Goodbye 2016: Busted Predictions, Never-to-be-Fulfilled Promises, and some Fundraisers
by meep
This will be my last entry for 2016 (huzzah), and let me actually start with some happy-ish stuff.
Some causes I support:
GoFundMe campaign for Charlie Martin – I’m a facebook friend of Charlie’s and have been following his writing on pjmedia for years.
BEAM – Bridge to Enter Advanced Math is an educational program founded by and run by one of my Mathcamp buddies, Dan Zaharopol. I have talked with some of the students about non-academic careers in math, and I’ve bought math books for the students for them to own. They’ve got a year-end matching campaign.
Elizabeth Childs is fundraising money to publish a book by Vladimir Bukovsky – from Elizabeth’s post:
We’re raising funds to make Bukovsky’s masterpiece, To Build a Castle, available again. Please share this post.
Vladimir Bukovsky has authorized our group to re-issue To Build a Castle in digital format, which, possibly after an initial brief pay-for period on Amazon for publicity purposes, we expect to make available as a free download. Amazon may continue to charge a small fee, any proceeds of which will of course go to Bukovsky, but the book will also be available from free sites.
The volunteer managing the project has extensive experience as an editor and has previously converted several books to digital as well as publishing direct to digital. We also have a great team of volunteers working on the proofreading.
If the project is to go ahead, we need to pay professionals to digitally format the book, as well as for a new cover design. Our volunteer editor has negotiated with the best people for the best price. We estimate that it will cost about $1000.
I am helping with the project, and I know Elizabeth Childs and this project. Prior posts on Bukovsky:
- Please Help Claire Berlinski Cover Bukovsky
- Please Help Vladimir Bukovsky: Russian Freedom Fighter
- Vladimir Bukovsky Makes the New York Times
I am donating my time to help proofread the copy before it is published.
Catholic Relief Services is the primary international relief charity I support, not only because I’m Catholic but because over 90% of the donations go to actual services.
PREDICTIONS: SO LAST YEAR
Okay.
I give up.
Let’s see what Ann Althouse wrote recently: The experts got blindsided by what happened on Election Day, so why should we care how they try to explain it now? and Roger Kimball responded Although I am confident that the correct answer to this question is “we shouldn’t care how they try to explain it now,” the phenomenon Althouse touches upon is multifaceted. One important aspect revolves around the issue of exploded authority and what that has done to the implicit contract between pundit and punter.
Well, the Predictions for 2016 totally sucked. Period. I give up and am not going to do that again.
I have no idea what’s going to happen in 2017 re: pensions. I know some problems that exist, but we’ve seen that states/plans/orgs can push some of these issues off for years until suddenly there’s no money.
For amusement, here is the election prediction aftermath in which Election Goat Loses and for getting an idea of how so many got so much wrong, my review of Don Surber’s Trump the Press.
I know Surber is working on a sequel, but I think he’s going to have fun over the next several years as various pundits continue to get their predictions wrong.
I’m just going to watch.
I like to watch.
WHAT PROMISES?
There are the perennial “If so-and-so wins the election, I’m gonna leave the country” promises, and here were some of this year’s.
Fine, I’ll make a prediction: none will leave the U.S. (except possibly Sharpton, because of his tax problems). And no, going to shoot a movie in Serbia for a month doesn’t really count as “leaving America”. I mean leave and not come back, Roman Polanski-like.
And I don’t mean leaving via death, though obviously, that’s one way to do it.
Around the same time as I grabbed that list of promises, I found a piece on Trump’s promises for his first 100 days — which comes from before he was elected:
At the same rally, Trump said on his first day he will:
Announce the U.S. to renegotiate NAFTA, or withdraw from the trade deal
Announce the U.S. intention to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership
Nominate a replacement for Justice Scalia on the Supreme Court
Cancel funding to “sanctuary cities”
Remove illegal immigrants and cancel visas to countries that refuse to take them back
Suspend immigration from “terror-prone” regions of the world
Propose a Constitutional Amendment to impose term limits on members of Congress
Propose a hiring freeze on all federal employees to reduce the federal workforce (except military, public safety and public health)
Propose a new requirement that for every federal regulation imposed, two existing regulations will be eliminated
Propose a 5-year ban on White House and congressional officials becoming lobbyists
Propose a lifetime ban on White House officials lobbying foreign governments
Propose a ban on foreign lobbyists raising money in American elections
Oh wait, that’s for Day 1. Okay, I guess we’ll find out soon enough.
Here’s the post-election promise video – no, I’m not going to embed it nor am I going to watch it.
I could say I’d rather be surprised, but it’s more like I’ll be surprised whether he announces plans ahead of time or not.
I’ll keep my eyes on pension promises, which we already know can get cut, even after you’re retired. I have no idea if either the Trump administration or the Republican Congress have any concrete plans for dealing with failing public pensions or multiemployer private pensions.
So much for promises.
BYE BYE 2016!
Don’t let the door hit you on the ass! I won’t miss you!
(The year, that is, not you, the reader… please come back next year!)
I’m tired and I’m going to sleep for a while.
