Best-Of: Some “undeniably” successful anticipations
The GEAB editorial team has scoured its archives for some particularly successful anticipations. Diving into 5000 future-oriented pages, produced over the past 16 years within the framework of the GEAB, in order to find a few gems is of course a challenge. It is not always easy to agree on what has happened. The present and the past are just as much a matter of interpretation as our future, so that is why these anticipations are above all some that seemed unquestionable to us.
The election of Jair Bolsonaro
April 2017: “[…] the generals are making increasingly alarmist statements suggesting military interventions to solve problems on the streets and at the borders; a virulent extreme right (we invite you to discover the character of Jair Bolsonaro in particular) emerges slowly and could serve as a “democratic” bail for a military coup on the country.” (GEAB 114)
29 October 2018: Jair Bolsonaro is elected president of Brazil. In his first government, of a total of twenty-three ministers, seven are military officers.
Inflation as a consequence of the pandemic
March 2020: «At the beginning of the health crisis, the much hoped for inflation receded. But we don’t think this situation is set to last long or beyond the crisis. In reality, the disruption caused to supply and production chains will create a situation where production methods will become more expensive and will be forced to reorganise (knowing China has probably permanently turned part of the flow of its immense production machine back on itself) and goods will become scarcer as demand picks up again.» (GEAB 143)
September 2021: OECD economies register an inflation rate of 4.6% for the average consumer basket measure. Inflation in energy prices is particularly pronounced (18.9%), with European economies being the most affected in this sector. After fearing lasting deflation and then being reassured of temporary inflation, the media now agree that inflation is sustainable.
The Brexit
November 2013: «British suicidal behaviour is due to the rejection of its natural region of integration, Europe. […] The UK problem is to have conditioned its people over the last 40 years to blame Europe for all its ills. David Cameron, who, in the exercise of power, realizes that the country’s future is blocked outside the European Union, struggles between his party’s hard line which is preoccupied with the success of the UKIP (UK Independence Party, far right nationalist) and the reality which leans in favour of remaining in the EU. […] Giving pledges to some by promising a referendum while campaigning for staying in the EU is a strategy which will distance Cameron and Tories from their electoral base and propel the UKIP ahead.» (GEAB 71)
23/06/2016: British citizens are voting overwhelmingly in favour of their country’s exit. Often in anticipation, it is clearer from a distance than when the battle is approaching. Thus, the ‘hunches’ of 2013 did not allow us to anticipate laying down a firm Brexit forecast in 2016. But we regularly find passages proving the lucidity of our teams regarding this possibility.
The multipolarisation of European financial markets
January 2018: «We anticipate a gradual disconnection between the City and the single market during and after the post-Brexit transition period, as well as a multipolarisation of the financial services in the Eurozone.» (GEAB n° 121)
January 2021: Amsterdam overtakes London in European corporate equity trading, with the City coming second, followed by Paris, then Frankfurt and Milan.
The emergence of systemic rivalry between the UK and China
June 2021: «A far more fundamental systemic rivalry will soon become obvious: the one between the UK and China.» (GEAB n°156)
15 September 2021: Official announcement of the creation of AUKUS, a military alliance between Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom, driven largely by the UK, and directed against China.
The collapse of Lehman Brothers
January 2007: «When today’s leading international players are touting the extraordinary international financial momentum […], the first US mortgage institutions are starting to fail. […] this is also the case for the major investment banks, as shown by the concern of the rating agency Moody’s about the Lehman Brothers subprime loan portfolio.» (GEAB 11)
15 September 2008: Lehman Brothers declares bankruptcy. This event is considered the culmination of the subprime crisis.
Rise of Marion Maréchal’s networks in France through another public figure
June 2021: «We have been observing for several months the discreet rise in power of ultra-conservative forces linked to Marion Maréchal militating for a “Judeo-Christian Europe”. Religion again, and far right, but under a clean, feminine, pro-European, “reasonable” guise. In a word, reassuring. It is difficult to know who will really embody this movement in France after 2022 (probably not Marion Maréchal who knows that power and visibility are not good friends).» (GEAB 156)
24 September 2021: Eric Zemmour and Marion Maréchal both go to Budapest to the gathering of the European nationalist right, where they publicly reaffirm their proximity.
2017, the Chinese course change
January 2017: «The real revelation in 2017 will be that China is not heading to adopt the Western model but to implement a separate model which will send a powerful signal of the end of the single-track economic thinking; this will most probably open a very large window of opportunities for other models to emerge (America first, Europe first, China first, India first, Africa first…) with a great potential for liberating both energies for modernisation and ideological conflicts.» (GEAB N°111)
23 September 2021: China is announcing more and more clearly its intention to propose an alternative to the dominant liberal model. This Chinese-style socialism intends to prioritise the redistribution of wealth, the control of large companies, etc. The GEAB article in reference, published even before the enthronement of Donald Trump, is particularly striking in its accuracy. Read it again.
Crypto-currencies as safe havens
June 2019: «With the greatest caution, playing the diversification and flexibility game to reduce possible risks, we advise you to start investing in the cryptos that now have safe-haven characteristics.» (GEAB 136)
19 August 2019: Business Insider publishes the same finding: “Crypto-currencies such as bitcoin are increasingly attractive to investors as safe-haven assets.” The question now is whether this digital gold status of cryptos is here to stay. We have always said that it depends on governments and their ability to take back control and how (by integrating these new tools or creating new ones like MDBCs). All these options are under constant attention.
The erosion of the British Monarchy’s authority over the Commonwealth
January 2020: « It already seems that the reign of Charles will coincide with a significant downsizing of the monarchy […] (will the British Commonwealth know the fate of the Carolingian Empire when Charlemagne disappeared?). Between reinvention and disappearance, the British monarchy will continue to surprise us in the coming years.» (GEAB 141)
September 2020 : Barbados announces that it is initiating a process to establish itself as an independent republic, with Queen Elizabeth II no longer as head of state. → in fact this will happe on 30 November.
July 2021: Jamaican opposition leader and various political organisations call for Queen Elizabeth II to be removed as Jamaica’s head of state. Here is and another interesting article:
(55% of Canadians believe that the monarchy is not necessary…)
Peace dynamics in the Middle East
November 2017: « Today, many things seem ready to move the region towards peace and the beginnings of a cooperation that is the first step towards regional integration, taking into account the historical multi-faith nature of one of the cradles of humanity… the Manichean visions of “Israel vs. the Arab world” (and then Arab-Muslim, and then Muslim) have largely evolved in recent years. For the inhabitants of the region, it is no longer only the Israelis who are bad, but also the terrorists, ISIS, etc.» (GEAB N°119)
13 August 2020: The Abraham Accords are signed between Israel and the United Arab Emirates on the one hand, and Israel and Bahrain on the other. These first two agreements will soon be followed by others with Morocco, Sudan, Oman, Bahrain, Jordan… a real geopolitical revolution in which nobody believed anymore… except for the GEAB.
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