T’was the night before Christmas,
And all through the house,
The only thing stirring was
My keyboard and mouse.
That’s it. That’s all I have to offer as far as Christmas poetry this year.
But that is not why my readers have put up with my mood swings, professional changes, numerous vacations I’ve taken because I can, and how stupid some of my ideas and predictions might seem.
You’re here and for that I will always respect each and every one of you, especially the Chinese chicks who send me feet pictures on X before getting banned.
Before I entertain or bore you with my 2026 predictions on Friday at great cost to my scotch inventory and liver, let’s see how these pages fared in 2025.
I. World Events
1. Missed on this one. Although Luhansk is 99.9% clear, Kherson is status quo, Zaporizhzhia only at about 50%, and Donetsk is around 70% seized back.
2. Mostly correct except for US troops leaving the country. Turkey did invade the northern regions but across the entire country and no, just like everyone else I did not predict a former Al Qaeda terrorist leader becoming Lindsey Graham and President Trump’s best buddy. What I did nail, however, was the Israeli occupation of much of southern Lebanon and Quneitra province.
3. Pretty much nailed that one. There was a war, albeit a brief one, where China put their foot down and forced a ceasefire. That’s not going to be the end of that conflict by any stretch as tensions on the Afghan-Pakistani border remain.
4. Total miss. We just threatened Mexico and cross-border cooperation is limited to preventing screw worms from crossing.
5. The EU is a total mess and the status quo remains thus another miss.
Overall: Don’t appoint this author to the State Department, especially this one.
II. The Economy
1. Nailed it. Not the timing, but yeah, got within 0.40 of the high. I’ll take it as a ‘W’.
2. Missed WTI making it to $50 but odds are this one will hit in 2026.
3. Total miss after all was said and done. Inflation shifted to disinflation with some hints of stagflation.
4. It wasn’t the April Fed actions that took the markets below 5,000 it was President Trump. If the markets were not given a stick save by Trump pulling in the “Liberation Day” tariffs some, odds are the S&P 500 would have broken well below 4800.
5. 5,6,&7 were total misses.
6. Inflation remained stubbornly at or above 3.5% as measured via the Atlanta Fed Sticky CPI these pages respect, but closed the year out at 3.0% so yes, another miss.
7. Nailed it as retail brick and mortar is dying off, with Saks being the big one that looks like it will close the year out in Chapter 11.
8. 10 & 11 were total misses.
9. Nailed my precious metals calls and then some. I had no idea that this much political and economic instability would sweep the world in 2025.
III. Same Day, Same Politics
1. Missed, Clarence Thomas didn’t retire as expected.
2. Nailed it although Nunez decided not to run.
3. If he did, we didn’t notice. (re: McConnell going Tango Uniform in office)
4. Nailed it and then some only to see him TACO out.
5. Nailed it minus the bigger wall.
6. The Freedom Caucus is pretty much dead as well as regulatory reform and enforcement so that’s a miss.
7. New York City passed on Cuomo to elect a communist. Sorry you idiots, not sorry, no sympathy for what’s next.
IV. Mother Nature
1. Thankfully I missed on this one with only 13 storms. Let’s hope for a back to back low impact season as we enjoyed the break down here in Florida.
2. Earthquakes picked up around the world but not yet in North America. Go figure.
3. Not yet, so another miss. Besides I enjoy my electricity also.
4. Nailed it (yikes).
V. Just Chicanery Again
1. Missed half of it as Philadelphia blew Kansas City off the field. However Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift are getting married so at least that’s over with.
2. Not yet so a miss.
3. Disney should have sold it while it was hot, but blew it.
4. X barely could broadcast Ron DeSantis Presidential announcement without crashing so multimedia broadcasts are not happening any time soon.
5. Got the layoffs part, missed the next bankruptcy filing. But don’t worry, AM and FM radio will continue to collapse.
Stay tuned Friday night as we intend to discuss our 2026 predictions and maybe, just maybe, I’ll drink a tad more scotch to improve the accuracy of my 2026 forecast.
