You display a pessimism much greater than I think is warranted. My predictions for some of your statements:
Next decade:
One or more countries will drop out of the Euro or the entire system will collapse (5%).
A US state will secede (3%).
Developed countries’ welfare states will begin to collapse (state retirement and unemployment benefits and health care will be severely curtailed or eliminated in more than one developed country) (10%).
Next year:
One or more developed countries will see significant civil unrest due to ongoing problems with the economy (5-20%, depending on how we define a significant unrest).
Holiday retail sales will be below consensus forecasts leading to some market turmoil in the early part of the year as the ‘recovery’ starts to look shaky (30%).
A developed country will suffer a currency crisis—most likely either the UK, US or one of the weaker Eurozone economies (15%).
A new round of bank failures and financial turmoil as the wave of Option ARM mortgage resets starts to hit and commercial real estate collapses including at least one major bank failure (a ‘too big to fail’ bank) (15%).
A major terrorist attack in the US (20%) most likely with a connection to Pakistan. The response will be disproportionate to the magnitude of the attack (99%).
You display a pessimism much greater than I think is warranted. My predictions for some of your statements:
Next decade:
Next year:
These seem overly optimistic to me. Maybe increase the numbers by 50% to 100% other than 99?