Sam: You're on speaker instead of on my headphones. Hold on.
Ivan: That's right.
Sam: I fix you. Okay, there we go.
Ivan: There's no fixing me. I don't know what you're talking about.
Ivan: I mean, this is what you get.
Ivan: I mean, there's just no software updates. There's no, you know.
Ivan: Right now, it's, you know, as far as I can tell from how much more supplements
Ivan: and medicines I take now, I'm not improving.
Ivan: Okay?
Ivan: Definitely not improving.
Sam: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
Ivan: Okay?
Sam: Well, you know, those things give you superpowers, right? Isn't that how it works?
Ivan: Right. Of course. Yes.
Sam: Okay. Start. Start, start, start. Here we go.
Sam: Kaboom!
Sam: Welcome to Curmudgeon's Corner for Wednesday, December 31st, 2025.
Sam: It is just about 18.30 UTC as we are starting to record. I'm Sam Minter and
Sam: Yvonne Bow is here. Hello, Yvonne.
Ivan: Hello.
Sam: So now, this is our prediction show for 2026.
Sam: It is the last show we were recording in 2026. It won't be out.
Sam: No, it's the last show we're recording in 2025.
Sam: It won't be out until 2026 because
Sam: I'm not going to like turn it around in just a few hours or whatever.
Sam: It'll be out in the next day or two. And so it will be the first show out in
Sam: 2026, but the last show recorded in 2025 because that's how we always do this.
Sam: We are going to do our predictions and we won't have a but first or anything like that.
Sam: We're going to jump straight into it in just a second because this is always
Sam: one of our longest shows of the year, so we just need to get into it.
Sam: Just for those of you who have not listened to one of these before, here is how it works.
Sam: We have some major segments, politics, international, economy,
Sam: technology, and hodgepodge. Each of those will be a section.
Sam: Within each of those, we have subcategories as well. And,
Sam: And we have a whole bunch of questions that we're going to make predictions on.
Sam: Those predictions have to be things that the first week of 2027,
Sam: we will be able to definitively say, were we right or were we wrong?
Sam: So they are time limited to 2026.
Sam: So it's not questions like, you know, will humans land on Mars sometime this
Sam: century? you know it has to be will humans land on mars in 2026 is this like.
Ivan: The price is right.
Sam: It is are we like closest you
Sam: can get without going over going over yeah exactly and so we'll have a bunch
Sam: of these and for the last few weeks i've been pushing a google doc where listeners
Sam: could add questions they wanted us to answer as usual people sort of jumped
Sam: in just in the last couple of days.
Sam: It was very slow. And then the last couple of days, people filled things in.
Sam: I will say we had a decent number of suggestions this time around.
Sam: And so I added very few of my own. I added a couple, but not very many.
Sam: Yvonne didn't add any at all. So, you know, we're going to go through this list and jump through it.
Sam: So anything you want to say before we start off on the first section even.
Ivan: Oh, it's cold, Sam.
Sam: It's cold.
Ivan: I'm freezing.
Sam: Because what? It's like 50 degrees there or something?
Ivan: Yeah. Well, it was... Right now, it says it's 62, but I...
Sam: I mean, every once in a while we do this thing where Yvonne is like,
Sam: oh, my God, it's freezing. And it turns out it was 42.
Ivan: It was 42 degrees last night.
Sam: Oh, my God. That's so horrible.
Ivan: Look, I have been. It was. Look, it got in Orlando yesterday.
Ivan: It got it was. It felt like in the high 40s, low 50s. is we were out and about.
Sam: Uh-huh.
Ivan: I, you know, since we got into buildings, I was tolerating it, but I wasn't liking it.
Ivan: But, oh, my God. I mean, my wife, you know, look, she had a scarf,
Ivan: she had a jacket, she had a raincoat, she had a sweater, and then she had a shirt. I mean...
Sam: You damn Florida people. And gloves.
Ivan: And gloves!
Sam: If I'm going to be outside for less than 10 minutes, I don't even bother putting
Sam: on anything other than like a t-shirt in the forties.
Sam: Like it's different. Like if I'm going to be out for a couple hours or something,
Sam: but like if I'm just going out for a couple of minutes and coming back,
Sam: why bother? You know, it's fine.
Sam: You know? And, and even then it's like, unless it's below 30,
Sam: I'm in a light jacket, you know? So.
Ivan: I mean, I not, no, this is look. I must admit that my cold weather resistance has been in a downward,
Ivan: has been on a, like my health, it's been on a decline.
Sam: A long decline ever since, like, you actually lived, you lived in Pittsburgh
Sam: for a while. You lived in Northern Indiana for a while. And those places are cold.
Ivan: Yes. And I, look, that was not my, there is a reason I moved to Florida.
Ivan: I mean, part of it was, like in Indiana, for example, I went,
Ivan: you know, for several months of the year, I stared out at a lake that was frozen.
Ivan: You know what? No. I said, no, never again am I going to live like this.
Sam: You know, one of the reasons I actually like the Pacific Northwest is to me,
Sam: like, most of the year is what I consider mild, which is highs in the 60s and
Sam: 70s, which is perfect for me.
Sam: like i hate it when the temperature gets in the 80s and i don't mind it that
Sam: much when it's in the 50s or 40s but like 60s or 70s is like a perfect zone
Sam: for me and like that's you know most of the year we're in the 60s or 70s let
Sam: me say right right now right now like i like.
Ivan: My 80s music i like my 80s temperature.
Sam: Low 80s is great if it's in the outdoors if it's in the low 80s I'm like staying
Sam: inside into air conditioning because it's too damn hot.
Ivan: Low 80s is great outdoors. I love low 80s. Low 80s is me rolling down the windows weather. Okay.
Ivan: You know, I'm driving with the AC off. Okay.
Ivan: And that's not sleep weather, but it's nice because usually if it gets during
Ivan: the day in the low 80s, it means that during the day sunrise, it was in the high 60s.
Ivan: So we'll average like 70s during the day. you'll get to a low 80s you know it's
Ivan: a nice day it's a nice day I love it it's fantastic but this shit fuck this
Ivan: shit 42 degrees this morning you fucking kidding me.
Sam: At this very moment outside here where I am in Everett, Washington, it's 36 degrees.
Sam: We have highs in the 40s predicted for the next 10 days, basically.
Sam: And that to me, like if I had to pick ideal outdoor weather,
Sam: I'd be up a little bit. I'd be like 65, 65 to 70.
Sam: But like this weather, I throw in a light jacket. It's no big deal.
Sam: Now, of course, honestly, the reality is 95% of the time plus, I am inside.
Sam: So the outdoor temperature just doesn't matter.
Sam: I have my thermostat inside the house set to keep the house at 70 degrees no matter what.
Sam: Hot or cold outside, it's 70 degrees inside, and that's perfect.
Sam: Although every once in a while, you know, depending on what I am physically
Sam: doing and how I am feeling at the moment, I might feel like I need to change
Sam: it to, yeah, somewhere from 68 to 72.
Sam: But normally I just keep it pegged at 70.
Ivan: Well, I mean, anyway, we've dragged on long enough for the weather.
Sam: Let's make some predictions.
Ivan: Sam.
Sam: Can we start?
Ivan: Okay. Let's make some predictions.
Sam: So each of, we're going to do the politics section first, and this is usually
Sam: the longest of the segments.
Sam: And it is subdivided. We didn't used to always subdivide, but now we now we subdivide.
Sam: And and so the first subdivision of politics is presidential.
Sam: And the first batch of questions here is from our loyal listener, Ed.
Sam: So starting out strong, will President Trump still be president at the end of 2026?
Ivan: Fuck me.
Ivan: I'm going to go.
Sam: Yes, I, you know, that, that is the safe answer. I'm going to go with no.
Ivan: Whoa.
Sam: And, and, and I, I recognize this is the risky answer.
Sam: And, and his follow-up question is if not what will cause his loss of position.
Sam: And he offers, uh, he offers four choices, death or five, death,
Sam: disabling illness, impeachment, resignation, or assassination.
Sam: I will start out by saying...
Ivan: Let's not predict assassination, shall we?
Sam: Well, I was going to...
Ivan: We'll get into trouble with...
Sam: Yes. Yes, I'm not going to predict those. And I feel like resignation is really
Sam: unlikely, given his ego.
Ivan: Oh, God, he would never resign. I mean, unless... Here is my unless.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: He would never resign unless he loses his marbles so much that he gets convinced
Ivan: into resigning somehow.
Ivan: You understand what I'm saying? You know, something happens with his head and
Ivan: somebody just convinces him to resign.
Sam: Somehow that's the way to win.
Ivan: What?
Sam: Yes. I think impeachment is nearly impossible as well.
Sam: Like, you know, we've been through this game twice.
Sam: Well, no, they impeached him twice. They impeached him twice.
Ivan: They haven't convicted him. Well, no, they haven't convicted him.
Sam: You know, now, now, is it possible that we get a third impeachment?
Ivan: It's I just don't.
Sam: Not this year. I would say not this year. Maybe next year.
Ivan: I mean, next. I mean, well, you're listening.
Sam: 2027.
Ivan: 2027. Yeah. You're listening to this.
Sam: If the Democrats take the House and we have like live video of him with Epstein girls or something.
Ivan: Then I think that they will rationalize that, too.
Sam: Yeah yeah um i mean they've.
Ivan: Rationalized everything so far i mean why won't they rationalize that too.
Sam: No i i but anyway my prediction and again i recognize this one is out on a limb
Sam: a little bit i will say he will be gone at the end of 2026 and it will be health
Sam: reasons i won't say for sure like he's going to be dead.
Sam: Maybe he'll be dead. Maybe it'll be some serious. But I feel like his health
Sam: is declining and declining more rapidly as time goes on.
Sam: And he was never particularly healthy to begin with.
Sam: You predicted he's good. You predicted that he's going to die of a heart attack
Sam: every year for the last 10 years.
Ivan: Well, by the way, if we talk about every prediction this long,
Ivan: this show will be the longest show in the history of Curbudge's Corner.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: Okay.
Sam: Our longest show ever was like six or seven hours, so that would be hard to top.
Ivan: At the rate we are going, we couldn't be approaching that.
Sam: So therefore, these shows are typically three hours, the prediction shows.
Ivan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But let's try not to, you know, break records.
Ivan: Okay, all right. Let's, okay.
Sam: Yvonne is impatient. Okay, fine. He will not be president at the end of 2026,
Sam: and the reason will be something health-related.
Sam: Okay, and Yvonne says he will be. Okay, next, Yvonne.
Sam: What will the DJT stock be at at the end of 2026?
Ivan: Oh, fuck me. Do I have to give a precise number?
Ivan: Well, it was somewhere in the 12s.
Sam: I haven't even looked at this thing in forever.
Ivan: Last time I looked at it, which was a few weeks ago, somewhere in the 12s.
Ivan: It's at 13.45, so it wasn't that far off.
Ivan: I will say that the price will be somewhere between 5 and 15. There we go. How's that?
Sam: Between 12 and 15?
Ivan: Five and 15. Five.
Sam: Oh, five and 15. Oh, you're going with the nice, like, Abel Smey-style ranges this year.
Ivan: Well, fuck yeah. I mean, otherwise I'm going to get this wrong again.
Sam: Well, you know, I used to do all these ranges, and, like, the last couple years
Sam: I've just done up or down. So I'm going to say down over the course of the year.
Ivan: I'm going to keep the range. Between five and 15. There we go.
Sam: Okay. There you go. Okay. Next up, will the courts...
Sam: presumably going all the way up to SCOTUS, Ed says, require the Kennedy Center
Sam: to remove the Donald Trump signs on the outside.
Sam: I'm going to say no. This will not even...
Ivan: Well, okay, I don't think it will get to a point of a decision in like just during 2025.
Ivan: So I'm going to say no, but simply because it will still be tied up in the court.
Sam: So has somebody already done a lawsuit over this?
Ivan: I don't know. It's just because, you know, I'm going to say no because either
Ivan: somebody hasn't filed a lawsuit or it's just, you know, it is illegal.
Ivan: I mean, the law is pretty clear.
Sam: Well, here's the weirdness on this, right? Like, the law is about what its official name is.
Sam: Does the law specify you can't put extra words on the building?
Sam: Does the law specify you can't put extra words on programs and paper documents?
Sam: As long as you use the official name in legal documents, it's probably fine.
Ivan: I, no.
Sam: No?
Ivan: I don't think that that, I mean, I could see how that argument might be made,
Ivan: especially by Trump's- I mean.
Sam: Because you got the same thing of the Department of War versus the Department
Sam: of Defense. It's the same kind of thing.
Ivan: True, but I haven't seen anybody also sue properly about that either.
Sam: Well, here's the thing.
Ivan: And nobody's got standing. Now, I could say that I don't know who would have
Ivan: standing in the stupid Kennedy Center thing. either i don't know.
Sam: Yeah that's the thing i think this is the kind of issue that it's just not going
Sam: to go anywhere like even if somebody makes the lawsuits that it can get and
Sam: certainly not in this certainly not to resolution i don't think you get this coming year anywhere.
Ivan: This year however this year no but with a new congress maybe because they would have standing,
Ivan: As has been shown in the past in these issues. But I don't think that this is
Ivan: something that will change during 2026.
Sam: Okay. Now, let me ask. The next couple of things that Ed suggested are,
Sam: will Trump do various things internationally?
Sam: Should those be in the international section or should they be here?
Ivan: Yes. They should be in the international section.
Sam: I'm going to move them down then.
Sam: Okay. And, uh,
Sam: wait, wait, I'm noticing other things in the wrong sections.
Sam: I should, I thought I'd fixed all these like a couple hours ago, but apparently not.
Ivan: Just a sheer display of your continued incompetence at this job. We need to cut your pay.
Sam: I know it's, it's, it's horrible.
Sam: I, you know, I make too much from this thing.
Ivan: Yes. You know, yes, you're definitely making way too much from this damn thing.
Sam: Okay. Continuing. Okay. That's international too.
Sam: People, people, when you add things into the categories, like,
Sam: you know, if, if you're asking about other countries,
Sam: even if it's Trump, it's international okay so i i'm moving this down and yeah
Sam: okay and again my i i i went through all of these questions like two hours ago
Sam: and moved a bunch so like my fault for missing some okay,
Sam: will scotus rule against potus on tariffs this is from bruce now the all of
Sam: the others so far from that. This is from Bruce.
Ivan: I think that in the case that the lower courts.
Sam: There's one that's at SCOTUS right now.
Ivan: The one that is at SCOTUS, I think that the answer is yes, that they're going
Ivan: to rule against them on the tariffs.
Ivan: However, it doesn't mean that the tariffs will go away because they have been
Ivan: using other different authorities in order to impose the tariffs.
Ivan: So, therefore, I think that they will rule against them on that specific case.
Sam: Yeah. And so, like, what you said, I was going to say, I think they're going
Sam: to find some way to split the baby. and the way you described,
Sam: like, I think lines up, actually.
Sam: They say that this particular authority that's going through the courts right
Sam: now was not the right authority to use.
Sam: And Donald Trump immediately, like you said, they've already started using other authorities, too.
Sam: They just immediately reenact the same tariff under another authority and it
Sam: resets going through the courts.
Sam: And so, effectively, they rule against Donald Trump, but without actually affecting
Sam: the policy on the ground in any way.
Ivan: That's right.
Sam: Okay. Yes. I think that's possible. Yes, that's my prediction too.
Sam: Will Trump get to nominate a new SCOTUS justice from Bruce?
Sam: And we've got, there have been rumors for a while that both Alito and Thomas
Sam: are essentially ready to retire and they're going to want to do so while Trump is president.
Sam: And they're probably going to want to do so while Trump is president and has
Sam: a strong position in the Senate.
Sam: So the question is, do they do it this year?
Sam: Or does at least one of them do it this year?
Ivan: How old is Alito? He's 75.
Sam: And of course, any of the others could like, yeah. Yeah.
Sam: Have a health issue or retire for some other reason.
Ivan: I'm going to say no, not this year.
Sam: I'm going to say yes.
Ivan: You think that they throw it? You think Alita or Thomas? Because they're age 75 and 77.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: I don't think that either of these guys will either. They will.
Sam: You think they're going to die in office?
Ivan: Yeah. I think they will. Yeah.
Ivan: These guys love holding on to power like this. Come on. No way.
Sam: You know, honestly, I feel like, and I forget, I have not listened to last year's
Sam: prediction show, but we had this question last year, too.
Sam: And I think I predicted that there would be a SCOTUS vacancy already.
Sam: And so I'm a little bit surprised. Maybe I'm wrong. I haven't listened.
Sam: I don't remember. But I think I'm a little surprised it hasn't happened already,
Sam: because you'd think these two would want to lock in that conservative position
Sam: for another X number of years.
Sam: Now, I guess they may just be counting on their locking in the presidency.
Sam: And so they don't have to worry about that. There's not going to be another
Sam: Democratic president anytime soon anyway.
Ivan: It so now i don't i think you're you're overly complicated their thought process
Ivan: i mean there is listen alito and thomas have shown that that job has an unlimited amount of,
Ivan: perks and trappings that they have availed themselves to that no other job would
Ivan: have and these people like that shit too much to just go and give it up.
Sam: I can see your argument. I can see your argument for sure.
Sam: On the other hand, you know, you have the counter arguments of,
Sam: you know, Scalia died early and unexpectedly. And, of course.
Ivan: On the other side— But he was also of the same thought. Look,
Ivan: l'état c'est moi, baby, as it used to be said.
Ivan: Okay, you know, après moi, le déluge.
Ivan: you know after me the deluge listen
Ivan: these guys they don't you think
Ivan: they're thinking of the of the greater good of the conservative cause blah blah
Ivan: blah have you not seen that all these people are all just in the end selfish
Ivan: pricks yes yes yes so there you go i.
Sam: I mean you you do also have the Ruth Bader Ginsburg precedent that they've got
Sam: to be worried about where she was like, oh, no problem. We know Hillary's going
Sam: to win, so I can wait. And then, you know, that didn't happen.
Sam: Yeah. So anyway. Okay. Next up, I was yes, you were no.
Sam: Blah, blah, blah. Okay. Another from Ed. What additional Washington structure
Sam: will Trump rename in his honor in 2026.
Sam: We know we did the Kennedy Center and new structures he's building doesn't count
Sam: because he wants to build the ballroom. He wants to build that arch.
