As a futurist, part of what I do is to present the future to audiences and readers around the world.  Presenting a vision of the future, making predictions and developing forecasts is what a futurist does.

Regular readers of this column know that since last September I have presented you with a number of economic forecasts and predictions.  There has been a constant flood of economic information and revised predictions in the media.  Economic forecasters seem to be rushing to revise their forecasts of just a few months ago to try to stay ahead of the tsunami of bad economic news.  In this environment I thought I should take a look back to see how accurate my forecasts to you have been.

I take great pride in my ability to make correct forecasts and predictions for you my readers, to the audiences I address and to the clients I advise.  In this case the correctness of my predictions are, unfortunately, extremely accurate.

Last fall, in a column titled “The Collapse of …

The Great Recession of 2008-2010/11 is going to be a very tough time economically.  As I wrote in my Forecast for 2009, this economic collapse brings four words to mind.

The first word is contraction, which is the standard way to view a recession.  Economic activity contracts and we are in a recession, economic expansion represents the end to the contraction.  The contraction was severe in the fourth quarter and will be so in the first quarter and second quarter. Output and consumption are in a deep fall right now and will remain so.

The second word is cleansing which in this context means that old ways of doing business, of looking at only the upside, of embracing debt and extreme leverage must and will be cleansed from both the economy and the way that people think. The casino capitalism of the past 20 years will soon be viewed as an unsustainable exercise in individual and corporate greed.

The third word is reorganization.  To quote from the linked column …