Predictions and Wishes

January 1st is a day of reckoning. It's the time for predictions and wishes, staples of newspaper editorial pages and editorialists. They are about as useless as it gets. If the prediction is right or the wish comes true, it was probably inevitable. If wrong or unrealized, the same can be said. No one can predict the future. All that can be done is to interpolate and extrapolate the trends, applying some common sense and playing the odds. Yet, these staples are fun to read, both before and after.

I think some newspapers are missing a bet by not doing an opinion poll to assess the public's estimation of what will come about during the next year. Some papers do this, but not the ones that are full of themselves. And those I predict won't change, but I wish they would.