Sam: It's like renaming existing things.
Sam: What do you think? Any more?
Ivan: I, you know.
Sam: The Trump Washington Monument?
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: Ed had suggested, I believe that.
Ivan: Somebody actually already did, did like a Photoshop, like showing like the letters
Ivan: Trump, like written on the side of the Washington Monument that I saw like last week.
Ivan: I mean, I, that, that, that's right up his alley.
Ivan: I, I, I, I, yeah, sure. He'll try to rename. I'm going to say he's going to
Ivan: try to rename something else.
Sam: Yeah. Yeah. But which? The question.
Ivan: I don't know which. I'm just going to say that he's going to try to rename something
Ivan: else. That's my prediction.
Sam: Now, Ed had suggested Dulles, which is not technically in Washington,
Sam: D.C., of course, but is in the Washington metropolitan area.
Sam: If we're not naming which thing, I will also say yes.
Sam: He will try to rename something else after himself, but not specify what.
Sam: But I don't think it's going to be like, you know, the Trump Jefferson Memorial, the Trump Washington.
Ivan: But I'm going to say this. I don't know why they're saying Dulles.
Ivan: If he's going to go for an airport, why not go for the gold? Trump Reagan.
Sam: Trump Reagan?
Ivan: Yeah. I mean, he already went for Trump Kennedy Center. Why the fuck not Trump Reagan?
Sam: Yeah, I could see that. And remember, this is 2026 specifically.
Sam: So, like, his ballroom ain't going to be ready. So that doesn't count.
Sam: And that would be a new thing anyway. I'm talking renaming.
Sam: What else? The Trump Smithsonian?
Ivan: The Trump Smithsonian.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: The Trump Jefferson Memorial. The Trump Lincoln Memorial.
Sam: Yeah, I don't know. I'm just going to say yes without specifying.
Ivan: Trump Pennsylvania Avenue.
Sam: Because I figure it's not going to be one of the big ones. I mean,
Sam: even he would have issues with, like, those. I don't know.
Ivan: I mean, Trump, Pennsylvania Avenue, I don't know what else.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: Anyway.
Sam: Now, next up, and this one was one I added, because I was surprised nobody else
Sam: had put anything related to this anywhere in here.
Sam: But any additional impact on Trump himself from the Epstein files?
Ivan: Oh, God, yes. This thing is like a trip, trip, trip of fucking, I mean.
Sam: I mean, we're not doing a real show. this week or we'd be talking about the
Sam: allegations in there of like additional rapes.
Ivan: Murders, murders of a baby. Listen, the answer is yes.
Ivan: The answer is, the answer is he's not getting away.
Ivan: He has not, you know, he has managed to get away, you know, make other stuff
Ivan: go away. He's not making this go away.
Sam: And see, the thing is, you know, and we're not going to do like a segment on it,
Sam: like if we were doing a real show but like the we got
Sam: more allegations we don't
Sam: have more proof which is why most
Sam: of the mainstream media outlets are like holding off on this stuff with like
Sam: a 10-foot pole and not even mentioning most of the stuff that you see on social
Sam: media because yes there's an allegation of something really insane in the documents
Sam: but there's no proof of it beyond And, okay,
Sam: somebody called in and made the allegation, but we also don't yet know,
Sam: because there are still millions of documents, apparently, that are still unreleased.
Sam: We don't know if these claims were investigated at all.
Sam: Did somebody look into it and determine it was false?
Sam: Did no one look into it? We just don't know. You know?
Ivan: Yeah.
Ivan: I do think that given the volume of allegations and the fact that he died,
Ivan: Epstein died, which in most cases, look, prosecutions end with the death of the person. Okay.
Ivan: So that is something that's happened.
Ivan: Hell, if you're not even convicted, let's say you go to a trial and you're convicted,
Ivan: but not sentenced. And you die before sentencing.
Ivan: Everything goes away. But so this happened.
Ivan: The reason I always remember this was Ken Lay, the CEO of Enron. That happened.
Ivan: He was prosecuted, convicted and died before sentencing.
Ivan: And basically it's like he was never convicted because he died before sentencing.
Ivan: So in the Epstein case, I do think that because of Epstein's death,
Ivan: a lot in those voluminous files basically just wasn't following up anymore.
Ivan: Now, Glaine Maxwell was investigated, you know, was investigated and prosecuted and convicted her.
Sam: Well, and a lot of it wasn't investigated earlier either.
Sam: A lot of these claims that are coming out are like 15, 20, some of them 30 years
Sam: old, you know, and are coming out into files now.
Ivan: Still, you have to remember that, you know, one of the records that came out
Ivan: this week was related to travel records of the Miami Herald reporter. Actually.
Sam: And that was not that old.
Ivan: Right. That actually, you know, really made the Seppstein case happen. That's the reality.
Ivan: Cold, you know, she went and dug through everything and made a series on the Herald that literally,
Ivan: the SDNY looked at it.
Ivan: And when they read it, they said, what the fuck? And they reopened,
Ivan: they opened that case again.
Ivan: So what I'm saying is that I think it's entirely possible that,
Ivan: you know, we go back through all of this again. And it's just,
Ivan: it's just that nobody, it's so big that nobody's touched some of this stuff.
Sam: Yeah, well, it's so big that nobody's touched some of it. And people were intimidated away from it.
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: People who were investigators were told not to touch it.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: People who were victims were told that bad things would happen to them or their
Sam: families if they pursued it. Some of them were paid off.
Sam: There's a lot of history of apparently Epstein just handing out money for people
Sam: to shut the hell up and go away.
Sam: Anyway, yes, without doing a segment on Epstein, we both agree there will be
Sam: more related to Donald Trump that continues to come out. Yes.
Sam: But you don't think it'll cause a resignation or impeachment or whatever,
Sam: you know, and I think even if he disappears, it won't be that.
Ivan: Donald Trump is not leaving the White House, I think, unless it's in a body
Ivan: bag right now at this point.
Sam: Okay. Okay, that's it for presidential. Moving on to Congress.
Sam: Number one from Ed, what will be the makeup of Congress after the election?
Sam: He wants no majority and number of seats.
Sam: I'm not going to do number of seats this year.
Ivan: But I will say- I will clearly say the Democrats are taking the House this year.
Ivan: Doesn't matter what the hell happens.
Sam: Yes, I was going to say Democrats take the House, but not the Senate. That was my prediction.
Ivan: Very tough. I mean, even though, you know, it's just the map is very tough for the Senate.
Ivan: There's just no, there's just not enough seats.
Sam: The only thing I'll say on that is if these numbers that we've been having from
Sam: special elections end up even close next November,
Sam: then the Senate is actually in play, even though it's a really tough year.
Ivan: The Senate is maybe in play, but I just...
Sam: It's still a stretch.
Ivan: Yeah. Yeah, I'm not going on a limb on the Senate, but I do think definitely the House is,
Ivan: I mean, you want the best sign of how bad it is in the House?
Ivan: Look at the people leaving now.
Ivan: And they're heading for the exits early because the following grift gets a lot
Ivan: more difficult if you've got a lot of people heading for the exits at the same
Ivan: time. So you want to be first there.
Ivan: Okay. All right. To be doing that.
Sam: Well, somebody mentioned, like, the reason you want to be first,
Sam: especially if you're a Republican leaving right now in the House where it's
Sam: so narrow, you don't want to be the one person who leaves who hands the majority to the Democrats.
Ivan: Right. Yeah.
Sam: So you only got a room for a couple of people to go.
Ivan: You've got, you know, you've got only a couple of, like, medical emergencies
Ivan: away from that right now anyway.
Sam: Right. Okay, so just to be clear, my prediction is Democrats take the House,
Sam: but Republicans stay in the Senate. Is yours the same?
Sam: Because so far you haven't actually made a prediction one way or another.
Ivan: No, no, no. No, no, no. The Democrats think the House, the Senate doesn't change hands. Okay.
Sam: Okay, we're in agreement. Next up, also from Ed, will Congress direct reversal
Sam: of any tariffs emplaced by Trump?
Ivan: Not 2026.
Sam: Yeah, I'm going to say no. No.
Sam: It's just, Congress is going to do nothing.
Ivan: Mike Johnson is Sorry.
Sam: Not nothing. Nothing significant.
Ivan: No, they're not going to do anything, Sam. Mike Johnson is useless.
Sam: They'll rename some damn post offices.
Ivan: Okay, but that's not doing anything, Sam.
Sam: This is why I say there will be bills passed and signed but there will not be
Sam: any significant policy changes because of those bills passed and signed.
Sam: like like they may they'll kick the can down the road a few more times on budget
Sam: stuff for instance you know that kind of stuff will happen i think there's a
Sam: question on that later too,
Sam: so so no to this question um and
Sam: same thing will congress take steps to preserve the affordable care act.
Ivan: They're not going to do anything.
Sam: Yeah, I will agree on that. I mean, that's one that may get a little bit more
Sam: pressure. And we know there have been some Republicans already breaking from Trump.
Sam: Well, actually, Trump himself has gone wishy-washy on that a couple of times.
Ivan: Trump has broken from himself.
Sam: He has.
Ivan: Which is a normal thing. It's a normal event. Yes.
Sam: Yeah. I mean, so, I don't know. But I'm going to say no just because it's an election year.
Ivan: Can I just say, listen, I'm going to say no, because the Republicans love sticking it to people.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: I mean, they really love this part. Especially those people that don't deserve
Ivan: any of this fucking government help shit.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: Except corporations. Those deserve it.
Sam: Okay, next up. Will Congress enact any of the Republican alternatives to the Affordable Care Act?
Ivan: Fuck no!
Sam: Specifically expanded health savings accounts and some sort of check set.
Ivan: They're not going to do anything. They're not going to fucking do anything.
Ivan: These assholes are going to do anything.
Sam: I'll agree that was from Ed. And then Bruce has one that sort of overlaps with Ed's.
Sam: Will Congress preserve the ACA subsidies for the middle class?
Sam: I think we've covered that already. No.
Ivan: Fuck the middle class. No.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: You know, the Republicans should be, you know, if the Republicans want to be
Ivan: honest, they should really have a shirt that's just, you know,
Ivan: Trump should come out and just say, fuck the middle class.
Ivan: Although he kind of said it at some point, but, you know, not exactly in those words.
Sam: And now we're into other. From Bruce, will there be another government shutdown?
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: I'm going to say no. You think no? I think they will just very quietly extend things.
Ivan: Kick the can down the road. I'm not going to talk you out of it.
Ivan: I'm not going to talk you out of it. But yeah, I think for sure there will be
Ivan: another government shutdown. Yes.
Sam: Okay. Since longer than the last one?
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: Okay. Another shutdown and longer than the last one, which was already a record
Sam: breaker. So you're predicting it.
Ivan: Are you stuck on your prediction?
Sam: I'm going to stick with no shutdown because I think they will just quietly,
Sam: Democrats and Republicans, agree to kick the can down the road with almost no drama.
Ivan: Okay. And you're firm on your position.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: Okay. The reason I'm saying this is because the last time that there was a congressional
Ivan: shift like this, okay, with Trump in power, the shutdown wasn't lifted until
Ivan: the Democrats took office.
Ivan: And if this is the case, again, that they're going to lose, the Republicans aren't going to do shit.
Ivan: They're going to say, fuck this, it's not our case. And they're going to dump
Ivan: it until the Democrats get into power to cut the deal.
Sam: So the next time this comes up is only like March, though, right?
Ivan: Well, I know, well, we have that, but I think.
Sam: Or not even January.
Ivan: Doesn't this run out again just in a few weeks? Yes, it's in January,
Ivan: but I don't think it's going to be now. I'm going to think they're going to do a kick the can.
Ivan: They're probably going to do a kick the can in January, but then it's going
Ivan: to get to the next kick the can.
Sam: Because they'll kick the can until after the election.
Ivan: They're going to kick the, no, I don't.
Ivan: They didn't do it now. They only got two months.
Sam: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So you think they're going to kick the can multiple times over the year?
Ivan: Yes. And then one of those is going to get stuck. And the one that gets stuck,
Ivan: then it's going to be shut down until after the election.
Sam: Well, okay. And you're thinking probably not even not after the election,
Sam: but probably all the way through the end of the year.
Sam: Yes. Let the Democrats fix it in January.
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: Okay. Yes. okay um and one last question and this is me adding one on epstein
Sam: again we talked about epstein and trump will there be epstein file impacts on
Sam: other politicians additional beyond what we've already seen.
Ivan: I don't know.
Sam: And then i've got one later on for other famous people who aren't politicians
Sam: but this is just politicians,
Sam: Like, do we get definitive proof of Bill Clinton doing bad things?
Ivan: I don't know anybody.
Sam: Some senator?
Ivan: There's only been like one mention of, millions of pages, been like one mention
Ivan: of Bill Clinton and all this whole thing so far that they've come up with. I'm going to go with yes.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: Somebody else. That's somebody else. I don't know who, though.
Sam: Some other politician.
Ivan: Yeah. Somebody, some other politician will get a snarl.
Sam: And just to be clear on definition.
Ivan: And I will define by politician. It can be either somebody that was in office or is in office.
Sam: I was about to clarify that. Yes.
Ivan: Okay.
Sam: So it doesn't have to be somebody currently holding office. It could be somebody
Sam: like Bill Clinton who's been out of office for a long time.
Sam: And it could be presidents, senators, congresspeople, governors,
Sam: all kinds of things. Right. Like politician, general.
Sam: Right. Okay. Anyway, I will say for the record, I do not believe my wife is in the Epstein files.
Ivan: So that's one of your, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to pad my stats and I'm
Ivan: going to, I'm going to, I'm going to agree that your wife is not in the Epstein files.
Sam: Okay. Because she is a politician, of course.
Ivan: Yes. And I, and I will make the bold prediction that your wife will not be in the Epstein files.
Sam: Oh, and, and I, it is an election year for my wife as well.
Sam: So I would be remiss if I did not make the prediction that she will win re-election.
Ivan: Okay, I will also predict that Brandy's going to win re-election.
Sam: Yes. Like, yes. I would be in trouble if I predicted anything else.
Ivan: Okay, so this weren't the politics, okay?
Sam: And by the way, I'm not changing my prediction because I do think it's the way.
Ivan: Does my condo board election count as politics?
Sam: Sure, why not?
Ivan: Okay, all right, we have a condo board election coming up January 9th.
Ivan: Okay, so it's going to be in 2026. We've never had this before that it's aligned
Ivan: with this, with the, you know, like with the prediction show in this way. Okay.
Ivan: So, Sam, do you predict I will be president of the condo board again in January?
Sam: Wait, you're actually running to try to get it back?
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: Like, because you quit in disgust and were like, I'm done with this.
Ivan: Yes, but, you know, the new people that came in basically are,
Ivan: my summary is that they are running a Trumpian playbook.
Ivan: And so basically, I am at my disgust right now at their basically just self-serving craziness.
Ivan: I'm running again.
Ivan: So, will I win? Will I win my seat again? By the way, I actually won the election last time.
Ivan: I didn't lose in the last election, by the way. I won.
Ivan: But I quit in part because of all the shit that was going on. I was sick.
Ivan: One, I was sick. I was like, I don't want to deal with this shit right now. So I quit.
Ivan: I'm running again. So I did win the last election, but I resigned.
Sam: To properly analyze this, I need to know the polling.
Ivan: No polls. I have no idea.
Sam: Man, like, do you have a sense?
Ivan: I can say this, that there is one thing, like, right now, which may give you
Ivan: an indication that this is— I was just reading these.
Ivan: I just got these documents today. And one of the bizarre things that they did
Ivan: is, and I'm checking whether it's probably not legal, they expanded the size of the board, okay?
Ivan: And now, here's the thing about the expansion of the size of the board.
Ivan: There are now seven candidates, okay?
Sam: Uh-huh.
Ivan: But there are, they, it used to be three board seats, but they expanded it to
Ivan: five board seats. So the odds of me winning are high based on that information.
Sam: Okay. I was going to ask, are other voters expressing their discontent and upset
Sam: about what they're doing?
Sam: Yes. I'll go ahead and predict you win.
Ivan: You're going to predict I win? Okay. All right. I'm going to abstain from making
Ivan: a prediction on my own election. That kind of feels icky.
Ivan: it's like i i i every time i go and i make a prediction on my own shit i'm always
Ivan: you know create i don't know creating my own problems so there you go all right okay.
Sam: And that brings us to the end of the politics section.
Ivan: Okay should we take a break and.
Sam: Just from my memory of previous shows we actually wrapped up politics faster
Sam: than we usually do despite your like oh my god speed it up speed it up speed
Sam: it up comments at the beginning.
Ivan: No no no the reason i said it was Because if we did go at the pace that we were
Ivan: going at first, we weren't going to make this the longest show in the history
Ivan: of mankind. So, yes, I did speed it up.
Sam: We'll spend a lot more time talking about the European predictions in the international
Sam: section later, I'm sure. Okay.
Sam: okay it is time for a break unless you have any more politics stuff you want
Sam: to throw in last minute that we have not already covered.
Ivan: Let me see do I want to throw in an extra prediction,
Ivan: any extra predictions okay I'll throw one in yes I'll throw one in this may
Ivan: fuck my stats up I'm going to say that Mike Johnson doesn't make it at speaker
Ivan: until the end of the year Oh.
Sam: How's that? I will say he will. He will be speaker through the end of the year.
Ivan: I know that's an aggressive prediction, but there are circumstances that could really force his hand.
Sam: There are several different circumstances. I mean, one, we talked about already,
Sam: the right people leave unexpectedly and the Democrats actually take the majority.
Sam: um the other is we get enough
Sam: republicans unhappy that they try to kick him
Sam: out again so far there does not seem to
Sam: be appetite for that mtg mtg was like asking around about that just a few weeks
Sam: ago and did not find support for it um you know another is you know something
Sam: happens to him you know as a scandal whatever like you know but yeah i'm gonna
Sam: say he he makes it through the year Okay. Okay.
Sam: Time for a break. The first break here is an Apple Dream.
Sam: It's Apple Dream 36 making its premiere on the show. Here we go.
Sam: Okay, we are back, and it is time for international. First batch of questions is from Ed.
Sam: What additional EU nations will elect far-right presidents or other major leaders?
Ivan: Hmm. I'm going to say nobody right now.
Sam: Nobody additional?
Ivan: As a matter of fact, no, they have actually been on the losing in a few recently.
