Capitalism-doomed ping to Today show list.
The story I remember is that Lenin asked an economist, Nickolai Kondratieff, when capitalism would fail. An estimated date for a depression was given, but he made the mistake of saying "but it bounce back", and was sent off some place.
Any way, in a nutshell, Kondratieff had plotted economic and historical activity as measured at the time, and noticed a pattern of 80-90 year cycles.