2011 earthquake good for Japan

Date of prediction: 2011-03-14

Nathan Gardels believes that in the long run, the 2011 earthquake will be good for Japan’s economy:

»A massive earthquake and tsunami have accomplished what Japan’s fiscal policy and central bank could not. Rebuilding a large swath of Japan will stimulate domestic growth and global demand, energy-efficient technologies, while helping to integrate China and Japan.
(…)
The result of all the new wealth creation will be money in the pockets of Japanese to buy global goods and services.«

(The Cristian Science Monitor: The silver lining of Japan’s earthquake)

Douglas Casey: Inflation, Euro crash

Date of prediction: 2010-03-15

Douglas casey expects that the Euro-zone will break up until 2015 and the European Union until 2020 (quote in German):

»Der Euro ist eine Esperanto-Währung. Er wird wohl in den nächsten fünf Jahren auseinander brechen, die Europäische Union vielleicht schon in den folgenden fünf Jahren.«

(Handelsblatt.com: Querdenker Douglas Casey: „Ich erwarte eine horrende Inflation“)

We’ll check the remaining part of his prediciton in 5 years.

2015 Oscars

Ben Zauzmer has developed a model from lots of data and applies it to make predictions about this year’s Oscars. Because he makes probabilistic predictions, no single outcome can prove him wrong.

Apple’s wearable arrives in October

Date of prediction: 2014-06-06

Re/code and Nikkei predict that Apple will launch its iWatch, or some other iWearable, in October. (via heise online)

BRA vs. GER prediction

Date of prediction: 2014-07-08

FiveThirtyEight believe that the odds in BRA vs. GER favor the Seleção even after adjusting for the absence of Neymar and Silva. In a few hours we’ll know more.

Airports and metropolitan transport are imminent terror targets in Germany

Date of prediction: 2009-04-23

The federal government of Germany warns that airports and metropolitan transports were the primary targets of islamist terrorists. The threat level is assessed as worryingly high:

»Für das Innenministerium sind vor allem Flughäfen und der Nahverkehr mögliche Ziele islamistischer Terroristen. Staatssekretär August Hanning warnt, die Bedrohung sei “besorgniserregend hoch”.«

(welt.de: Bundesregierung warnt: Deutsche Flughäfen sind die nächsten Terrorziele)

Crowdsourced Oscars prediction

The Twitter Oscars Index attempted to predict based on twitter message statistics who’ll win the Academy Awards.