Ivan: Bulgaria just had one recently where they lost.
Sam: I think the pattern in a bunch of these has been they've been gaining some ground
Sam: in parliaments, but not enough to actually win power.
Sam: And in some places, like you said, they've been losing ground, too.
Sam: But even when they have been gaining ground, it hasn't been quite enough so
Sam: that, you know, a coalition of the other parties is able to push it.
Sam: Even in a few cases where they've ended up like the biggest party in some area,
Sam: all of the other parties have banded together to keep them out of power.
Ivan: There was an article that I was just reading about the Bulgaria election where
Ivan: they actually, they went, they, and I do think that the countries that are closer
Ivan: to the border with Russia,
Ivan: they, they, they have been far more aggressive at being anti the far right crazies
Ivan: that love Putin kind of stuff.
Ivan: OK, well, they see it up close and
Ivan: they they they are ones that are not definitely liking any of that shit.
Ivan: And what I saw and I the heck there we go. Let me see. I'm pulling up the story.
Ivan: Here it is. This was just yesterday. Bulgarians joined the euro and eject their
Ivan: government, basically.
Ivan: OK, huge anti-corruption protests provide a chance for reform. So basically, they...
Ivan: You know, they pushed away a party that was, like, kind of, like,
Ivan: aligned with all of this shit.
Ivan: And they decided, fuck that. And no, we want to be closer to the EU, not less.
Ivan: By the way, you know, I know that the UK is not in the EU anymore.
Ivan: But there was a recent poll that showed, like, right now how much support,
Ivan: how much, hey, did we, the question to the British people, did we fuck up by
Ivan: leaving the EU right now?
Sam: Basically, yes.
Ivan: Basically i don't think the answer is but yeah not those
Ivan: words but that was basic that was the basic uh gist of it it's north of 70 percent
Ivan: of of people in the uk right now saying oh my god we fucked up so bad north
Ivan: of 70 percent right i mean it's so fucked up.
Sam: Okay by the way in case it wasn't obvious we're in it we are in the international
Sam: section now in the europe subsection.
Ivan: Okay, next time. You know, every time you say the international section,
Ivan: all it brings back to me are flashbacks of my beloved program that was canceled at CNN.
Ivan: Do you remember what it was called?
Sam: The International Hour, was it? Yes, that's correct. I remember Christie Brinkley
Sam: replaced it. That's the important part.
Ivan: Yes, that, yeah. It was on from 10 a.m. to like 12.
Sam: House of Style.
Ivan: Whatever. They replaced it with fucking House of Style.
Ivan: I swear to God, I've never, I see these people right now punching TVs and wanted to do that.
Ivan: I never felt more the urge of wanting to take a baseball bat to my TV than having
Ivan: my fucking program replaced by fucking House of Style with Christy Brinkley.
Sam: I will say, however, even after that swap, if you compare CNN now to CNN then...
Sam: It's, listen, it's sad.
Ivan: Listen, they're all sad. It's a reason why I, for a long, long,
Ivan: long, long time, don't watch any. You only watch Bloomberg.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: Yes, that's it. It's the only, you know what, it's, it's, it's, why?
Ivan: It's wonky. We talk about endogenous factors and, you know, exogenous economic
Ivan: shocks and, you know, beta of stocks and, you know, that kind of shit.
Ivan: And I'm like, this is what I'm here for.
Ivan: OK, you know, the under, you know, all the underlying factors that affect the
Ivan: CPI and how it gets revised and blah, blah, blah.
Ivan: And that kind of shit, you know, real stuff. OK, you know, not.
Ivan: Hey, didn't we piss off some guy in Indiana? Next.
Sam: Yeah. So, you know, I found in recent years, I have found MSNBC the most watchable,
Sam: but they have declined significantly in the last year as well.
Sam: The number of shows on that network that I find watchable is like less than
Sam: half of what it was a year and a half ago.
Sam: You know, it's just and and of those, there are only a couple that I think are
Sam: actually good, you know, and it's just I don't know.
Sam: All of these places are under the same sort of financial pressures and ratings changing ratings.
Sam: They're chasing ratings.
Ivan: I know that my type of TV news show does not at all accrue ratings.
Sam: Right. But they're chasing ratings. They're part of conglomerates that have
Sam: to make Trump happy because of mergers and all this other crap.
Sam: Like, we've got all kinds of factors that are at play that just,
Sam: like, the overall quality of that kind of stuff is declining.
Sam: And I feel like there's got to be an opportunity in there somewhere.
Sam: But at the same time, the reason it's it's all declining for a reason. The economics are bad.
Ivan: The economics are bad, especially of linear any linear broadcast media.
Ivan: I mean, the only reason why Bloomberg can make money at it is because of all
Ivan: the revenue sources that they they've got, not definitely ratings or any of
Ivan: that stuff. And because Michael Bloomberg decides that that's what you know.
Sam: But this is why clearly we are going to fill that gap and, you know,
Sam: we will have subscribers by the millions by the end of the year.
Sam: Is that a prediction, Yvonne?
Sam: We'll save that for later.
Ivan: We'll save that for later. Okay.
Sam: We'll save that for later.
Ivan: On international predictions. Okay.
Sam: Will Sarkozy be—oh, I didn't predict the far-right presidents.
Sam: I will agree with you. I will agree with you. No additional.
Sam: Okay. Will Sarkozy still be in office at the end of the year?
Sam: I don't even know what's up with their current election cycles and all that. Do you know?
Ivan: That I recall, because remember, they've got the presidency and they've got—I
Ivan: don't remember if it's premiership—you know, because you've got the—is it prime—it's
Ivan: It's not a prime minister.
Sam: President. It's not a prime minister.
Ivan: Yeah, it's another name for that role. I mean, Sarkozy is president.
Ivan: And that term is a long term.
Sam: It's a five-year term.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: He started in 2017.
Ivan: It's not Sarkozy. It's Macron. What are we talking about? Yeah,
Ivan: Sarkozy's been out of office.
Sam: Hey, I just read Ed's question. It's my...
Ivan: I'm like, yeah, Ed, sorry. Make a live correction. Yeah, no,
Ivan: Sarkozy's in jail, if I think correctly now.
Ivan: Then he got convicted of something, didn't he?
Sam: Yes, he did. He's a French former politician and convicted criminal who served
Sam: as president from 2007 to 2012.
Sam: Right. I'm not sure if he's still in jail. I'll check that while you check the
Sam: situation of the current president.
Ivan: Let me, okay. Hang on.
Ivan: Let's see. When is Macron's term ends?
Ivan: His term. Wow, he's only 48.
Sam: He entered jail October 2025 for a five-year sentence. So he's still in jail as of right now.
Ivan: He assumed office in 2017, so he's president of France. When does the term end?
Sam: Well, they're five-year terms, so that would mean 2027 he'd be up.
Sam: Because he's on his second term.
Ivan: Right, 2027. So it won't be this year. So he will be president this year.
Sam: Nothing will derail that prematurely?
Ivan: I don't think so, no.
Sam: I'm going to agree. He will be in office at the end of the year. Not Sarkozy.
Ivan: Not Sarkozy.
Sam: Marcon. Mark, Mark, Macron, Macron.
Ivan: Not Marcon, not Marcon, not Macaron either. I like macaroons.
Sam: I don't like them. I don't know.
Ivan: There are, there are, you know, acquired taste.
Sam: Okay. I mean, I've had them. I just, I'm not, I'm not like spitting them out
Sam: or anything. I just like, I look at them and I'm like, could I have something else, please? Yeah.
Sam: Have some other kind of code. Very good.
Ivan: We'll make sure no macaroons for you. Okay.
Sam: Will the EU take definitive steps to protect Ukraine above and beyond what they
Sam: do have done this year, obviously?
Sam: And you can debate what definitive means. This is from Advin.
Ivan: Will there be a long-term plan for the security of Ukraine, basically?
Ivan: Is that, I mean, would that be a fair way of, by a step?
Sam: Yeah, I guess, I guess it's like, is it enough to sort of like make a difference
Sam: to the facts on the ground?
Ivan: Right now, they give them money and weapons and things.
Ivan: The thing is, is there something more like long term, like of a commitment in
Ivan: terms of security of Ukraine or.
Sam: Actual European troops on the ground in country?
Ivan: You know what? I think that right now this thing.
Sam: Or air support.
Ivan: No, I think this thing's going to muddle on. There's no peace deal. There's no whatever.
Ivan: There's no nothing. This thing just muddles on.
Sam: Specific questions about some of those things later, but yeah.
Ivan: Well, I will go that I don't think that the Europeans will be able to agree
Ivan: on a framework like this here.
Ivan: Part of the big problem is the problem that you've got that you deal with the
Ivan: fact that you've got Trump in the White House.
Sam: Like Hungary. Well, you got Trump and you got Hungary.
Ivan: And Hungary, yeah. But I know they were doing certain moves to like be able
Ivan: to do things without Hungarian approval. Approval, yeah.
Sam: Yeah, I would agree. It's the whole definitive steps thing.
Sam: I think it's not going to be anything dramatically different than what they've
Sam: been doing, which brings us to the next question.
Sam: Will the Ukraine War of Aggression by Russia reach a ceasefile and peace plan?
Sam: I'm going to say no. I think we're going to have the continued status quo,
Sam: basically, for all of next year.
Sam: I don't think anything substantial really changes with what's going on in Ukraine
Sam: until either Putin, Trump, or both are gone.
Sam: And even then, stalemate is the default. Right.
Ivan: You know, these wars, like when, I think, remember, I think the Iran-Iraq War, right?
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: Had dragged on forever, okay? And I can't remember what event,
Ivan: some economic event, or something just happened where all of a sudden it came
Ivan: to an abrupt end. As many of these do.
Ivan: Like, if you think about the Russian invasion of Afghanistan,
Ivan: for example, it seemed like it would never end. And then all of a sudden,
Ivan: it just all fell apart in like no time at all.
Sam: But I don't think that the Russian economy is at a point for that.
Sam: Yeah, things like that often end up like things that are basically wars of attrition
Sam: often just go and go and go.
Sam: And then all of a sudden, kaboom, everything falls apart in one direction or the other.
Ivan: But I don't think it's 2026. I don't think 2026 is the year for that.
Sam: Okay.
Sam: Okay, next up, we're moving away from Europe to the Middle East.
Sam: Question number one from Ed, will Bibi finally go on trial?
Sam: And actually, like, my question on that is, isn't he already on trial?
Sam: Aren't there proceedings already in progress?
Ivan: Okay, now, now, now, now.
Sam: Like, whether or not the proceedings get to the end is a different question, but.
Ivan: I haven't been keeping up on.
Sam: Because I just brought up a story from December 26th, so a couple days ago.
Ivan: That says— The trial is ongoing.
Sam: Yeah. The December 26th article that I'm looking at from Israel Today says,
Sam: yet testimony heard this week in the Jerusalem District Court has intensified
Sam: claims, blah, blah, blah. So the trial is ongoing.
Sam: Trial is ongoing, yeah. So I guess the better question is, is there a resolution to any of these?
Sam: Does he get a verdict in any trial?
Ivan: I have no knowledge in detail of the process that has to happen,
Ivan: you know, for this in Israel.
Ivan: But I'm going to just throw a dart into the wall and predict something.
Ivan: I'm going to predict that this thing drags on still through 2026 somehow.
Ivan: and that there's no final resolution, no final conviction, nothing. It just drags on.
Ivan: The process drags on.
Sam: Let me say, I think there might be an initial verdict, but that it will be in
Sam: some sort of appeals process by the end of the year.
Sam: And also, let me just say, I also know absolutely nothing about the Israeli process at play here.
Ivan: Yeah, so we're taking a guess. Right now, we're just taking a wild guess.
Sam: Or even the details of these damn cases. Like, apparently there's three separate
Sam: cases against him that are proceeding independently.
Ivan: It had to do—wasn't it like the bribery corruption?
Ivan: It was like breaches—yeah, here it is. Breach of trust accepting bribes and fraud. Yeah.
Sam: Yeah. So anyway, we have no idea. We're obviously guessing.
Sam: So Yvonne says no verdict at all this year, this coming year.
Sam: I say there will be a preliminary verdict, but it will still be in appeals by the end of the year.
Ivan: Okay.
Sam: Okay.
Sam: Next question from Ed. Will Israel absorb most or all of Palestine?
Sam: And haven't they already?
Sam: Like, how is this a question for 2026?
Ivan: Well, okay. But let's be a little bit more about. Let's be more specific.
Ivan: I think more it returns to Gaza. It's just, I mean, is the status quo remaining
Ivan: in Gaza right now that we've got?
Ivan: Like, which is, I don't even understand. What is the status quo right now?
Sam: The status quo in Gaza is technically we have a ceasefire in place.
Sam: There were supposed to be follow-up talks to finalize things.
Sam: Those have not gone anywhere yet.
Sam: Israel was supposed to fall back behind specific lines. They did not.
Sam: Well, they did, and then they pushed back forward.
Sam: There's theoretically a ceasefire, but there are new attacks of Israel on Gaza
Sam: every week that are reported.
Sam: So, but for some reason, they're not reported as Israel violated the ceasefire,
Sam: but Israel has violated the ceasefire over and over again.
Sam: And they have not technically met all the requirements of the ceasefire.
Sam: However, no one is saying we're
Sam: back with no—everyone's pretending the ceasefire is still fully in place.
Sam: and there's not an active conflict even though there's low-level stuff still
Sam: going on. That's the status quo.
Ivan: Well, I mean, they've basically flattened Gaza. I mean, is there anything to conflict with left?
Sam: Little bits here and there.
Ivan: Yeah, well, that's the thing. That's it, which is basically what's happening.
Ivan: Little bits here and there.
Sam: I mean, I'm going to predict, like Ukraine, this is a status quo kind of thing.
Sam: And the situation at the end of 2026 will be very similar to the situation at the beginning in Gaza.
Sam: And in the West Bank, if anything, Israel just approved more settlements last
Sam: week. So they will continue.
Ivan: I bet it hasn't been going on for a while.
Sam: Yeah, they will continue to eat away on what is controlled by the Palestinians in the West Bank.
Sam: And Gaza will be status quo. That's my prediction for 2016.
Ivan: I will predict that during 2026, there will be no Trump resort in Gaza.
Sam: Yeah. Okay. Yes. I will agree with that. That will not happen in 2026.
Sam: The Trump Riviera or whatever.
Ivan: Yeah, whatever they were going to do. Trump, Gaza, Riviera. Right.
Ivan: I mean, that's one. And I don't think that this entire, like,
Ivan: discussion that's been had, that's been had, that, I mean, that's ridiculous
Ivan: been had, about basically forcibly relocating all the Palestinians out of Gaza,
Ivan: that's not going to go anywhere either.
Sam: Right. I will agree with that as well. They will continue to have such discussions,
Sam: but nothing will come of them.
Ivan: Nothing will come of them.
Sam: Okay, from Bruce, will the U.S. bomb Iran again?
Ivan: Fuck, it's a tough one. Shit.
Sam: I mean, it's a good bombing.
Ivan: I mean, every once in a while, just to satisfy his little push-the-button thing.
Sam: Especially if, like, you know, there's been a new Epstein file release or something
Sam: that he needs to distract from.
Ivan: I'm going to say yes.
Sam: I'm going to say no. No in Iran. His attentions are elsewhere.
Sam: And we'll talk about elsewhere in a few minutes.
Ivan: Well, yeah, I know. But, you know, Iran's always, you know.
Ivan: He keeps circling back through his. I'm going to say yes.
Ivan: He likes to circle back through his Rolodex of hate.
Sam: Well, yeah.
Ivan: I'm sure he probably has a Rolodex. Do you think Trump has a Rolodex?
Sam: He is stuck in the 80s. Yeah. So quite possibly.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: I had a Rolodex.
Sam: I i i had some sort of thing but never a proper rolodex.
Ivan: You know we i don't want it to travel agency office i had a rolodex yeah.
Sam: What are the big actual circular.
Ivan: Yeah yeah the circular one yeah with all the cards you put in with the yeah yeah because they did.
Sam: Make other models and other shapes.
Ivan: No but the circle yeah i'm talking about the circular one where you put the
Ivan: cards and you went like through to find like the contacts yeah yeah yeah i had one of those yeah of.
Sam: Course okay next up from Bruce we kind of covered this already but will Israel
Sam: fully withdraw from Gaza hell no.
Ivan: Fuck no fuck no.
Sam: Not not not in this lifetime certainly not in 2026 but.
Ivan: Not in 2026 i don't know how to say this thing but it's definitely not in 2026.
Sam: Yeah okay will all also from bruce will al-shara still be the president of syria
Sam: this is this guy who was a former jihadi renounced all that like a long
Sam: ago and ended up the leader of Syria. I'm going to say yes.
Ivan: I'm going with yes.
Sam: There was a very good front line on him that talked about both his history and
Sam: his first few months as president of Syria.
Sam: He's got a lot of difficulties, but honestly, he seems to be trying.
Sam: There are a few places where he's backslid in terms of some of the minorities
Sam: in Syria and such like that, but...
Ivan: But look, compared to where they had been and to what they had before,
Ivan: where you've got, you know, with the Assad regime, I mean, he's actually trying out a lot more.
Ivan: There was a series of articles recently in The Economist talking about how Assad
Ivan: and his entourage are living a life of luxury in Russia.
Ivan: Yeah. You know, like right now. But they've also been told that they can't, like, talk to the press.
Ivan: They can't do anything public, you know, like go out and like speak and like
Ivan: do stuff or whatever but but they they they are living a life of gilded luxury and in russia.
Sam: Is there a good way to jump straight to being an exiled ex-dictator without
Sam: having to be the dictator first because you know sign me up i guess.
Ivan: I don't know you want to okay but but but but in russia oh you want to live
Ivan: a you want to live a gilded i hear he splits.
Sam: This is time with Abu Dhabi, though. It's not just all Russia.
Ivan: True, true, true. It is between Abu Dhabi and Russia. Having been to Russia
Ivan: myself, I would not like to make it my primary place of residence.
Sam: Crimea.
Ivan: If you were talking about, no, no, no. If you were talking like, you know, we had.
Sam: Crimea is not really Russian, but kind of, you know.
Ivan: Because it's occupied. I know, I get that. But if you want to go back to like.
Sam: And it's the tropical place where Russians went to vacation. Not really tropical.
Ivan: I'll tell you, listen.
