I’d like to wish all Pileus readers a very happy 2015. The last three years, we have had a tradition of making predictions for the upcoming year and reviewing those of the past year. This year, I haven’t had time to come up with predictions for 2015, but here’s a look back at those for 2014:
Oklahoma will win its case (carry over from last year).
This is the Halbig case, where I have predicted for 2 years a defeat for the Obama Administration. This one is still wending its way through the courts, but one district court has ruled in favor of the plaintiffs.
U.S. real GDP growth will top 3% in 2014.
Final numbers are not in, but so far this one is looking good. Real GDP rose 5% in the third quarter of 2014 after an anemic start to the year. This was a pretty bold prediction given how poor economic growth had been from 2008 to 2013.
Obama’s net approval rating will be higher on election day 2014 than it is now (-11.3).
Bzzt. According to RealClearPolitics, election day job approval for Obama was…-11.3.
Republicans will pick up a few seats in both the House and Senate, but not quite enough to take back the Senate.
Half-right. The GOP did pick up seats in both houses, but took the Senate easily. Basically, I thought economic growth would pick up faster in 2014, boosting Obama’s JA and cutting Democratic Senate losses. I wasn’t quite right about the timing. Today, Obama’s JA stands at only -9, which might have been enough to give the Democrats a couple more Senate wins.
Dems will retain control of the executive council and the governorship in New Hampshire, but the GOP will retain the Senate and take back the House.
Got 3 out 4. The GOP took the executive council too.
The Scottish independence referendum will fail by about 10 percentage points.
Virtually spot on. The referendum actually lost by about 10.6 percentage points.
Catalonia will hold an informal “public consultation” with multiple options, in which “independence” will win a plurality and not a majority. Without a strong mandate for any particular alternative, political wrangling will continue indefinitely.
This one was pretty good, but for some reason I hadn’t counted on a boycott by the anti-independence side. Catalonia did hold an informal public consultation with multiple options, but independence won about 80% of the vote because of the boycott. Depending on how you calculate the electorate, the pro-independence side won 35-38% of the eligible voters, more than the other options (yes to statehood, no independence and no to both statehood and independence). Political wrangling has continued.
There will be no successful deal to roll back agricultural trade barriers in the Doha Round.
Correct but easy.
I’m gonna score it 5.25 out of 7 correct, with one still out.
PILEUS 
Reblogged this on Stormfields.
Your GDP figures are incorrect because they are based on suspect and twisted government figures. This is also true for inflation and unemployment figures. For accurate figures see the John Williams shadowstats.com site and scroll down to GDP figures.
Shadowstats is bogus: http://www.forbes.com/sites/modeledbehavior/2013/10/14/niall-ferguson-inflation/
Jason…What part of shadowstats.com is bogus? Forbes is an establishment magazine. What do you expect from the Main Stream Media. We do not have unbiased Main Stream reporting but the majority of the mainstream media acting as lapdogs for the government. Today you have to dig deep to get at the truth. Fortunately we have the tool of the Internet that,if properly used,can provide the information we are seeking. To take,without question,what the government tells you and,at the same time,dismissing outside of the main stream information is foolish in the least. I would also check out sites such as the dailybell.com and zerohedge.com for more insightful information. In the end who the hell believes or takes as gospel CNN or the New York Times? My god,open your mind.
Focus on the substance of the critique. The author, Adam Ozimek, is a libertarian, not that that should matter. Shadowstats simply adds a constant to the CPI series to make its “correction.” Its predictions about the cumulative price level change simply don’t line up with observable reality, whether everyday experience in the grocery store (prices haven’t doubled in the last 10 years) or other measures of prices not collected by the government, like the Billion Prices Project.