Year-end predictions: Economic crisis and Iran nuclear threats

Bold bets for the rest of the year

With weeks left until the calendar turns, a question echoes through economic circles: what surprise awaits before midnight? The challenge was clear: make an infallible prediction, avoiding cowardice or the safe bet that the Popular Party and Vox will split the vote. The result is a catalog of catastrophes ranging from stock market crashes to atomic bombs, including a return of pandemic measures to cool inflation and lower fuel prices.

The list of doom-sayers has its internal logic. A clear entry into economic crisis, including a stock market drop, tops the charts. Behind it looms the suspicion that new lockdowns might contain prices, while others place the Iranian nuclear scenario as the final touch. Optimism, as seen, is absent.

The AI bubble and the yen

The financial side consumes the most ink. Some argue that the AI bubble bursts before year-end and that Anthropic does not go public. This argument links with a more ambitious one: the return of the Japanese yen carry trade, with Japan pushing US debt to the brink, SoftBank's bankruptcy, and a mega-crisis in Japan sweeping the global financial system. The finale would be a depression comparable to that of '27.

It is a domino chain that sounds like a disaster movie script but describes a real mechanism: when the yen appreciates, leveraged positions unwind and credit dries up. The doubt is about timing, not physics.

Trump, China, and the impossible kidnapping

In the geopolitical chapter, imagination runs wild. It is predicted that Trump is kidnapped by Chinese agents and tortured live, and that an Sarracinist attack in the UK will spark riots across the country. Against this, a dissenting voice notes that Trump's and the US's relevance in China is near zero, while another replies that Beijing needs to export to 300 million high-income consumers.

The most plausible, and also the most boring, detail points to a far-right false-flag attack days before elections. It is not ruled out, they admit, knowing how things work.

Sports, politics, and daily life

The predictions get down to earth. Lamine Yamal will thrash the bottom team and ask for the Ballon d'Or again; the far-left party will fall below 100 seats on May 29; Paris will burn again. On a personal level, someone predicts a Christmas Eve binge that forces siblings to lock them up, and another declares that 99.99% won't have sens before December 31.

The closing signature is pure skepticism: whatever happens, nothing will happen. And a statistical certainty: the year ends on December 31. With this material, the question is not what will happen, but how many of these prophecies claim to be fulfilled without anyone checking.