from Apple 1  The DA will make gains in the Municipal elections in October 0  There will be power cuts in Winter 2011 like we haven’t seen before. Global Warming pundits will get very worked up about this.  Trevor Watkins  1  Chaos in financial markets as many countries and states default 0  US dollar dropped as world reserve currency 1  Widespread rioting in western democracies due to austerity measures 0  Inflation above 20% in many countries, including USA, UK, RSA 1  RSA becomes increasingly indebted, cannot balance books, RSA unemployment rises, widespread jobless protests 1  Major natural disaster somewhere in world  Bede Doherty(Australia)  0  The Arctic will cease to have ice in summer 0  the Channel overwhelms the tidal defences in the Thames, causing flooding in the City of London 0  Governments will be displaced, wars will break out over access to food and drinkable water with rich vs poor battling each other as envy and nothing-to-lose overtakes stability. 0  Massive population movement of displaced climate refugees will head for countries that are perceived to still have workable infrastructure, food and water.

For the non-numeric predictions, I simply counted the number of correct predictions, as far as my failing memory could remember. As ever, let me know if you disagree.  Can’t really allocate a winner here as people offered varying numbers of predictions, of varying quality, although Ron seemed to do well in this area too.As in 2010, things were pretty much the same at the end of 2011 as they were at the start.  Those predicting little change seemed to do best, and my own wildly optimistic predictions turned out to be just that.

The Average Difference is calculated by subtracting the actual value for an index from your prediction, dividing that by the standard deviation, then averaging across all your predictions.

If you would like to submit predictions for 2012, add a comment to this article in which you provide estimates for the following indexes as at 31/12/2012, and up to 6 verbal predictions on any subject:

1. Jse
2. Dow
3. FTSE
4. Gold price
5. Rand/Dollar
6. Oil price

You too could enter the Libertarian Hall of Fame, whose winners currently are:

Year	1st	2nd	3rd
2002	Jim Harris	Norman Davis	Andre Heydenrych
2003	Bryan Lever	Trevor Watkins	Laurence Caromea
2004	Suzanne McGinn	Dylan Watkins	Dougie Shaw
2009	Janette Eldridge	Mike Cross	Trevor Watkins
2010	Stephen van Jaarsveldt	Mike Cross	Ron Weissenberg
2011	Ron Weissenberg	Stephen van Jaarsveldt	Erich Viedge