Randi Kreiss

But wait, I haven’t shared my 2017 predictions

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Bullish? Bearish? Last week The New York Times featured an article in which “top investors” offered their predictions for the economy in the coming year. I mean, The Times really did that — suggest we take seriously the experts’ insights into future events. Three financial experts went on the record with how they believe the year will play out in the markets.

I predict that the value of their elaborate algorithmic studies is and will be zero.

I say the prediction business is bust. Have we learned nothing? We recently lived through a presidential election in which pretty much everyone with an opinion, from columnists to people on the street to professional pollsters to Las Vegas bookies and even many Trump supporters, absolutely did not believe he would or could win. How many times did we hear TV analysts say that his path to victory was slim to none? How much airtime and ink was wasted on the assumption of a Clinton victory?

The very least we can take away from the election is knowledge. The new facts of life are these: pollsters, even the ivory tower know-it-alls, have about as much success at predicting the results of an election as a blindfolded monkey picking stocks by throwing darts at a board. Even the brilliant and prescient Nate Silver, the political pundit extraordinaire and head of the polling group FiveThirtyEight, got it wrong, although not as wrong as everyone else.

The day after the election, Silver said, “The polls missed Donald Trump’s election. Individual polls missed, at the state level and nationally … so did aggregated polls. So did poll-based forecasts such as ours. And so did exit polls.” That is their business, and based on year-end results, they should close up shop.

Fool me twice and I’m a chump, so I won’t believe any predictions for pretty much the rest of my life.

If we needed any reinforcement of our decision to challenge predictions, we have only to look to our president-elect. Donald Trump has been tweeting away since 2015, predicting the U.S. economy was heading for “disaster.” He predicted that Hillary Clinton would live out her life in prison. He forecast widespread crime from Mexicans crossing the border and terror strikes from Muslims allowed into the country. The only prediction he got right was that he would win, even while many of his people thought it was a long shot.

The Times’ economic gurus I referenced are expecting good financial returns this year, commodities up, stocks solid and tax laws turning favorably toward the rich. You know what that means: Anything can happen.

On New Year’s Eve we toasted 2017 with wishes for good health and peace on earth and peace of mind. Wishes. That really is the best we can do. We turn to pollsters and prognosticators because the human condition makes us hostages to the fates and furies. We cannot tolerate the existential uncertainty of being humans. So we believe exit polls and Svengalis and the Great Carnac and any grifter who hangs out a palm-reading sign. The truth? I’m even down on Punxsutawney Phil. What does that ratty rodent know about weather, anyway?

In our personal lives it is painful to accept that we cannot know if the new year will bring triumph or tragedy or some of both. Last year I could not have known the losses that 2016 would bring to my family. Life reads like a mystery, not an itinerary. We can’t know what comes next, or if we will even make an appearance in the next chapter.

I’m OK with that. Aren’t you? We all know how it ends, but I feel like embracing the mystery day to day.

For sure, I cannot and will not ever again believe anyone who purports to know the future of an election or an economy or a disease, or the likelihood of an earthquake striking any particular location at any particular time.

We are in the game, and it changes day to day. And yet: Yesterday I booked a hotel in a city where the Aug. 21 total solar eclipse will be seen for two minutes and 20 seconds. The band of totality is narrow, and as it crosses the country from west to east, only certain locations will have total sun blockage. I want to see that, and it’s 100 percent sure that it will occur.

What isn’t sure is if I will actually get to see it (clouds overhead or clouds in my life), or if, not to be melodramatic, the earth is still here to experience the event. If Trump and Kim Jong-un get in each other’s faces, who knows?

But I’m not predicting. I’m choosing to have faith that the eclipse will occur as scheduled, on Aug. 21 at 11:32 a.m. in the city where I’ve booked a hotel. I’m keeping the faith.

Copyright © 2017 Randi Kreiss. Randi can be reached at randik3@aol.com.