What is your most surprising prediction?

That is the new lunch time question for visitors.  This week we asked Michael Mandel and Megan McArdle.

The old question was “What is your most absurd belief?” (Initiation here, and some answers here).

When should you ask about inputs and when should you ask about outputs?  Someone might believe that planet earth is built upon “turtles all the way down,” and still expect 2.2 percent yearly growth in gdp and a lot of pennants for the New York Yankees.

It can be hard to judge how surprising various predictions are.  Nonetheless I expect median real wages to continue to decline, over the next ten years, in the non-resource-rich wealthy countries of the world, no Norway please.  TGS means that we cannot so readily outrace factor price equalization by keeping one step ahead, the exciting innovations are mostly labor-saving, educational stagnation will just be kicking in, and otherwise American workers really aren’t that much better than the competition.

Do I also expect another outbreak of conflict in the Falklands?  The prediction of fascism in Hungary is no longer a surprise.

Readers, what is your most surprising prediction?

Addendum: Angus comments.

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