Sam: The closest they get.
Ivan: The best one that, the one that I think had the best one of those exiles was
Ivan: Duvalier from Haiti. Okay.
Sam: Okay. Where did he go?
Ivan: He goes, see, France, okay?
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: The south of France, okay?
Sam: That works.
Ivan: Yeah. That, okay, that you can sell me on, yes. But I'll skip the dictatorship
Ivan: part because I have no interest in that.
Ivan: I have no interest in torturing people, arresting them to power,
Ivan: whatever, blah, blah, blah.
Ivan: But if you're going to put me in exile in the south of France,
Ivan: I'm like, okay, I can manage. Even though it sometimes gets colder than I would like.
Ivan: But I could live with that.
Sam: Okay. I could see that.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: Okay. Next up, Asia. From Ed, will China invade Taiwan?
Ivan: No.
Sam: Is this the year? Is this the year? I will agree. No.
Ivan: No.
Sam: China doesn't want. China would like to.
Ivan: China doesn't want the blow. China would like for Taiwan to go and surrender to them today.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: But they don't want the blowback from the war.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: They want the fear it instills that they threaten a war, but they don't want the blowback from a war.
Sam: I will agree. Not right now. And then Ed asks, or will Taiwan sign a treaty
Sam: ceding governance to China but ensuring continued democratic government?
Ivan: No, no. Well, look how well that's done for Hong Kong.
Sam: Exactly. They can look at Hong Kong. That did not go well.
Sam: And then finally, Ed says, or will it remain at status quo? Yes.
Ivan: Everybody's status quo.
Sam: You know, I'm sensing a theme of things remaining status quo in our recent predictions.
Ivan: I think this is a year of the status quo.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: Well, yeah. Yeah. But we may get more things named after Trump.
Ivan: That will lead to change the status quo.
Sam: And I predicted Trump will be gone by the end of the year. So that obviously wouldn't be status quo.
Ivan: Yeah. If that happens, then a lot of these status quo predictions basically
Ivan: are, you know, we're going to be in big trouble.
Sam: Because if Trump leaves, clearly China will immediately invade Taiwan,
Sam: thinking J.D. Vance is a pussy.
Ivan: Yeah.
Ivan: Well, maybe not that one, but other predictions could be impact.
Sam: Okay, North Korea.
Ivan: We haven't talked about that in a while.
Sam: And by the way.
Ivan: To be clear, she meant a pussy reference. Look, J.D. Vance, J.D. Vance says couches.
Sam: That's very unlike me, by the way. I just came out.
Ivan: I know. We're on the theme. By the way, you know, he prefers couches as far
Ivan: as information that has been relayed to me.
Sam: You know, that guy who made up the couch thing, which was completely made up,
Sam: by the way. Genius, anyway. Yeah.
Ivan: Hey!
Sam: They should have done more of that shit. I'm sorry.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: Like, you know.
Ivan: Anyway.
Sam: Okay. North Korea.
Ivan: It sounds plausible.
Sam: It does?
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: North Korea. Yo. The question from Ed is, will Kim Eun die or be ousted from offices?
Ivan: How old is he?
Sam: Kim Jong-un.
Ivan: You know, he's been kind of—we haven't heard from him much lately.
Sam: He's been very quiet.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: I remember in the first presidency, it was all over.
Sam: We had all kinds of saber-rattling on both sides, and then we had Trump make
Sam: his visit and then talk about love letters and all this kind of stuff.
Sam: But we haven't really heard much in years.
Ivan: Okay, I just looked this up because I, you know, I know he assumed power when
Ivan: he was young, but I didn't realize how, well, not really.
Ivan: How old do you think he is? I just looked it up.
Ivan: By the way, he assumed office in 2012.
Sam: My guess, without actually looking, is he's approximately our age,
Sam: mid-50s, early to mid-50s.
Ivan: No.
Sam: 60s?
Ivan: He's 41 years old.
Sam: He's 41?
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: Jeez.
Ivan: He's 41 years old.
Ivan: 41 years old. This guy assumed this role when he was 28.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: I don't think he's going anywhere after I looked that up.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: I mean, unless they kill him. And I don't know. The problem is he's got everybody
Ivan: so famished in the country anyway, you know, and he has the strength to go fucking kill him.
Sam: Well, the more like, it's not going to be like a popular revolution if he goes.
Sam: It's going to be like someone close to him that's already in power.
Ivan: Right, some of his general society You know, fuck this guy. Go boom, boom, boom.
Sam: Or his, like, sister or somebody. You know?
Ivan: Does he have a sister?
Sam: He has a sister.
Ivan: Or he has a daughter.
Sam: He has a daughter. I think he has a daughter and a sister, both of which are involved in the...
Ivan: Let's see. Relatives. Kid and family. Here we go. Children to one confirmed.
Sam: Remember, he killed a half-brother a while ago.
Ivan: Oh, yeah. The guy that he poisoned, like, on some foreign trip, right?
Sam: In Singapore or something.
Ivan: Yeah, Singapore. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's see. Fuck, I can't. tell.
Ivan: Wives, sons, daughters, Kim Jong-un's family, wife, daughter, son, son,
Ivan: I guess he has sons, plural, and daughters, plural. So I guess he has brothers.
Ivan: Yeah. So he must have brothers and sisters. Yeah. Okay.
Sam: Well, to have sons and daughters, you don't need a brother and sister.
Ivan: No, no, no, no. I mean his parents. His parents.
Sam: Oh, his parents.
Ivan: His parents. His parents.
Sam: Okay. Yes. Yes.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: So. Yeah. So.
Sam: Okay. Well, yeah. I do not think he will die or be ousted from office.
Sam: This is another status quo place.
Ivan: Look, but here's the thing. I don't know, at some point he's going to do something to get attention.
Ivan: I didn't realize that this, you see, how little we care right now about them.
Ivan: I just pulled up the news and looked them up.
Ivan: Two days ago, news from two days ago.
Ivan: North Korea says it tested long-range cruise missiles, and we apparently didn't give a damn.
Sam: I guess so. Yeah, eight years ago we were talking about this stuff and about
Sam: how they were gaining the capability that they could hit the west coast of the
Sam: United States and blah, blah, blah. There was that.
Ivan: North Korea Kim's orders tests of nuclear capable cruise missiles.
Ivan: And apparently we didn't give a damn. So eventually he will try to do something
Ivan: that gets our attention, right? Because that's the way that he's operated.
Sam: That has been the pattern. Like whenever it's too quiet, suddenly we'll get
Sam: some North Korea action. Yeah.
Ivan: So I will predict that we will get some North Korean incident that is notable in the news in 2026.
Sam: Big enough that we talk about it on the show. That's our usual gauge.
Ivan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sam: Okay, Ed does have, we both predicted that there won't be a change of leadership
Sam: in North Korea, but Ed wants to know, if there is,
Sam: would that start a process of negotiation for merging North and South Korea? And I will say no.
Sam: Even if Kim Jong-un is gone, that was not going to start up right away.
Ivan: As far as I can tell, he has been grooming his daughter to be just as,
Ivan: how do I say, craving of the trappings and adulation that he receives as leader
Ivan: from any of the pictures and videos I've seen. So he's grooming her for that.
Sam: Yeah. And let me be clear on that. If there is a Kim Jong-un replacement,
Sam: it will not be somebody who's like, ooh, let's be a liberal democracy.
Ivan: No.
Sam: You know, it's a bad chance of that. Right. Okay.
Sam: Oh, and that was, there was a follow-up on Taiwan as well.
Sam: Like, if there was an invasion, what would U.S.'s involvement be like?
Sam: And if there was an invasion, I think we would not go to direct war with China
Sam: over it. We might give supplies.
Sam: It would end up similar to Ukraine, like, in terms of what the U.S.
Ivan: Involvement is. No. Okay.
Ivan: So I'll make this prediction, even though I'm pretty sure we don't have to discuss,
Ivan: we would have to, this is a conditional prediction because it has to be- This is conditional.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: It is conditional if we were going to go to war, which I'm predicting we won't go to war.
Sam: No, no. If China actually did invade Taiwan, what would we do?
Ivan: Oh, there would be. We'd all be shooting. And the reason is because the Ukraine
Ivan: invasion had little direct economic impact on the United States.
Ivan: However, a Taiwan invasion would.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: And that's the problem. I mean, because there is so much dependency of the United
Ivan: States on semiconductors and other stuff from Taiwan that the reality is—,
Ivan: China would still want to sell that stuff. Yeah, Sam, but I mean,
Ivan: if they're going to invade and bomb Taiwan,
Ivan: I mean, them being able to do a land invasion to Taiwan is going to have severe
Ivan: disruptions in that supply chain.
Ivan: Okay. Forget about whether in the future maybe they said they want to sell it.
Sam: Well, so with defending against it.
Ivan: Yeah but but here's well but which one has a better shot of being less disruptive
Ivan: just letting them do go mano a mano and you think that the Taiwanese are not
Ivan: look like they would basically they're not going to roll over they're not going
Ivan: to roll over anyway you're right yeah,
Ivan: So there would be a lot of shooting, you know, non-conventional shooting.
Sam: Conventional shooting, not a nuclear war.
Ivan: No, no, no no news. But a lot of conventional shooting.
Sam: You think Trump would respond to that with an all-out war on China?
Ivan: No.
Sam: Or just over Taiwan?
Ivan: No, no, just over Taiwan. But I'm sure that, yeah, because Japan is not,
Ivan: Japan will probably strike in defense of Taiwan. They've agreed to it,
Ivan: if I remember correctly.
Ivan: And so did Australia and some other people. So this is going to involve,
Ivan: unlike in Ukraine, where nobody wanted to directly participate.
Ivan: In the Taiwan conflict, a number
Ivan: of people have agreed to directly participate already at this point.
Ivan: And I think that there is a lot more economically at stake that there is.
Ivan: And look, the reality is that that's what drives these fucking things. you know i will.
Sam: Stick with i will stick with taco on here trump always chickens out i think,
Sam: if this happened trump would find a way to not be.
Ivan: So you don't think he would want to show off come on man send a couple of carriers
Ivan: go and sink the chinese carriers in the water like out there with some subs
Ivan: going like fucking like blow them out blow them out of the water he would love that shit.
Ivan: He has been finding an itch to like that kind of shit. Okay.
Sam: Yeah. Just to have a difference on something that we both agree will not happen,
Sam: I will stick to no and you will stick to yes.
Sam: But I think we can both agree that if China did invade Taiwan,
Sam: the results would be bad.
Ivan: Oh, it's awful for the global economy, for people, in terms of casualties, deaths.
Ivan: This would be a catastrophic war. Far worse than the Ukraine war.
Sam: Okay, next up, Americas. Number one, from Bruce, will Maduro still be president
Sam: of Venezuela at end of year?
Sam: I'm going to say yes.
Ivan: You know, he has been negotiating to leave.
Sam: We're talking about the south of France just a few minutes ago.
Ivan: Not south of France, but somewhere similar. I think Spain had offered some passage.
Ivan: You know what? I don't think Maduro lasts 2026. I'm going to say no.
Sam: Okay. I, I, I, okay.
Sam: That's covered later. So next up, also from Bruce, will Argentina repay the
Sam: $20 billion loan from the U.S.?
Ivan: We're never seeing that money.
Sam: That sounds like a no.
Ivan: We're never seeing that money.
Sam: Well, even under, like, on official repayment terms, is it even supposed to be repaid this year?
Ivan: Not that I recall, because...
Sam: Probably not.
Ivan: Remember, it wasn't even a loan. The way that this... If I remember,
Ivan: the way that the $20 billion to Argentina were done by us buying currency,
Ivan: if I remember correctly.
Ivan: Let me see how they did it. Yeah, exactly. is a currency swap line with Argentina
Ivan: Central Bank and direct purchases of Argentine pesos.
Ivan: So we took U.S. dollars and bought Argentine pesos.
Ivan: There wasn't really directly like a repayment?
Ivan: There wasn't a loan?
Ivan: I mean, we could just go on the open market and sell the pesos.
Ivan: The problem is, and I think the more accurate question is,
Ivan: you know, would we, if we sold, if we went and sold those pesos,
Ivan: would we get what was promised in the currency swap line, the core of the aid
Ivan: was 20 billion currency swap agreement under disagreement.
Ivan: The Central Bank of Virginia exchanged a significant Argentine pesos for dollars. Okay.
Ivan: With the agreement to return the dollars later with interest.
Ivan: I don't, how they, I don't, I don't, I don't, they don't have how to return that 20 billion.
Ivan: So I guess they were promising that we will buy the, give you back the $20 billion in the currency swap.
Ivan: But the reality is that it would be crazy because the peso has continued to drop in value.
Ivan: So that means that they would have to a lot, a lot, lot more pesos to get those dollars.
Ivan: So if that was now I'm seeing that that was the agreement, I got to say that
Ivan: that promise now they're not giving us back 20 billion dollars and we're never seeing that money.
Sam: OK. I believe this next one is from Bruce and and overlaps the next one as well.
Sam: But, oh, I should predict that. I don't I know nothing about this one,
Sam: but I'll agree with Yvonne. no repayment.
Sam: Okay, next up. Will the U.S.
Sam: annex any parts of Canada, Greenland, or Panama?
Ivan: In 2026? No.
Sam: In 2026. No.
Ivan: No.
Sam: No.
Ivan: No, but we'll still hear about it, though.
Sam: You know, it had gone quiet for a little while, and then it came back recently.
Sam: Yeah, the Greenland part. Like, Trump appointed that envoy to Greenland or whatever.
Ivan: Oh, yeah, such a well-qualified and, you know, knowledgeable person on Greenland
Ivan: affairs that we have appointed, yes.
Ivan: See, governor of Louisiana or something?
Sam: Something like that. Oh, which, by the way, hit some controversy because apparently
Sam: it is illegal for him to hold that federal position at the same time that he's governor.
Sam: And then he was like, oh, does it? And people were asking him,
Sam: does this mean you're resigning as governor? He's like, wait,
Sam: no, no, I'm not resigning as governor.
Sam: And so, like, the whole thing, like, whatever.
Sam: And I shouldn't whatever this. This is exactly the normalization people talk
Sam: about. Like, illegal crap all the time.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: And, like, like you said, who has standing?
Sam: Like, what's the situation? Is anything going to happen? Even if it does go to courts.
Sam: It takes years to go through the courts. So everybody throws up their hands
Sam: and be like, I guess he's doing illegal shit then.
Sam: So, anyway. Next up. This is from Ed.
Sam: and will Trump direct placing of military forces on Greenland?
Sam: The problem with this question is, of course, we already have military forces.
Ivan: You're right. We already have...
Ivan: You mean outside of the encampment that we have? I'm going to say we're not
Ivan: going to have anything over and above what we already have had in Greenland.
Sam: I will agree with that. I guess the question is aiming at, like,
Sam: are we going to try to take over Greenland militarily? No.
Ivan: No. This is just something to distract every other week about Epstein.
Sam: Well, I think that this is something like, I mean, would Trump like it?
Sam: If Denmark had actually responded with like, oh, sure, we'll sell it to you.
Sam: Sure, we'll swap it with Puerto Rico. Whatever.
Ivan: You know, I would have been, listen, if that was the offer, okay,
Ivan: on the table, the Puerto Rico one, look, I would have been heading the delegation,
Ivan: okay, to go and close these negotiations as soon as possible. Okay?
Sam: Yes. Anyway, like, would Trump actually like a deal where the U.S.
Sam: takes possession of Greenland? Yes.
Sam: Would he actually, like, go to war with Denmark over it? No.
Ivan: Would he pay for it? I'm going to say no either, because he doesn't like anything that he has to pay for.
Sam: Well, but if he can use other people's money, that's a whole other story, though.
Ivan: That's a different story, yeah. So you think the Saudis are going to give him
Ivan: the money to go and, like, pay Denmark? Is that how it's going to work?
Sam: Well, he doesn't care. As long as it's not his personal stash,
Sam: he doesn't care. Like, he can use taxpayer money for it. He doesn't care about that.
Ivan: No, no, no. But the thing is, he doesn't like to approve, like,
Ivan: even like, you know, it has to feel like,
Ivan: third-party money. You know what I'm saying?
Sam: Yeah, yeah.
Ivan: So.
Sam: It'll be just like the ballroom. He'll have, like, all the major U.S.
Ivan: Corporations like chucking some money. Exactly. Sign checks over to this thing.
Sam: Give him, like, a little trophy.
Ivan: We are so... And a medal. A medal.
Sam: Denmark should just give him, like, a little medal that says.
Ivan: You know, the Donald Trump honorary Greenland.
Sam: And here's the keys to Greenland. Little gold keys.
Ivan: And a medal of like the something of Greenland.
Ivan: The, I don't know.
Sam: Yeah, exactly. The green part.
Ivan: Yeah, right. The green part. Right.
Sam: Yeah, that would make him happy.
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: Especially if it's made out of gold. Remember, it's got to be out of gold.
Sam: Of course. Has to be gold. Well, at least gold-colored. It can be gold spray paint.
Ivan: At least a gold-colored, yes. He's apparently fine with that. Yeah, apparently, yes.
Sam: Okay, next up, also from Ed, will there be a direct Trump invasion of Venezuela?
Sam: Now, of course, we did have this report where Trump, like, apparently,
Sam: like, spilled the beans on a covert operation on some dock in Venezuela that
Sam: happened earlier this month.
Sam: But, like, that—.
Ivan: That was not an invasion.
Sam: It's not an invasion.
Ivan: No. They, for some reason, attacked a dock.
Sam: Yes. Which, apparently from reports, was not a very significant dock either,
Sam: and the Venezuelans barely noticed.
Ivan: Yeah, no.
Sam: So, invasion?
Sam: Let me, let me add not just land invasion. Will we have like,
Sam: let's do two questions. First of all, are we going to have direct large scale
Sam: strikes on Venezuela proper?
Sam: Not just the boats, not just like a little tiny thing on a dock,
Sam: but like, are we going to have like airstrikes on Caracas or something?
Ivan: I know Rubio wants it. Oh, it's a tough one. I don't,
Ivan: You know, the thing is, you know how the focus was in Venezuela for weeks and
Ivan: weeks and we moved all these troops and we moved all this stuff. We have all this gear.
Ivan: And like I told you, I mean, I flew Dominican Republic and there is like military
Ivan: equipment deployed over there.
