U.S. intelligence services take a crack at predicting 2020

AP ^ | 12-04-03 | JOHN J. LUMPKIN,

[vladog]

It's 2020 and America, Europe and Japan struggle to maintain a decent quality of life for masses of elderly people. China faces a choice between belligerence and joining Western nations as an economic superpower. India, Brazil and Indonesia are emerging powers.

[vladog]

So what do y'all predict?

[demlosers]

The U.S. will still be the preeminent power on this planet in 2020.

[AntiGuv]

Futurism placemarker!

[B4Ranch]

I predict the bureaucrats will continue to waste our money more so than they do now with idiotic reports such as this.

[Poohbah]

China will be sliding into another cycle of dueling warlords and bandits when they can't find anyone crazy enough to lend them $100 trillion to bail out their bad banks.

[demlosers]

There will not be another Democrat elected president until the year 2028, by then, all the 60s leftist flower-children will be dead or dying from old age.

[Constitution Day]

I predict that things will be about the same, only different.

[Doctor Stochastic]

The English Channel will still be wider than the Atlantic Ocean.

[BenLurkin]

No prediction, but I did find this interesting.

[Jim Noble]

Notre Dame Cathedral will have been reopened as Hagia Maria mosque.

[over3Owithabrain]

The Arizona Cardinals will still suck.

[shaggy eel]

ping

[Digger]

2015: "Between now and 2015 terrorist tactics will become increasingly sophisticated and designed to achieve mass casualties. We expect the trend toward greater lethality in terrorist attacks to continue."

We will have presidents that play the PC game not unlike our current resident sooo these threats will remain thru & including an open border. As I have said, if you do (vote) as you always have, you will get what you always got.

[Cicero]

My prediction is that political correctness will stop these predictions from being much use.

For instance, they predict that Europe will be aging. That's uncomfortable, but everyone already knows it. They don't predict that even as soon as 2020 Europe will be facing a serious Muslim problem, because they don't want to offend any Muslims or multiculturalists. The Muslims won't wait until the have 50% of the population; they are already making moves to take over.

Also, China is probably a much bigger danger than these guys will want to admit. But can they say what they really think in an unclassified report? Or for that matter, given the present dismal state of intelligence, do they even know it?

[Hollywoodghost]

1. A new fuel source will be found to replace oil and it will not be anything that will be expected. It will come from shale oil.
2. The new world power will be in Argentina.
3. Neo-imperalism will dominate Africa as Europe once again controls the continent for raw materials.
4. There will be less than 3 billion humans after depresion, mass death from AIDS, and The great Flu deaths.
5. There will be few elderly as they will be taken by the flu in the great Pandemic of 2006.

[evets]

in the year 2000... "Thanks to advances in automation, Nike shoes will be made by robots. Unfortunately, the robots will be made by children in Malaysia."

[BBell]

No mention of Africa or AIDS. Interesting.

[Sender]

The US and its economy will have been severely hurt by WMD terrorism and outsourcing of jobs by then, but most Americans will still be alive and healthy and living in better standards than most of the world.

Hillary was a one-term president, embroiled in controversy.

Mexico is still poor and undocumented workers still harvest our food and build our houses.

Osama bin Laden died of natural causes but still lives on as a martyr on posters, websites and t-shirts.

Paris Hilton, now 35 and chubby, generates little interest in her latest sex video.

CDs and DVDs were obsoleted by ultra-dense memory chips. Movies and music are available on-demand 24/7 anyway.

TV sucks on all 5000 channels. Walt Disney Studios defends holiday launch of "Crack-ho Santa's Freak Party" as suitable for family entertainment.

Al Gore opens a chain of Tennessee barbecue joints.

Wal-Mart is hit with federal trade inquiry as they become the single largest monopoly on the planet, practically owning several small countries.

Teenagers discover rock-and-roll as if it were new.

AOL users still can't quite get the hang of it.

The oil crisis since the overthrow of Saudi Arabia is greatly offset by the invention of the 3-D fax machine.

Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.

[Lexington Green]

American cities struck with WMD
Mecca is a smoking hole

[Capt. Tom]

So what do y'all predict?

I predict the Jon Benet Ramsey case will be re-opened. - Tom