Backfiring of Political Predictions - What Can we Decipher Out of These?

There's a lot of difference between expecting something to happen, hoping for something to happen, assuming that something will happen, and predicting something to happen; logically or otherwise. While predicting on the basis of logical assumptions is all right, I simply don't understand how some folks risk their reputation by not only predicting something publicly, but saying it with so much confidence, you'd think they replying "yes" to being question "are you alive". Here are some "outrageous predictions" which backfired on those who made them (you may or may not have read about them; nevertheless, worth reading):

Somewhere in mid 2007, Dennis Blair and Kenneth Lieberthal had predicted that "The risks to maritime flows of oil are far smaller than assumed". They gave several reasons to back their words. These were: It would require a naval power having the strength that matched the US, to seriously disrupt oil shipments. Secondly, limited regional conflicts wouldn't much affect traffic, simply ruling out any economic effects if terrorists attacked the shipping industry. They even said that tankers are not so vulnerable. What happened? November'08 saw a group of Somali pirates hijacking a Saudi oil tanker carrying 2 million barrels of crude oil in the Indian Ocean. Surprisingly, they came only in "inflatable rafts"! As per the Piracy Reporting Center, ship hijacking by pirates has actually quadrupled this year! Ironically, the essay was called "Smooth Sailing: The world's shipping lanes are safe".

In the beginning of 2008, BusinessWeek had predicted that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg will enter the presidential race on the basis of his financial power and organization; which was expected to impress voters and stun competitors. They also predicted that Michael would not win but lose by a marginal number to John McCain, Arizona's maverick senator. None of this came true! John never contested the election and as far as presidency is concerned, we all know that the winner is Barrack Obama.

Jim Cramer, one of the popular CNBC host informed publicly in March'08 that Bear Sterns is not in trouble and no one in their right minds should disinvest from it. What happened? Within six days, the stocks price went down by ninety percent and was finally sold to JPMorgan Chase for pennies.

In mid 2008, Arjun Murti, the oil analyst at Goldman Sachs predicted oil to touch $200 a barrel within 6 to 24 months. As of writing this, it seems to touch a record low of $40.

The British newsweekly ran an editorial praising the quality of Kenya's democracy and predicted that it might set an example for the rest of the continent. This came just a week before the presidential elections. Not by a long shot! What followed was a horrible month of riot and bloodshed. Voter fraud and ballot stuffing were some great "unpredictions", if such a word exists in the dictionary. Over 800 people (official figures only) were killed and a phenomenal 200,000 were injured and /or harmed in the carnage. The country was deeply divided and the government was delegitimized, with power shared between the President Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga, his challenger.

Finally, if you remember the case of the Large Hydron Collider, the scientist Walter Wagner predicted that there was a great possibility of creating destructive theoretical anomalies like black holes, strangelets and deSitter space transitions. This would alter matter and destroy the planet. He had filed a lawsuit against the European Organization for Nuclear Research which built the collider. What happened? The machine was turned on in Sept'08 and we are all still alive and kicking!