Ivan: There's military equipment all over Puerto Rico, like all of a sudden deployed
Ivan: all over the place. And it's like all over the Caribbean.
Sam: We moved in an aircraft carrier.
Ivan: Yeah, and an aircraft carrier. I'm going to say that we're going to bomb Venezuela at some point.
Sam: I'm going to say no to full scale. Invasion, yeah.
Sam: Well, not even invasion. No to full scale airstrikes.
Sam: Like, we're not going to have, like, Iraq-style shock and awe or anything.
Sam: At worst, we'll have a few airstrikes on isolated targets.
Sam: no full-scale massive air attack and no land invasion no no troops on the ground
Sam: other than like special forces doing like little attacks here and there that
Sam: has already been reported and is already going on.
Ivan: I i mean i i think that
Ivan: he's going to try to use bombings and some stuff like that in order to intimidate
Ivan: maduro to leave but not invade with like troops so some stuff like the bombings
Ivan: that we've had in iran you know we've struck like leaders and stuff and whatever,
Ivan: did the bunker busters that kind of stuff i think that i think that that that's
Ivan: gonna be what we'll get eventually okay.
Sam: Okay next we have we have an anywhere else category and then we have a global
Sam: category of things that cover the whole world.
Sam: So anywhere else first from Ed will, I guess this could be global too, whatever.
Sam: Will space aliens invade the Earth and take over governing of the world?
Sam: My answer, God, I hope so. That would be cool.
Ivan: Ah!
Sam: But no, no, I don't think that's going to happen.
Ivan: I don't know. No, I'm going to say the answer is no as well.
Sam: No, going out on that limb this year.
Ivan: No, no, we're not going to get, you know, no, we're not going to get the alien
Ivan: invasion that we've been hoping for. I mean, aliens from space, to be specific.
Sam: Makes me want to go rewatch V.
Ivan: There you go that's a blast from the past there you.
Sam: Go yeah there you go okay then also
Sam: from ad will there be any resolution of the catastrophe in the sudan and i'm
Sam: gonna say unfortunately no this is another status quo type thing where it'll
Sam: just continue to be bad this this is also by the way one of those that we have
Sam: i think we've only mentioned it in passing maybe once or twice over the course of the whole year.
Sam: But the number of dead there eclipses almost anything else in the world at the moment. It's horrific.
Ivan: Yeah. No, I know. But that's what keeps happening. So, ah, nobody cares.
Sam: Unfortunately. So, do you agree? No resolution this year?
Ivan: No resolution.
Sam: Okay. Now we have some ones in the global category.
Sam: From me, will there be any overt country versus, any new overt country versus
Sam: country wars between UN member states? I'm going to say no.
Ivan: I'm going with you. I'm going to say no.
Sam: Okay. Next up also for me, will there be any new civil wars that get enough
Sam: news coverage that we actually talk about them on the show?
Ivan: Mm, that's a good question. God.
Ivan: That gets, like, that really becomes, like, a recurring theme that we talk about
Ivan: it, like, you know, like, we talked about the Ukraine war kind of a thing.
Sam: Well, at least once. Like, we— It's just at least once is.
Ivan: Like, quite a low bar.
Sam: Well, hey, let's say more than in passing. We can't just say,
Sam: oh, this thing happened in Sudan.
Sam: We have to spend, like, five or ten minutes talking about it.
Sam: enough so that it appears in the description of the
Sam: show I'm going no I will also
Sam: say no like they're unfortunately new
Sam: low level conflicts almost every year but like very few of them get raised to
Sam: the level where we notice them and part of that is you know the US centric nature
Sam: of our show and blah blah blah and,
Sam: Yeah, it is what it is. Okay, next up from Ed, and I think I'm going to disqualify this question.
Sam: It's who will be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.
Sam: And the reason I'm going to disqualify this is hundreds or if not thousands
Sam: of people get nominated, and we don't usually see that list.
Sam: It's not like the Oscars where there's five people nominated and then they pick one.
Ivan: Did you nominate me?
Sam: I did not. And I think there actually is a restricted list of who can do the
Sam: nominations, but it's a pretty damn big list of people who can nominate.
Sam: And, you know, it, yeah, we don't have, we don't have a situation where there's
Sam: like a small list that's nominated and then you pick one. It's just like, but.
Ivan: But, but you didn't know.
Sam: We never see the full list. Cause I know I'm sorry, Yvonne, your,
Sam: your accomplishments were just not big enough this year.
Ivan: I mean, come on. I, I think I did.
Sam: You, you did, you did add like 15 wars.
Ivan: Yes. Yes.
Sam: Yeah. So the next question is who will receive the Nobel Peace Prize?
Sam: I, I will say like the last few years, like, honestly, like I haven't known
Sam: the people before they won. I haven't recognized.
Ivan: Okay. I happen to have known the recipient. This one was this year. That's from Venezuela.
Sam: From Venezuela, right?
Ivan: Yeah. Yeah. So I knew who that person was. Let me see. I'm going to,
Ivan: I'm going to hang on. I'm going to pull up the list of like a recent.
Sam: I haven't actually looked up the list lately.
Ivan: Of recent Nobel Peace Prize winners. Here we go.
Ivan: It started with the 1901 getting down to the bottom.
Ivan: Maria Corina Machado, which was. So 2024 was Nihon Hidankyo for its efforts
Ivan: to achieve a world of free of nuclear weapons. Never heard of them.
Ivan: Narjiz Mohammadi, 2023, for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran.
Ivan: I think I had heard when she got named, so I remember that, but I didn't know her from before.
Ivan: 2022, Alice Bialatsky, some kind of memorial and the Center for Civil Liberties.
Ivan: Peace Prize laureates represent civil society in their home countries.
Ivan: They have for many years promoted the right to criticize power.
Ivan: So this was one from Alice Pilevsky's from Belarus, Memorial Foundation in Russia,
Ivan: and then the Center for Liberties in Ukraine.
Ivan: 2021. Jesus Christ, I mean, we don't know any of these people.
Ivan: Maria Reza and Dmitry Muratov, for their efforts to save their freedom.
Sam: Now, Maria Reza, I have seen some documentaries on her from Frontline.
Ivan: Okay, so there you go.
Sam: But after she won, after she won, I did not know before she won.
Ivan: No, I have no idea. For the efforts to safeguard freedom of expression,
Ivan: which is preconditioned democracy and lasting peace. Same with Mara Khan.
Sam: By the way.
Ivan: 2020, the World Food Program. Well, we had heard of that. Okay.
Ivan: 2019, Abiy Ahmed. Sorry if I mispronounce your name, Abiy.
Ivan: For his efforts to achieve peace and international cooperation,
Ivan: in particular for his decisive initiative to resolve the border conflict with neighboring Eritrea.
Sam: Anyway, how far back are you going to go, John?
Ivan: I'm going to go until we find somebody we know. Well, let me see if that's even possible.
Sam: The last one I recognize is 2014 Malala.
Ivan: Well, the first one I recognize is 2009.
Sam: Barack Obama.
Ivan: Yes. Yeah, I knew that guy.
Sam: Yeah, anyway.
Ivan: And before that, shit, you see, the 2010s were easy. 2008, okay,
Ivan: I don't know, but 2007, Al Gore.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: Well, that makes it easy.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: Look, 2002, Jimmy Carter. The fuck, man? You know, 2001, Kofi Annan. I know who Kofi Annan is.
Ivan: And 2000, Kim Dae-jung, the South Korean guy. Yes, I knew that guy.
Ivan: I mean, 2010s, you know, those I knew.
Ivan: But I realized that after Barack Obama, it's like, I have no,
Ivan: you know, the first one that I knew from before the prize was 2025.
Ivan: That's the first one that I knew.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: That's it.
Sam: Okay, so, bottom line, my prediction is someone will win the Nobel Peace Prize,
Sam: who we have not heard of or talked about before.
Sam: I will further say it will not, not be Donald Trump.
Ivan: Okay, I will agree it's not Donald Trump.
Ivan: I'm going to ask ChatGPT who it thinks will win the Noble Peace Prize in 2026
Ivan: and that will be my answer to the question I cannot predict the Noble who will
Ivan: win but it's confidential I don't care,
Ivan: fuck screw you give me your best shot who okay let's see trying trying trying Trying,
Ivan: Okay, not Donald Trump, because it talked about, but I'll go with number two,
Ivan: Sudan's Emergency Response Rooms, ERRs.
Ivan: It's an organization that gives a service to, you know, the conflict we were just talking about.
Ivan: So they are a strong non-individual contender. So I will go with Sudan's Emergency Response Rooms.
Sam: Okay, very good. Next up, and we were joking about this just a second ago, from John.
Sam: First question from John today. How many wars will Trump claim to have ended
Sam: or prevented by the end of 2026?
Sam: He's already up at like eight or something, right? So this would be above and beyond that.
Ivan: So I'll go with 10.
Sam: 10. So two more. Like, I'm not sure. Is eight his actual current number? I don't know.
Ivan: It's approximately there. Once again, I got to ask. I'm going to go with how
Ivan: many wars has Donald Trump?
Sam: You know, chat GPT is not the most reliable for this kind of question.
Ivan: Well, what the hell anyway? I mean, this is a question that's very difficult,
Ivan: you know, as well. So I'll go with whatever the fuck it says right now.
Ivan: As claimed to have ended.
Sam: Eight. I found an article from USA Today from December 5th.
Ivan: It says eight so far.
Sam: What does ChatGPT say?
Ivan: Eight.
Sam: Okay, here are the eight.
Ivan: By the way. So we got agreement on eight.
Sam: Wait, wait, wait.
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: Here are the eight that Trump claims to have resolved. Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Sam: The Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda.
Ivan: Yeah, it's on this list.
Sam: Iran and Israel.
Ivan: Yep.
Sam: India and Pakistan.
Ivan: Yep.
Sam: Cambodia and Thailand.
Ivan: Yep.
Sam: Israel and Hamas.
Ivan: Yep.
Sam: And, wait, that's seven. What did I miss?
Ivan: Let's see. Israel, Hamas, Israel, Iran, India, Pakistan.
Sam: Oh, Ethiopia and Egypt.
Ivan: Yeah, Ethiopia. Yep. There you go. That's eight.
Sam: Okay. So you think two more.
Sam: Two more. Okay.
Ivan: More is better, right?
Sam: I'll say, given his need to, like, inflate numbers, if he did eight in his first
Sam: year, he's going to do another eight in his second year, so make it 16 total.
Ivan: Okay. There you go.
Sam: He has to keep up the pace.
Ivan: Okay.
Sam: Okay. And that is the end of the international section.
Sam: and you know and just for for those
Sam: who are worried that we're approaching the
Sam: two hour mark already and have only done two of these they tend
Sam: to get faster and faster as we go on like the the
Sam: last few tend to be shorter anyway of course anybody listening knows how long
Sam: we ended up being so you know exactly how far exactly right so okay next break
Sam: here we go and then we will be back with the technology section. Here we are.
Sam: Okay, we are back. Technology, first section in technology is energy.
Sam: I'm moving things around between subcategories again now.
Sam: First energy question.
Sam: From Ed, will Trump's closing of the coastal wind projects be reversed?
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: No. Yes? I'm going to say no. Why do you say yes?
Ivan: Because there is no good legal basis to actually for them to just shut them down.
Ivan: I will say that actually there will be an injunction and they will be reopened.
Ivan: Plus, the fact is that we need the energy.
Ivan: And so right now he's causing, you know, you've got this whole thing with affordability
Ivan: and energy prices spiking, specifically in the area that we're talking about.
Ivan: And so cutting off the supply is nuts.
Sam: Do you think whatever has to go through the courts will get done this year?
Ivan: I think there will be an injunction to reopen them because remember,
Ivan: these projects are already either operating or close to being operational.
Ivan: So, yes. So I think that there will be an injunction to actually stop this idiot.
Ivan: I think they're already it already had happened, Sam.
Ivan: He's trying this for a second time. And in the past, it had been shut.
Ivan: It had been blocked. So I think that he's going to they're going to wind up
Ivan: going back to court and they're going to put they're going to he's going to lose again.
Sam: So, well, let me ask, instead of will it be reversed at any point,
Sam: will these be open at the end of the year?
Ivan: Yeah, I mean, yes.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: Okay. Because you implied there could be back and forth as it goes up and down the legal chain.
Ivan: Yeah, but I think the first thing is that they're going to, his order is going,
Ivan: this already had happened, that he had tried this already and he had lost and he's tried again. so.
Sam: Okay, I'm going to stick with no, but we'll see. I clearly don't know as much as you do on this one.
Sam: Okay, next from Ed. Will someone make an actual fusion plant capable of powering one or more houses?
Sam: Not fission, because I believe those already exist in various ways,
Sam: both at large scale and people have been making smaller scale ones.
Sam: But this is fusion. I'm going to say no. We're not there on fusion yet.
Ivan: No.
Sam: Fusion is always several years in the future.
Ivan: I would like, wasn't that like a Back to the Future thing, the Mr. Fusion? Mr.
Sam: Fusion?
Ivan: Yeah. I mean, I would love that. That would be fantastic. But I don't think we're there yet.
Sam: Not there yet. And there are a number of companies who claim to no longer be
Sam: 15, 20, 30 years away, but to be only a couple years away.
Sam: But this is one of those things where I'll believe it when I see it.
Sam: But even once it's true, they will start out super expensive.
Sam: They will start, it'll be a long time till we see actual practical application of Fusion stuff.
Sam: So I'm going to say no, not in 2026.
Sam: Next up, transportation.
Sam: This is from Ed. Two parts.
Sam: And he doesn't specify U.S., so we treat this how you are.
Sam: What percentage of cars and pickups will be full EV at year-end?
Sam: There are a number of things we want to clarify here. First,
Sam: is this U.S. only or global?
Sam: Second, are we talking about new cars purchased, or are we talking cars on the road?
Sam: However you want to answer this, Yvonne. And this is full EV.
Sam: There's another question on hybrid after this.
Ivan: Repeat the question. Sorry.
Sam: Yvonne got distracted there.
Ivan: Yeah, I got distracted for a second. Sorry. Repeat the question.
Sam: What percentage of cars and pickups, so just vehicles, will be full EV at the
Sam: year end? This is from Ed.
Sam: But he does not specify U.S. or international, and he does not specify whether
Sam: he's talking about new cars sold or whether he's talking cars on the road.
Sam: So pick however you want to answer that question. And there's a separate question
Sam: for hybrid. This is full EV only.
Ivan: Let me see, because I'm going to pull up the information on that first.
Ivan: Because this year, in 2024, we had more than 10. We did exceed 10%.
Sam: In 2024.
Ivan: In 2024. That's a year. For new car sales.
Sam: In the U.S.?
Ivan: Yeah, but.
Sam: But then we have incentives expiring and all kinds of other factors.
Ivan: So, I mean, that's one of the things where I think that and because of some
Ivan: of the trends, the share of that will probably like remain kind of flat.
Ivan: This year. So I think that that's so that that's it's going to stay around not
Ivan: nine to 11 percent range.
Sam: Nine to 11 percent.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: And you are new part, new cars.
Ivan: New cars.
Sam: Yes. Fully V.
Ivan: Yes. The reality is that hybrids is a totally different question.
Sam: Yeah. We're going to talk about that in a second. So, for that same prediction,
Sam: I am just going to say, despite all the headwinds, 2026 will be greater than 2025.
Ivan: Okay. Okay.
Sam: I'm not going to say how much greater, just more as a percentage.
Sam: Okay. So, next up is hybrid. And, again, Ed doesn't specify plug-in hybrid versus
Sam: regular hybrid. doesn't specify U.S.
Sam: versus international, doesn't specify purchases versus on the road.
Sam: So choose whatever you want in order to answer that question.
Ivan: So sticking with that, we had been like at around total sales.
Sam: And now are you talking plug-in hybrid or all hybrid?
Ivan: All hybrids, including plug-ins. If I'm going to go with – the thing is that
Ivan: the figures that I found, the first ones kind of like mix hybrids,
Ivan: electrics, and plug-in hybrids. Okay.
Ivan: So that percentage is around 22%. So I guess if you take that 10%,
Ivan: it is, it's around 12% of the market. But here's the thing.
Ivan: Like Toyota, for example, just recently launched a whole bunch of upgrades to
Ivan: some of their most popular vehicles.
Ivan: And the base model that you can have, you can't have a non-hybrid anymore.
Ivan: They're all hybrids, period.
Ivan: So if we go by your standard of, will it be higher?
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: Oh, by far. It's going to blow it away.
Ivan: Because Ford also was increasing their output of hybrid vehicles as well.
Ivan: They had backed off on some electric models and were aggressively pushing more,
Ivan: selling more hybrid models.
Ivan: In part because there was, they had launched like a couple of years ago,
Ivan: this little like pickup truck called Maverick.
Ivan: I don't know if you've seen those around.
Ivan: They're a small pickup truck. Okay. Small, you know, it's a small fuel efficient pickup truck. Okay.
Sam: Not like the tiny Japanese ones, though, but small for U.S. standards.
Ivan: It's bigger than those, but it's small for U.S. standards, okay?
Ivan: It goes back to, like, we haven't had a pickup truck with that size dating back to the 90s, 80s.
Ivan: And they couldn't keep them in stock. They were, well, number one,
Ivan: they were super fuel efficient. They were cheap, okay?
Ivan: And they couldn't make enough of them. They've actually had to move production to, you know,
Ivan: to to increase production of of this vehicle and so yeah you've got a Ford that
Ivan: is expanding their hybrid production Toyota that has moved all their cars basically
Ivan: but several of their model lineups,
Ivan: including their number one most popular car in the U.S.
Ivan: the RAV4 that's number one car in the U.S.
Ivan: behind the Ford F-150 and Chevy Silverado okay that's it's a Toyota RAV4 that
Ivan: one you can't have unless it's a hybrid anymore, period. Okay, that's it.
Ivan: And Honda had been moving in the same direction, so you're going to get that
Ivan: that number will shoot well past the 22%. Okay.
Sam: Well, 22 minus the 10, so above 12.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: So I'm going to agree up. Okay, next question from Ed.
Sam: And this leaves a lot of interpretation, but
Sam: ed ed asks will tesla finally deliver
Sam: a safe self-driving car yeah
Sam: now because you can argue that their existing fsd is already is pretty good
Sam: at this point like it's it's still got some issues it's not full self-driving
Sam: like are you talking about the thing is what are you talking about Will we have.
