Ignore the Hype

Chapter 3Guess What? A Forecast Is Just a Guess

Forecasting is very uncertain. Especially when it pertains to the future.

—Mark Twain

On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik 1, the world's first artificial space satellite. The launch marked something of a turning point in public perception, as sentiment shifted toward a view that perhaps the Soviets had moved ahead of the United States in the race for technical and economic supremacy.

Of course, subsequent events proved otherwise. Sure, the Soviets managed comparable and sometimes even greater success than the United States in several areas, particularly around heavy industries such as steel manufacturing. But these surface victories masked, at least temporarily, the underlying cracks in the central planning system. Food shortages and breadlines, as well as an alarming lack of basic consumer goods, let alone “luxuries” like blue jeans, prompted social unrest, and eventually the complete collapse of the USSR.

But here is the really surprising thing about the collapse of the Soviet Union – no one saw it coming!

Literally every single forecast and analysis of what the world might look like going forward included the survival of the USSR and its continued competition with the United States.

Think about that for a moment. The collapse of communism was arguably the single most important geopolitical event of the second half of the twentieth century, and yet virtually no one saw it coming. Not the legions ...