Ivan: Do we, you know, what level would we be talking about? Right now we have level three.
Ivan: That's the most we got?
Sam: I think so.
Ivan: Yeah. Okay. So I don't think we're getting a level four car.
Sam: I forget the exact definitions of the difference. But the, I mean,
Sam: are we talking here like, yeah, the prediction that like we talked about after
Sam: 10 years earlier this year where, you know, you can legally sleep.
Sam: There is no steering wheel. Are we talking that?
Sam: Or are we talking, you know, are we talking like Waymo kind of taxis?
Sam: What are we talking about?
Ivan: Okay, so reality is that we don't have a level four car, okay, that really, you know.
Sam: Define L3, 4, and 5 for us.
Ivan: So the thing is, level four basically is a car that drives itself with no human
Ivan: intervention inside the operational design.
Ivan: So we don't have that.
Sam: So what's L5?
Ivan: I've never heard of L5.
Sam: I thought it was a five-point scale. Maybe it's only four.
Ivan: Okay, there is level five. Okay, so human required, no, but in zones.
Ivan: So this is the, okay, level five is the one that doesn't require human at all.
Ivan: That it can drive anywhere.
Ivan: It's not geofenced. Okay, because we've got cars that can geofenced drive in
Ivan: certain conditions, but we know that they even require human intervention.
Ivan: We just saw that in San Francisco where there was an outage in San Francisco.
Ivan: And all the Waymos got confused. All the Waymos got confused.
Ivan: So we don't have that. I think, I don't think that we're crossing that threshold this year either.
Sam: So no L4 cars in the U.S. in 2026.
Ivan: Yeah, especially ones that a
Ivan: consumer can be. Because the one that talked about is a consumer can buy.
Ivan: You know, they defined that a Waymo is a level four.
Ivan: But the reality is that, A, it requires human. B, that's got to be geofenced.
Ivan: So there isn't, yeah, so that's the limitation that we've got.
Ivan: And consumers can't buy it. It's only, you know.
Sam: It's running a taxi service. You can't go out and buy a Waymo for personal use.
Ivan: Correct.
Sam: And sleep in the back seat while it drives you somewhere.
Ivan: Correct.
Sam: Yeah. Okay. And we don't think that's going to change in 2026.
Ivan: I don't think so.
Sam: Now, will, let me refine,
Sam: with Tesla's existing full self-driving feature, will it improve enough to the
Sam: point that people like you aren't poo-pooing at safety issues.
Ivan: I don't think that Tesla can get to that. Okay, people like me are poo-pooing at safety issues.
Ivan: Because no radar at all. Even if they had just stuck with radar, just regular radar.
Ivan: The reality is that they have made it that they've kind of like locked themselves
Ivan: in in terms of progress by limiting.
Ivan: It's like me saying, hey, Sam, you know what? Forget about your ears.
Ivan: You don't need those. You can do everything with sight.
Ivan: No, you can't. I mean, you can, but it's not going to be as good as if you had ears as well.
Ivan: It's just, I mean, this is a self-imposed limitation that makes no sense whatsoever.
Sam: There are lots of deaf people who might disagree with you.
Ivan: It's, I know what you're saying.
Sam: You are, in this case, you are intentionally making the problem harder.
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: Whether or not you can eventually solve the problem is perhaps debatable,
Sam: but you were intentionally making it harder.
Ivan: It's the same thing as like, you know, with deaf people, of course,
Ivan: of course, you can do quite a lot.
Ivan: OK, without it, you can get.
Ivan: But the reality is that when you're trying to get to you, you get to the margins
Ivan: where you're trying to do this improvement at a certain point, there is a limitation.
Ivan: OK, and so, yeah, you can get to 90 plus percent of it, but you're artificially
Ivan: imposing a limitation that you really shouldn't have for no good reason whatsoever.
Ivan: It's not even cost either. It's just stubbornness. and somebody else will,
Ivan: beat them by using it, which is a stupid thing, even though they had such a head start.
Sam: Okay. I forget if I even said it.
Sam: I will agree on no, we're not going to get to the point where full self-driving
Sam: will continue to improve.
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: We have seen it each year. It has been better than the year before.
Sam: It will not get to the point where unanimous, I mean, you're never unanimous on anything,
Sam: but you will not get to the point where people are fairly universally acknowledging, okay,
Sam: yeah, it's good enough, it's safe, you know, you really can safely You're not
Sam: going to be able to buy a level four car.
Ivan: A true level four car today.
Sam: Yeah, let's put it that way. It will not evolve to level four,
Sam: it will still be level three. Is that a good way to put it?
Ivan: Yes. Okay. Okay.
Sam: Okay, so...
Sam: The next question from Bruce is, will SpaceX catch the Starship with Mechazilla?
Sam: And I had to look this up because I don't follow them closely enough.
Sam: Mechazilla is the giant mechanical arms on the pad gantry to catch the descending first stages of things.
Sam: They have done this with—so this seems like they did it.
Sam: Like, here's an article from October 14, 2024.
Sam: In one of the most dramatic, high-risk spaceflights to date,
Sam: SpaceX launched a gargantuan, super-heavy Starship rocket on an unpiloted test flight Sunday.
Sam: Oh, okay. And then used gigantic Mechazilla mechanical arms on the pad gantry
Sam: to pluck the descending first stage out of the sky. So they grabbed the first
Sam: stage, but they have not grabbed the Starship itself.
Sam: And so the question, I guess, is will they do that in 2026?
Sam: I'm going to say no. I've been fairly bearish on the pace of SpaceX's progress.
Sam: They seem to eventually get whatever they're after, but it always takes them
Sam: significantly longer than they advertise as when they think their timetables will be.
Sam: And I feel like they've been having a lot of issues lately. Maybe I'm wrong.
Sam: I mean, Starship in particular blew up a number of times.
Sam: I mean, all of their things blow up a number of times before they succeed.
Sam: That's just their intentional mode of operation.
Sam: Like, so, but I'm going to say no, not in 2026.
Ivan: I'm going to go with Sam and say no.
Sam: Okay. Next up from Bruce, will Artemis 2 be a success? Is that even still scheduled
Sam: for this year? I think he's butchering it back.
Ivan: I know. That's a good question.
Sam: I mean, it was at one point scheduled.
Sam: So, the current scheduled launch date is February. So, not very far away right now.
Ivan: Well, that's the target at the earliest launch. Right.
Sam: Well, yes. But that's the—.
Ivan: I guess it's supposed to happen in the next few months.
Sam: Currently, that is the scheduled date. I mean, they may push it back.
Ivan: Are there two moon astronauts rehearsed for launch day? And that was yesterday.
Ivan: Shit. This is closer to, you know, this happened to us already before.
Ivan: This happened with the first Artemis where it just sneaked up on us. Yeah.
Ivan: It looks like they're getting ready to roll.
Sam: And to be clear, Artemis 2 is a manned mission to go around the moon and come back.
Sam: So they're not landing yet. That's been pushed out even further.
Sam: But first manned mission with this, I will say it won't happen in February,
Sam: but it will happen this year.
Sam: and let's define success as the four, they actually go around the moon and the
Sam: four astronauts return alive.
Ivan: Yes, we want, yes. Live astronauts returned, yes, is successful. Not dead astronauts.
Sam: Not dead astronauts and not an Apollo 13 scenario where they go partway and
Sam: come back without getting there.
Sam: I'll say yes. Let's be optimistic.
Ivan: Maybe partway. Well, I mean. Wait, wait, wait. Apollo 13, actually.
Sam: They didn't land. They didn't land.
Ivan: Right, so it would be the same. Yeah, so in terms of this mission,
Ivan: Apollo 13 would have been successful.
Sam: Well, yes, but, yes. But, like, if they did not successfully circle the moon.
Sam: Like, for instance, they do an emergency escape on launch or something. That doesn't count.
Ivan: They did circle the moon, is what I'm saying.
Sam: Well, yes, I know Apollo 13 did. But, like, I'm saying in this case,
Sam: a partial, like, if they— No, no, no.
Ivan: If they go circle the moon, come back, and land, and they're all alive, it's a success.
Sam: That's a success, yes.
Ivan: Okay.
Sam: If any one of those elements are missing, it's not a success.
Ivan: Okay.
Sam: Yeah, they don't circle the moon, somebody dies, et cetera, then it's not a success.
Sam: I'm going to be optimistic and say yes. Again, I think it'll be delayed past
Sam: February because everything ends up delayed.
Sam: But let's say yes. Are you a yes?
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: 2026, yes, it will happen.
Sam: Okay, next up, the social media subcategory. Okay.
Sam: Will X usage increase in 2026? I'm going to say it's going to continue to decrease.
Sam: It's been on the decline.
Ivan: It continues to decline. That thing is just slowly imploding.
Sam: I mean, it still has an amazing amount of influence, like given what it is.
Ivan: But it's not what it was.
Sam: For sure.
Ivan: It used to be a viable business. Now it's just Elon's pet project.
Sam: Thing.
Ivan: It's like truth. Basically, it's like truth social right now,
Ivan: which doesn't make any money either.
Ivan: But that used to be a viable business, Sam.
Sam: Well, but the question here isn't about viable businesses. It isn't about money.
Sam: It's about usage. Like, like, usage keeps going down.
Ivan: Usage keeps going down. It's been trending downward and downward and downward continuously.
Sam: And I see nothing that's going to change.
Ivan: And there's nothing. I mean, there's no, you know, there's no investment in it.
Ivan: There's no updates in it. I mean, other applications are adding features,
Ivan: adding things, working into it, and, you know, they're not, so.
Sam: Okay. Bruce also asks, other than the change in ownership, which,
Sam: by the way, has that, is that, has that fully gone through yet?
Sam: Or is it still like a, we've agreed, but it hasn't happened yet? Is that done?
Ivan: The change of an ownership for?
Sam: TikTok. TikTok.
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: So it's completely, I knew there was an agreement, but like it.
Ivan: Actually- That was official over the last couple of weeks, yes.
Sam: Okay, so it's done. Other than
Sam: the change of ownership, will there be any significant changes to TikTok?
Ivan: I don't expect there to be.
Sam: I'm going to say.
Ivan: They've kept a lot. The management team, the people, they're still the working
Ivan: relationship, whatever.
Ivan: This is more like a change in the investors. But in terms of like how it operates,
Ivan: there was no change as far as I tell.
Sam: I'm going to say this depends on significant. Because I'm going to put it this way.
Ivan: Okay. Significant. I'm going to define significant more easily.
Ivan: Are there going to be changes like Twitter?
Ivan: I'm saying simple. Yeah, but we just, you know, yeah, we just...
Sam: Where you see a massive exodus because of feature changes that people find repulsive
Sam: or content changes that people find repulsive.
Ivan: Or because you've got the CEO going like fucking like just fucking around with
Ivan: the algorithm on a regular basis just in order to just... No,
Ivan: you're not going to have any of that shit. No.
Sam: I'm going to say I'm not going to define it that way.
Sam: Well, I will say I agree with you. I don't think there will be something that
Sam: dramatic in the way that you described.
Sam: However, I think TikTok's influence peaked in 2025.
Sam: And you're going to see a decline and degradation that I don't necessarily,
Sam: it's not necessarily because of the ownership changes necessarily,
Sam: but just in the last few months, I've already seen things like increases in
Sam: the percentage of ads you see,
Sam: dark UX patterns where it makes it harder to swipe past an ad without accidentally clicking on it.
Sam: In the last couple of weeks, people have been complaining that there was some
Sam: sort of bug in the algorithm where you were all of a sudden seeing all kinds
Sam: of old crap instead of new stuff.
Sam: And I've noticed as well that it's not,
Sam: As responsive in figuring out the right things to show me,
Sam: I think they're playing with things and tweaking with things to try to improve
Sam: monetization and improve, you know, retention.
Sam: And that in the process, just like almost every fucking social media company
Sam: out there, that they start breaking the things that people liked about it.
Sam: by trying to make it more efficient at making money.
Sam: And so it becomes less desirable over time.
Sam: And I think TikTok is in that cycle and they've already peaked and they're on the downslope.
Sam: Now, do I think they're going to have the kind of dramatic decline that Twitter slash X had?
Sam: I don't think it's going to be as dramatic, but I think there is going to be a, you know,
Sam: general feeling at the end of 2026 that it was not as good or not as compelling
Sam: as it was in 2025. There's my prediction.
Ivan: Well, I'm just going to think that I think that most people will not notice
Ivan: any significant change in what's happening whatsoever.
Ivan: That's just going to be my opinion. They're just going to operate steady as
Ivan: she goes, like right now.
Sam: Well, and my prediction is no step change that people will notice like that
Sam: and complaining No, just a gradual decline over the course of the year.
Ivan: Well, I'm not going to predict that. I think that 2026 is going to be,
Ivan: my opinion is just no significant, nobody's going to be bitching that,
Ivan: oh my God, they fucked up the application by the end of the year.
Ivan: Any differently in terms of, well, here's the thing, everybody complains that
Ivan: everything's been fucked.
Ivan: Like at the end of the year, even when nothing changes. However,
Ivan: I don't think that there's going to be an exodus of users because of any significant
Ivan: changes to it. There you go.
Sam: Okay. Next up, and this is for me a more generic question.
Sam: What does the social media landscape in general look like at the end of the year compared to now?
Sam: I mean, we've had sort of, we talked about X. Yeah.
Sam: The various ex-competitors, it looks like BlueSky and Threads are still the two major ones.
Sam: I'm a lot more on BlueSky. My wife is a lot more on Threads.
Sam: I think you're more on Threads than BlueSky, right, Yvonne? I'm not sure.
Ivan: I will say that I've been more on Threads than on BlueSky. I am using BlueSky.
Ivan: I am using Threads. I must admit that I am barely ever logging into Mastodon anymore.
Sam: Me too. Like, I will occasionally check in, but it was my go-to for a long time.
Ivan: For a while.
Sam: Blue Sky has taken its place for me.
Ivan: Yeah. So I am going to both.
Sam: I'm upset, by the way, that, like, the people who made TweetBot and Ivory as
Sam: clients, they said they were going to be working on a Blue Sky client,
Sam: but it hasn't come out yet.
Sam: But apparently they like one of the it's only a team of like two to three people working on it.
Sam: And one of them had like a major family health crisis.
Sam: So it's delayed indefinitely, which I don't blame them for at all.
Sam: Those issues are more important. But but yeah, I'm kind of there are things
Sam: about the official Blue Sky application that piss me off and make me really
Sam: wish I had one from those guys.
Sam: But but it's still it's the place I use all the time. And the reason is,
Sam: it's where the people I want to follow are.
Sam: It's where the news accounts are. It's where the entertainment accounts are.
Sam: It's, you know, all this kind of stuff. And to me, more than anything else, that's what matters.
Sam: And it is, you can get very easily, your default feed is still reverse chronological
Sam: and not algorithmic. And that actually matters a lot to me.
Ivan: Yeah, I know.
Sam: So does this environment change significantly?
Sam: Do we have new players? Do we see any big changes?
Sam: Like somebody declining? I mean, we said X is going to decline further.
Ivan: Truth social will take over the world.
Sam: I mean, we said X is going to decline, but it's not going to disappear or anything.
Sam: It's still going to be bigger than these competitors.
Ivan: Truth social will take over the world, Sam.
Sam: Yes. Yes, I'm sure that's it.
Ivan: Well, here's the reality. In terms of daily active users right now,
Ivan: I think, like, I saw certain stats recently.
Ivan: Threats has been eclipsing X on a global basis.
Sam: Have they actually passed X?
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: Okay. I'll check again.
Ivan: I haven't heard that yet.
Sam: I
Ivan: I'll check again but.
Sam: But it's got to the point paying attention so.
Ivan: Yeah i there now i i've seen several posts showing.
Sam: I i think i saw a graph at one point that said it was approaching but not one
Sam: that had actually passed i.
Ivan: Think it was one as of late 2025 threads has surpassed x in global daily active mobile users.
Sam: Okay excellent i.
Ivan: Know it was recent now so so that's that's where we're at right now that.
Sam: I still can't get into the threads habit i check it occasionally but i can't
Sam: get into a habit there blue sky is my habit now blue sky and tiktok are where i am regularly so i.
Ivan: Mean think about that i mean you want to talk about squandering a lead i mean but.
Sam: Yeah but.
Ivan: He doesn't care i mean elon doesn't seem to give a shit.
Sam: Well the thing is it's still like
Sam: you still find not in the way that it used to of course but you still find conversations
Sam: on X being things that can sometimes drive news coverage in a way that you still
Sam: don't have on these other platforms true but.
Ivan: But Twitter doesn't move the needle in terms of those conversations as it did
Ivan: like five, six years ago.
Sam: Oh, no, not at all.
Ivan: Their relevance is like completely like.
Sam: You can make an argument that the reason like somebody like Musk would want
Sam: this is not about the money. It's all about the influence and driving the conversation.
Sam: But even by that metric, he's been screwing it up.
Ivan: Oh, he has completely diminished it so much.
Sam: Yeah. Okay, next up, consumer tech slash AI.
Sam: From Ed, which AI company will be the first to fold up in bankruptcy?
Sam: And I need to caveat this. There are hundreds of, if not thousands,
Sam: of AI companies. There are only a few that are big and in the headlines.
Sam: And I don't think any of those big ones will go bankrupt this year.
Ivan: None of the big ones go bankrupt this year. No, no.
Sam: We're talking the Anthropics.
Ivan: You know, whatchamacallit. We got Anthropic, OpenAI.
Sam: Musk's XAI or whatever.
Ivan: Musk's XAI.
Sam: And, of course, Google is in this game. A bunch of other companies are, you know, doing stuff.
Ivan: Look, the crazy thing, and how this mixes XAI with X,
Ivan: okay, by the way, is that Elon Musk made whole his investors on the Twitter
Ivan: buy by basically just filling Twitter with stock in XAI.
Ivan: That's it. That's what he wound up doing.
Sam: Oh, gosh.
Ivan: Because, I mean, the value itself of Twitter is, it's plummeted.
Sam: Right.
Sam: Okay, moving on. And then I realized I made a big mistake, but we'll do this first.
Sam: Will there be changes in AI market share? If so, which one will gain the most? This is from Bruce.
Sam: And how do you even define this?
Ivan: I'm sorry, I misunderstood. Say it again?
Sam: Will there be changes in AI market share? If so, which one will gain the most? This is by Bruce.
Ivan: Problem is, how do you define it? Yeah, that's the problem. we don't really
Ivan: have any good metrics on that right now it's not like we have active daily active
Ivan: users things or whatever i don't know.
Sam: We occasionally get some of that but even
Sam: there it's like what's the difference between like somebody using
Sam: the chat box bot app versus somebody
Sam: using the api to build something versus somebody
Sam: using coding tools based on that platform
Sam: there are all kinds of different usages and you
Sam: know so far like you know open ai
Sam: and chat gpt have gotten the most press but you
Sam: know a whole bunch of these others are actually doing
Sam: a bunch of stuff you you the anthropic stuff
Sam: is big google's stuff is big i think if anything yeah google google maybe gets
Sam: the least attention because it's part of google instead of an independent company
Sam: but google's doing a bunch of stuff you know i i don't know like how to how
Sam: to measure this maybe maybe let.
Ivan: Me you talk about google and you
Ivan: know we talked about agent ai okay look i yesterday i went to a wendy's in.
Sam: Orlando okay they.
Ivan: Have the drive-through this ai agent that's powered by google i just like I
Ivan: just looked up what it is to take your order. Okay.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: By the way, extremely accurate.
Ivan: far more accurate than my experience than the people taking my order.
Sam: Which which by the way this is one of those things where
Sam: they have tried this in various trials at various points over the last two years
Sam: and there have been a few spectacular flame outs where it's gone badly but like
Sam: everything else in this space every three months the technology is dramatically
Sam: better than it was three months ago so i don't think but.
Ivan: Yeah but i don't think that they had been using this google AI agent now.
Ivan: And I think that they went and they had tried it before just with the voice
Ivan: recognition and whatever and just blah, blah, blah. And that didn't,
Ivan: that, that, that, that tried and failed.
Sam: Some of the examples before is like McDonald's famously tried this and it was
Sam: ordering all kinds of weird crap for people that wasn't what they wanted.
Sam: Like, like McFlurry's with bacon added and stuff like that.
Sam: And then there was another fast food company that did it and somebody was able
Sam: to successfully order 10,000 cups of free water, you know, things like this.
Sam: But like I said, it's getting better. So your experience was good.
Ivan: I mean, it was dead on balls accurate. I mean, it was perfect.
Ivan: Look, I, you know, I go through these drive-thrus many times.
Ivan: The reason I'm not somebody that regularly likes to eat fast food,
Ivan: but it's the only drive-thru place that my son can eat their food.
Ivan: If we're on the road and we don't have anything else, it's the only one that
Ivan: has, It's stuff that is allergy-free. So it's Wendy's.
Ivan: And, man, I don't know how I struggled with getting somebody to take my order
Ivan: at Wendy's over and over.
Ivan: And the damn agent was faster, more accurate to take an order than any person
Ivan: that I've had in recent times. Or most of them.
Sam: Okay so how do we how do we even answer this question i don't think we've got i don't think we've got.
Ivan: Good metrics i don't know i don't think we got.
Sam: Because most of them are private companies like they're i don't know i i think that's the.
Ivan: Problem because most of them are private companies it's not like if we if we
Ivan: could go like say hey let's compare open ai's revenue with like xai or whatever
Ivan: but even though when it's part of google we can't even break that out anyway so we don't know.
Sam: Let's let's let's try to define it
Sam: this way in the last year or two whenever people have generally been talking
Sam: about the default thing they talk about is chat chat gpt will that will that
Sam: change will we be talking about like clod or gemini i'm gonna say more than chat gpt i.
Ivan: Don't think it's changing no.
Sam: I i will agree like and and that hides a bunch of stuff behind the surface like
Sam: that's not the best measure but i think that's what it's.
Ivan: The only one that we've got right now because we don't have enough data anywhere else so yeah.
Sam: Okay uh next up for me this is a repeat question i asked it last year too will
Sam: there be any major quote-unquote incident,
Sam: that will be blamed on ai that's like
Sam: big enough that we talk about it on the show and everybody is like
Sam: yeah ai screwed this up and it
Sam: had major real world consequences now we have to define major because we've
Sam: already had like a whole bunch of suicides blamed on people talking to chat
Sam: gpt and other ai agents you know but what do we mean by major and you know what do we think here i.
Ivan: Don't know i i,
Ivan: I don't know.
Sam: I'm going to define it as we have a major news story where something goes horribly
Sam: wrong that is talked about on this show for like a whole segment where the root
Sam: cause is determined to be an AI screw up.
Ivan: Here's a reality. We already had that happen.
Sam: Well, tariffs.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: Yes, we can argue that, you know, all the initial tariffs on,
Sam: like, the big, like, whatever you call that, Freedom Day or whatever the hell
Sam: he called it, we're all determined by AI.
Ivan: Liberation Day. Liberation Day.
Sam: Liberation Day, yes.
Ivan: And how we tariffed penguins.
Sam: Penguins, yes.
Ivan: So we already had it happen, so it's going to happen again.
Sam: It's gonna happen again okay i i will
Sam: say there will be at least another incident equivalent to
Sam: or greater than the tariffs that are attributed to ai for sure yes okay so now
Sam: it is time for break that is the end of our our our our technology section but
Sam: here's the big mistake i made Because I was about to say,
Sam: and our next segment is hodgepodge, and that's the end.
Sam: But I completely skipped our economy section.
Ivan: Yeah, I was wondering when we were going to hit the economy.
Sam: I figured it was coming next. Economy is usually before technology in the order
Sam: we have used for years upon years.
Sam: But I just accidentally skipped the whole damn section.
Sam: It's a relatively short section. We don't have that many questions,
Sam: and most of them are going to be up-down questions. But let's take a break and
Sam: we'll come back and we'll do economy in the wrong order. Sorry, my bad. Here we go.
Sam: Okay, we are back, and now it's time for economy. We divide this into non-numeric and numeric.
Sam: There are only two in the non-numeric category this time. Number one from Ed,
Sam: will we enter into a formal—well, he says depression. I'll just say recession
Sam: at this point. Will we have a recession?
Ivan: Yes. I'm predicting a recession in 2026.
Sam: Okay. Yes, I'll agree. Okay.
Ivan: That's not a good sign. will it we both agree you know we may be wrong what
Ivan: i'm saying right well and to use.
Sam: To use ad's words will it be bad enough that people start comparing it to the depression.
Ivan: No i don't think so but but but yeah
Ivan: but we we are we are going to have a we're on track to have a recession now
Ivan: it may be that it's going to be pushed towards the second half of the year And
Ivan: the reason is because the tax cuts, okay,
Ivan: people are going to start filing their taxes now based on some preliminary estimates that I did.
Ivan: I mean, I, that have not gotten a tax refund in 20 years, may get one, of all crazy things.
Ivan: So a lot of people are going to be getting money back somehow.
Ivan: So that may...
Sam: But concentrated it more on higher incomes than lower, right?
Ivan: Yeah, so it will still do this whole thing. We keep talking about this K-shaped
Ivan: economy, you know, where we've got people with money or keep spending,
Ivan: but the poor people keep getting fucked, the middle class and the poor.
Ivan: So we'll keep getting more of that. But what I'm saying is that that may stave
Ivan: off a recession into the second half because of that.
Ivan: It's just because we're going to get all that money goosed in from the tax cuts.
Ivan: But look, with so many things moving in the other direction,
Ivan: it's just a short-term boost.
Ivan: And what are the problems with upper-income people?
Ivan: getting getting these, which is it's the whole issue with trickle down economics.
Ivan: It's it's just that a lot of times it doesn't fucking trickle down.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: So that's why I think we're getting a recession. So anyway.
Sam: OK, but no depression.
Ivan: I don't think we're going to get a depression in 2026.
Sam: OK, next up for me, we talked about the Supreme Court and tariffs and we agreed
Sam: that whatever they do, it's not going to have a dramatic effect on the actual tariffs.
Sam: But more generally, what's going on with tariffs?
Sam: Because whether the court gets involved or not, you know, is Trump going to
Sam: backslide? Is Trump going to change things? Are you going to screw with them more?
Sam: Has everybody just adapted to them and now they're the reality and no one cares
Sam: anymore? What's going on with tariffs in 2020?
Ivan: It's not, listen, tariffs, it's not that people have just whatever and adapted.
Ivan: We've had a record number of bankruptcies this year, Sam.
Ivan: A lot of those are tariff-driven.
Sam: Right, right. But that was 2025. What's going to happen in 2026?
Sam: Is everybody who's going to go bankrupt already done so and now we're good?
Ivan: No, it's just, no, no. The effects of the tariffs, many times, are delayed.
Ivan: So we will see more effects of the tariffs coming to the years.
Ivan: Part of why I expect a recession, because the reality is that a lot of manufacturers
Ivan: had moved in inventory ahead of tariffs.
Ivan: Once the inventories run out, once profit margins start getting increased,
Ivan: a lot of people had delayed increasing prices because of uncertainty of what
Ivan: the final tariffs were going to be. Okay?
Ivan: More companies have started announcing more price increases. Like automakers.
Ivan: They've been like, some had held the line a couple of months ago on the prices,
Ivan: so they've been, you know, sending more price increases.
Ivan: So you're going to get more and more effects on inflation and the economy in 2026 tariffs.
Ivan: A lot of just just a lot of the effects have been delayed.
Ivan: It's just the way it is.
Sam: So what's your what's your one line summary on what's going on with tariffs in 2026?
Ivan: I think that there will be, just like it happened a couple of months ago,
Ivan: where, didn't you see that the
Ivan: Brazil tariffs all of a sudden Trump backtracked on a whole bunch of them?
Ivan: On coffee, on bananas.
Sam: And some other stuff. I believe I remember vaguely, yes.
Ivan: Yeah, because prices of those goods were getting out of control, okay?
Ivan: I think that as the year progresses and as these inventory things start with
Ivan: new stuff that keeps prices keep coming up,
Ivan: you're going to start seeing more pressure on more backtracking on a number of these tariffs.
Ivan: Because it's going to keep, I think the biggest issue is it's going to start
Ivan: impacting profit margins of a lot of larger companies.
Ivan: now, where they had, but remember, hey, if I stockpiled whatever materials into last year, and then,
Ivan: okay, now I've got to use the new, more expensive ones, because right out of
Ivan: the old cheap ones, right, that I stockpiled, and all of a sudden,
Ivan: I can't just hold off on raising prices.
Ivan: I'm going to start raising prices, but maybe consumers can't absorb the bigger
Ivan: prices because unemployment is rising.
Ivan: And so that's going to start squeezing profit margins. The moment that Wall
Ivan: Street starts saying that profits are down, profits are down,
Ivan: profits are down, guess where the pressure is going to go to?
Ivan: They're going to be lining up at the White House and I guess,
Ivan: I don't know, somebody's going to give him, handing out more gold and,
Ivan: I don't know, trinkets to get tariff relief.
Sam: Okay. My tariff prediction, I think, is similar to yours.
Sam: we're going to continue to, you know, besides the SCOTUS thing we already talked
Sam: about, we're going to continue to see Donald Trump,
Sam: tinker with them throughout the year up down
Sam: sideways making a deal here making a
Sam: deal there exceptions here exceptions there and it's just one of it's one of
Sam: the toys he likes to play with and he will continue playing it with it yes and
Sam: the the actual results yeah you just went through a litany of various effects we can see.
Sam: But I will say that the actual results will continue to be somewhat muddled
Sam: in that because there's a delay between cause and effect, and because there
Sam: are all kinds of other things going on too,
Sam: there'll always be a little bit of, you know,
Sam: plausible deniability of like,
Sam: whatever's happened, oh, that's not the tariffs, that's something else.
Sam: That's this, that's this, or whatever. And so it won't be completely clear cut.
Sam: But Daniel Trump, that's a new one.
Ivan: That's a new one. Daniel. Yeah, Danny.
Sam: Daniel Trump. But Donald Trump will continue to play with his tariffs. It's his favorite toy.
Sam: And we will continue to see general negative effects on the economy that some
Sam: people blame on tariffs, but which other people argue are unrelated. There you go.
Ivan: Oh, yeah. A lot of people argue they're unrelated because of how delayed the effect has been. Yes.
Sam: Right. Okay. Numeric economy predictions first.
Sam: First up, this is the first one from my son Alex. He wants to know,
Sam: will one plus one equal two?
Ivan: Hmm.
Sam: This is a tough one. For sufficiently large values of one.
Ivan: I mean, yeah, I mean, it could be, you know, when you've got a tariff one versus
Ivan: a tax one versus a candy one.
Ivan: I'm going to say this is the year that one plus one breaks the two. It doesn't add up.
Sam: It doesn't add up this year.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: So one plus one will be more than two this year.
Ivan: Yes. Correct.
Sam: Okay. I'm going to go with one plus one is going to be less than two this year.
Ivan: Shit.
Sam: It's going to be that year.
Ivan: It's going to be that year. Damn.
Sam: Okay. Next up from Bruce. CPI, that's consumer price index, as of Q3.
Sam: Now, in previous years, I'll just say this, previous years, for all of these
Sam: numeric ones, I've gone through,
Sam: I've used a spreadsheet, I've looked at the last 20 years, and I've done a projection
Sam: of a range that I thought was reasonable based on previous variability, blah, blah, blah.
Sam: The last two years, I've been like, I don't have time for that crap.
Sam: I'm just going to say up or down.
Sam: I'm going to say CPI, which is it's basically inflation, right?
Sam: It's the main measure of inflation.
Ivan: Consumer price index, yeah. There's producer price index, there's a consumer
Ivan: price index. The one that we look at most of us.
Sam: Inflation is the rate of change of CPI, right?
Ivan: Yes, right. I mean, consumer price index would be zero, it's flat.
Ivan: It could be deflationary. CPI could be negative.
Sam: I'm going to say we're up. Inflation is going to be up over...
Sam: Q3 next year is going to be higher than Q3 this year.
Ivan: Right.
Ivan: We're going to have, the CPI will be positive, basically.
Ivan: We're going to have inflation. And what you're saying is it's going to be a
Ivan: higher inflation rate than 2025.
Sam: Yes. And we're talking year over year number as of the Q3 number because we
Sam: won't have Q4 number yet.
Ivan: I'm going with a yes too.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: I'll agree with that one. Okay.
Sam: How about GDP? Now you've predicted an inflation which implies reduction in GDP.
Ivan: I'm going to GDP is going to be end of Q3 GDP is going to be is that I mean we're going to have,
Ivan: lower growth than 20 so let's let's make sure we're.
Sam: Very specific on here are we talking about the rate of growth of GDP are we
Sam: talking about absolute GDP.
Ivan: Yeah so the question is we're going to be negative. Well, if we start a recession,
Ivan: here's the thing, right?
Ivan: So a recession requires two quarters of negative GDP to be officially called a recession.
Sam: Negative GDP growth. Negative GDP growth. Negative GDP would be an entirely different scenario.
Ivan: Yeah, negative GDP, that would be quite a problem. Negative GDP growth. Fuck.
Ivan: The thing is that I don't think we're going to be in negative GDP growth until Q3.
Sam: Okay. So are we talking— So I expect— Q3, but we're here, we're just comparing—well,
Sam: actually, do it however you want.
Sam: I'm going to compare and say the rate of GDP growth reported for Q3 will be
Sam: less than the rate of GDP growth reported for Q3 2025.
Sam: So I'm not even saying positive or negative. I'm just saying lower growth.
Ivan: We're going to have lower growth. We're going to have way lower growth than 20.
Sam: Now you can you can go beyond that and be more specific.
Ivan: I already talked about the recession earlier. So I already I already made a
Ivan: recession prediction. I'm going to put all to be consistent.
Ivan: We're not not. I'm going to go with your prediction.
Ivan: You know, GDP growth will be lower in 2026 and 2025. Absolutely. Yes.
Sam: Comparing the Q3 numbers.
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: Okay. Bitcoin at end of year. Also from Bruce.
Ivan: I'm going to say that Bitcoin at the end of- How did it do this year?
Sam: Did it actually end down this year?
Ivan: I think it's kind of flat.
Sam: Year over year.
Ivan: Isn't it?
Sam: Well, yeah.
Ivan: Isn't it kind of flat?
Sam: It's not exactly flat. So is it up or down? Let's get a chart up.
Ivan: Oh, God.
Sam: Getting up Bitcoin one year.
Ivan: It's very close to where it started.
Sam: Last year. Down year over year. Down year over year.
Ivan: Yeah, like 5.2%. Yeah, it's very close to where it was last year.
Ivan: So it was like it started the year in 92 and it ended the year at 87,000.
Sam: And a fraction in both cases. Yeah. I'm going to say down again.
Sam: Second down year in a row.
Ivan: Okay, I'm going with down.
Sam: Okay. Gold.
Ivan: Gold up.
Sam: I'll agree with you on up.
Sam: Gas, like, you know, car gas.
Ivan: Down.
Sam: In the U.S. Down?
Sam: I'll go with down two. I'm agreeing with you too much. This is not good. No, this is not good.
Ivan: This makes for terrible entertainment.
Sam: Terrible entertainment, and it doubles the risk. Like, we calculate an overall score.
Sam: Yes, I know. Whenever we hedge by disagreeing.
Ivan: Yeah, but we're, we're. You know, it means we're.
Sam: If we're both wrong, we're screwed.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: Okay. Okay, and by down, we're talking average U.S.
Sam: nationwide, blah, blah, blah, whatever, because, of course, it varies location
Sam: to location, and we're talking U.S., not international, et cetera.
Sam: Okay, not on here, but we've always also talked about, generally,
Sam: oil, and we pick Brent Cruz.
Sam: Sometimes we pick the other one.
Ivan: Whatever you want. I think we pick West Texas Intermediate.
Sam: We've done both in previous years.
Ivan: All right, so let's go with West Texas. Okay.
Sam: Yes.
Sam: I'm going to say up. I'm going to say up.
Ivan: I'm going to say down.
Sam: Okay. You know, you don't have to follow my lead and go up and down.
Sam: You could do ranges, too.
Ivan: No, no, no. Let's be consistent, because otherwise, then we're doing two different
Ivan: predictions on every single one.
Ivan: No, this is easier to try.
Sam: Okay, Dow, up or down? I'm going to say down, because we're predicting a recession and all that.
Ivan: I'm going to go with down.
Sam: And S&P also down?
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: Okay. And we might as well complete the trifecta NASDAQ also down?
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: I'm also going down. Oh, God, we're agreeing on all of these.
Ivan: I'll go against you. I'll go NASDAQ up.
Sam: NASDAQ up, everything else down. Okay.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: And then unemployment up or down? I'm going up.
Ivan: No, unemployment's going up. Okay.
Sam: Okay that was rad how about trade deficit from ed.
Ivan: Okay let's see where the trade deficit trend line has been by the way trade
Ivan: deficit year-to-date september was up by the way.
Sam: Aren't tariffs gonna fix all this.
Ivan: Uh-huh yeah that's.
Sam: What tariffs are for right export everything import nothing.
Ivan: Uh okay yeah uh uh oh let me check so uh U.S. trade deficit monthly.
Ivan: Here's the Y charts. Three year.
Ivan: Well,
Ivan: I mean, trade deficit has been relatively... It was up this year,
Ivan: year to date, in large part because of that surge of imports.
Ivan: Yeah, year over year because of that huge surge of imports that we had.
Sam: At the beginning of the year when people were stocking up.
Ivan: Yeah. I mean, it was like, it hit like a record.
Ivan: I mean, it's a crazy number, Sam. It hit stocking up for the tariffs.
Ivan: Like the trade deficit now is at 53 billion and it's been about averaging around 60.
Sam: But there is still deficit. We didn't get to a surplus.
Ivan: No, we didn't get to surplus. But in March, it hit $137 billion.
Ivan: That's how big that surge of imports was heading into the tariffs.
Ivan: $137. That was like March was $137 billion.
Ivan: February, $120 billion. And January, $128 billion. So think about this.
Ivan: compared to where what was the.
Sam: Baseline like last.
Ivan: Year 60 we basically we imported yeah yeah yeah we imported an extra 180 billion
Ivan: dollars worth of merchandise over a three month period okay,
Ivan: because of the tariffs.
Sam: But it was supposed to go down, Yvonne, because of tariffs. We were supposed to get to surplus.
Ivan: Yeah. Now it's down now, of course, because fuck, we imported the shit out of everything.
Sam: Okay, so now that initial bump is out of the way, in 2026, do we go up or down?
Ivan: Tread deficit is going to go up again.
Sam: Up again? Yeah.
Ivan: He's going to go... Well, no, here's the thing. It's actually going to be down
Ivan: on 2025 because of that huge surge of interest.
Sam: And are we talking whole year number, or are we talking quarter over quarter,
Sam: or year over year? Well, at this point.
Ivan: Usually what we can get at this point is usually only trade data through September.
Sam: Kind of like the same thing as GDP. Are we going to actually compare Q3 to Q3
Sam: then, as opposed to a full year number?
Ivan: Or, I mean, the trailing four quarters.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: So I'm going to say trailing four quarters. It's going to be down.
Ivan: It's going to be down, but simply because we had that ridiculous surge of imports.
Sam: Okay. I'll agree. Next up, two related items.
Sam: Federal budget deficit. It's going to go up again.
Ivan: It's up. I mean, we cut taxes like lunatics. Of course, it's going up.
Sam: Yes. And the related question, will...
Ivan: You know how bad we've cut taxes, Sam? Did you see that in the last couple of
Ivan: weeks that Mitt Romney actually agreed that we needed to raise taxes?
Sam: Yes, I saw that.
Ivan: Yes, I did. I mean, this is the timeline that we are in right now,
Ivan: where Mitt Romney actually agrees that we need to raise taxes.
Ivan: Holy shit, what a time to be alive.
Sam: Okay.
Sam: Next up, related question, will the total federal debt go over $40 trillion?
Sam: I just looked it up on Fred. The most recent number they had is Q2.
Sam: What's the number? But 36. 36 trillion.
Ivan: Oh, fuck, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Answers yes. It's going over $40 trillion. Answers yes.
Sam: Okay. I will agree. Yes. Okay. And that's it for econ.
Ivan: Okay.
Sam: Okay, so that means it is time for another break. And then it really will be
Sam: our last one, Hodgepodge, which is a bunch of random little stuff.
Sam: And hopefully we'll go pretty quick. We will be back because we are now rapidly
Sam: approaching the three-hour mark.
Sam: Yo, so here we go.
Ivan: So much for me hurrying this thing up.
Sam: Well, I don't think we'll make it to four.
Ivan: Good.
Sam: Good. So here we go.
Sam: Okay, we are back and we are in hodgepodge and the first subsection of hodgepodge is medical.
Sam: And the first question is from my son, Alex, who asks, will Yvonne die?
Ivan: I'm going with a no.
Sam: You know, as tempted as I am, I have to go with no.
Sam: Because if I went with yes, then in order to get this right,
Sam: if in the last week of December you were still alive, I'd have to come down
Sam: to Florida and murder you.
Sam: And that would be a bad set of incentives.
Ivan: He's got a co-host with you every fucking week.
Sam: Exactly. So, like, this is not a winning scenario for me. I'd also end up in
Sam: jail, and that would be bad.
Ivan: That would be bad.
Sam: That would be bad. And just to get one additional question right on the prediction show.
Ivan: It seems like a lot.
Sam: Yeah. So I'm going to have to go with yes, Yvonne will still be alive at the end of the year.
Ivan: Okay. Well, by the way, one prediction to add. Fidel Castro will still be dead.
Sam: Now, I put our celebrity deaths at the end, but okay, Fidel Castro will still be dead.
Sam: You didn't qualify as a celebrity death, so I didn't move you to the end.
Ivan: I'm fucking deeply offended.
Sam: Okay, next up from John. How many MRIs will Trump have in 2026?
Ivan: I'm going with three.
Sam: I will go with four.
Ivan: Okay, there you go.
Sam: Okay, next up, Ed, will an mRNA-based care be found effective for treating any form of cancer?
Sam: Now, there have been some that have already been pretty promising.
Sam: That's what I was thinking.
Ivan: Ed. Don't we have?
Sam: I mean, I guess the question is where in the trial process they end up being?
Sam: Because I know there are early trials that are already showing good results, right? Or am I wrong?
Ivan: Yeah, that's what I thought. No, no, that's what I remember.
Sam: So, I guess, is the question really, like, are they out of trials and available for general use?
Ivan: Yeah, I mean, I guess, so there is no approved yet mRNA-based cancer therapy, okay?
Sam: But there's some that are showing promising results in trials.
Ivan: Right? Yes, correct, but it's in clinical trials, yes, and that are shown promise.
Ivan: Some have reached late stage, yeah, but none are approved. So the question is
Ivan: whether we get one approved in 2026.
Sam: Yeah, because I mean, found effective, I would say late stage,
Sam: you're already almost there. But I guess approved.
Ivan: I'll go with approved. I don't know. Based on this fucking administration,
Ivan: I'm going to say no. Because these guys are sociopaths.
Sam: Well, could they be approved elsewhere in the world?
Ivan: Yeah, I'm going to say yes.
Sam: Okay. So yes, elsewhere, no U.S. Because this administration fundamentally thinks
Sam: like mRNA is poisoning you or something.
Ivan: Correct. Yes.
Sam: Because they're out of their minds.
Sam: I will agree. Yes, international, no U.S.
Sam: for actual approved usage of mRNA cancer treatments.
Sam: Okay, next up from Ed, will RFK Jr. be thrown out of office? No.
Ivan: No. I mean, if they haven't thrown any of them out yet, why are we going to throw them out in 2026?
Ivan: I mean, in a normally functioning administration.
Sam: Hackseth, Rubio— Maybe if my prediction comes true and we have President Vance
Sam: by the end, maybe Vance thinks differently about RFK.
Sam: But even then, I don't think so. I think he's going to try to.
Ivan: No, no, no. I think that a guy like Vance, who is, remember,
Ivan: he just goes with the flow, right?
Sam: Mm-hmm.
Ivan: I'm sure that he will get rid of almost all of these people because he will
Ivan: want people that sucks up to him.
Sam: Eventually, not like on day one or anything.
Ivan: Yeah, not on the... Because you want people that suck up to him, not Trump.
Sam: I can see that. But also, he's going to be very careful about trying to keep
Sam: the Trump base and blah, blah, blah, and, you know, whatever.
Ivan: But right now, he's already losing them with these guys anyway. So what the hell?
Sam: Anyway, RFK will still be there at the end of the year.
Ivan: RFK will still be there.
Sam: Next up. Oh, God. I'm going to be tempted for ups and downs on these as well,
Sam: rather than numbers. Sorry, Ed, because I haven't done research.
Sam: How many deaths? And I guess these are worldwide. worldwide, maybe U.S. I don't know.
Sam: I'm going to interpret these as U.S. for now. Measles, whooping cough,
Sam: and tetanus, all three up.
Ivan: We're all up.
Sam: We're going up. We've got the world's worst public health administration that we've ever seen.
Ivan: All the numbers are going to point up. Oh, that's the wrong way.
Sam: Everything about prevention is out the window. Yeah, up, up.
Ivan: Make America sick again.
Sam: Right. Okay, that's it for medical.
Sam: The next category was originally sports, but Alex made it sports slash abblesmay.
Sam: First question, will Abelfnaf be finished from Alex?
Sam: This is that game that I was making last year.
Sam: I will say yes, goddammit. I will finish it in 2026.
Ivan: I'm going to say no.
Sam: I obviously did not finish it in 2025. I suck.
Ivan: I don't want to know.
Sam: Okay. His next question, will Abolfnaf Web Game Edition, because right now it's
Sam: a Mac game, and I was trying to make it a web game, will it be canceled?
Sam: No, it will not be canceled. And furthermore, it will be out by the end of 2026.
Sam: I'm pointing at Alex.
Sam: Of course, I predicted it would be out by the end of 2025, and I was wrong.
Sam: We'll see that next week.
Sam: What do you think, Yvonne Abolf?
Ivan: I agree with your prediction.
Sam: And by the way, to avoid jinxing myself, I have not added predictions here for
Sam: Robin letter or juke potter potter or bookshelf or my to-do list manager thing
Sam: or any of the projects i'm actively working on because that would you know i it would be that.
Ivan: Could be that would be problematic.
Sam: I i mean you know i i am tempted to just make positive predictions for everything
Sam: but no i'm going to not do that to avoid like bad luck for me predicting things
Sam: like obviously happened with Abolfnaf.
Sam: Okay, next question from Alex.
Sam: Will Abelsmay become an athlete?
Ivan: Ha ha ha ha!
Ivan: I'm going to go with a no.
Sam: I'm going to say I will be signed by at least one professional sports team in 2026.
Ivan: Whoa!
Sam: You know, I don't know, probably hockey, ice hockey, you know?
Ivan: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It sounds great. Right. Seattle Kraken,
Ivan: right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right.
Sam: Yeah, that's it.
Ivan: That's my new career. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sam: It sounds great.
Ivan: You don't need those teeth anyway. What the hell?
Sam: Don't need teeth. You know, I'm sure the fact that my shoulder and hip hurt
Sam: all the time isn't going to affect this in any way.
Sam: The fact that, you know, my maximum
Sam: run without winding myself is like 10 seconds. That doesn't matter.
Ivan: You're good. You're fine.
Sam: I'm fine. You're fine.
Ivan: You're fine.
Sam: So, yes.
Ivan: You're fine.
Sam: Did I just make the—I will become an athlete, and furthermore,
Sam: I will be signed by a professional sports team.
Ivan: Yes, that's correct. Yes, that's your—.
Sam: I'm doing wonders for my average for next year.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: Yeah, this will really help out.
Sam: Next question from John. How many curmudgeons corner mugs will be sold in 2026?
Sam: Now, I will exclude myself. So anything that I purchase for myself or for giving
Sam: mugs to guests on the show and stuff like that, or to people who,
Sam: you know, join the Patreon at an appropriate level, I'm not going to count those.
Sam: I'm going to say two, two mug purchases in 2026. I'll go with one. With one?
Sam: You know, are you making a purchase right now? Because you need to wait till midnight.
Ivan: No, no, no. I'm not making a purchase right now. But at least it's one that
Ivan: I can, if it's not coming true, I can go and just quickly solve it.
Sam: By a bug.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: There you go. Okay.
Sam: Okay. Ed wants to know, will the Spurs be the champions?
Sam: And to show my athleticism from the previous question, I don't even know what sport this is.
Ivan: Okay, this is NBA, San Antonio Spurs.
Sam: Okay. And Ed says, by the way, go Spurs, go.
Ivan: Okay, so he's a big Spurs fan. So they've got this, they've got this guy,
Ivan: Wembenyama, who's from France, that has the, he is so tall, Sam,
Ivan: and his arms are so long. It's ridiculous.
Ivan: It's ridiculous how this guy can move so swiftly. I'm going to say no.
Ivan: Because I think my prediction will be that the NBA champs, again,
Ivan: will be the same team as last year. Oklahoma City.
Sam: Okay. John asks, will there be an MLB lockout?
Sam: And I'm not going to make any predictions on the Spurs because I have no idea.
Ivan: I mean, you can just go throw a dart out at it. Say yes or no.
Sam: Okay. Bruce asks for a Super Bowl winner.
Ivan: Oh, fuck. Super Bowl, well, it's going to happen in the Phoenix. Oh, man.
Ivan: Shit. Super Bowl winner. Damn.
Ivan: I, I, I, I'm going to, let me look again and, I, I, let me look at my options here.
Ivan: I don't like my options. Um, uh, let's see.
Ivan: Uh, uh, hold on.
Ivan: who would I pick? I'm going to pick the Los Angeles Rams.
Sam: Okay. I'm going to do nothing on this one. Do you want to do baseball World Series?
Ivan: I'm going to pick the Dodgers again.
Sam: I'm going to avoid this, too. I have no idea. Any other sports you want to make
Sam: a championship prediction for?
Ivan: No, no. That's already enough championship predictions.
Sam: Do we have an Olympics this year? Anything going on? Do we have a Winter Olympics?
Ivan: Do we? When is the Olympics? No, but we have a World Cup.
Sam: World Cup, yeah.
Ivan: Oh, God. No, no. I'm not going to make any more sports predictions.
Ivan: I'm done. That's enough sports predictions.
Sam: One more curmudgeons corner prediction since we had the mugs one.
Sam: Traffic, like weekly downloads for curmudgeons corner.
Sam: It is typically for years now hovered around 50 a week, sometimes a little higher,
Sam: sometimes a little lower.
Sam: My prediction is it's still going to be in that range most of the year between 40 and 60.
Ivan: Uh, I'm going to predict it's going to stay in that range.
Ivan: Now, you know what? No, I'm going to predict it's going to break out over 60.
Sam: Break out over 60. Just once or break out over 60 and stay up over 60?
Ivan: No, no, no. Like that. Because we do occasionally go above 60.
Sam: So we have.
Ivan: No, no, no. The average will break out over 60.
Sam: And stay over 60.
Ivan: Yes. Yes.
Sam: Okay. Okay. Very good. I'm going to say the average will stay between 40 and 60 most of the year.
Sam: It might peak above it, but it won't stay above it. There you go.
Ivan: So what I'm saying is that, because you talked about that 40 to 60 range,
Ivan: what I'm saying is that the average, when you look at it, will break over that range.
Sam: Right, and stay over. Correct.
Ivan: I'm saying it might go over temporarily.
Sam: But won't stay over.
Ivan: What I'm saying is the average of the year, yes.
Sam: Okay. Yeah. Just looking at the last year, our smallest weekly number that I
Sam: don't think was a data artifact was only 20 downloads.
Sam: And our highest that I don't think was just bogus data was 130.
Sam: The average number all-time high was around 70, and low for the year was around 35.
Sam: But, yeah. And our current average is inflated by some bogus numbers I haven't
Sam: eliminated from the charts yet.
Sam: So, we had one day that said we had 102 downloads, which was not real.
Sam: and once I take it out, it'll reduce our average.
Sam: Okay. Back to,
Sam: That was you?
Ivan: No, no, no. It helps me.
Sam: Oh, right. It helps you. Okay, next up, weather and climate.
Sam: How many Atlantic hurricanes in 2026?
Ivan: Man, how many do we have this year? I'm going to go, well, oh.
Sam: And by the way, this is hurricane specifically not named storms.
Ivan: See, how many do we have this year? we had two.
Sam: Only two.
Ivan: No, we had total hurricanes not named storms.
Sam: Gabrielle and Humberto.
Sam: I'm looking at that HC site.
Sam: We had Tropical Storm Andrea, Tropical Storm Barry, Tropical Storm Dexter,
Sam: Tropical Storm Ferdinand, Hurricane Gabrielle, Hurricane Humberto, Tropical Storm Jerry,
Sam: Subtropical Storm Karen, and Tropical Storm Lorenzo. Only two hurricanes.
Ivan: No, it says here. No. I'm at the Wikipedia page. Hurricanes, we had five.
Sam: Wait. I'm looking at the NHC. I'm not sure. Wikipedia, too.
Ivan: Hurricanes were five.
Sam: Okay. Which ones?
Ivan: Let me see.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: Aaron. Okay. Gabriel. Umberto.
Sam: Wait, are you looking at the 2025 season? You're looking at 2024.
Ivan: No, I'm looking at 2025. 2025 Hurricane Atlantic.
Sam: What the hell am I looking at then? I'm looking at 2025 Atlantic hurricane season.
Sam: I'm looking at 2025. Let me look at Wikipedia too. So, match.
Sam: You know, this shouldn't be hard.
Ivan: No, it should. I trust Wikipedia. So, it got Five major, five hurricanes, four major.
Sam: Barry, Chantel, Dexter, Aaron.
Ivan: That's a hurricane. That's one.
Sam: Oh, wait. Okay. I don't, like, I'm missing Aaron from this list entirely.
Sam: I don't know. Okay, I will go with yours. I will go with yours because it's,
Sam: like, I'm clearly missing a couple.
Ivan: Like, I'm looking at the— Five was a very low number, by the way.
Ivan: All right. Well, that's because probably because of the cutbacks by these assholes.
Sam: But there you go.
Ivan: But I'm going to say, look, the average is seven.
Ivan: We're going to go over five. I mean, that was a that was a very low number.
Sam: OK, so your prediction is more than five for next year.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: OK, I I will give a range here.
Sam: that four to seven. I'll go with four to seven.
Sam: Okay, now how many of them will make landfall in the U.S.?
Ivan: Oh. Two.
Sam: How many was it this year? Any of those?
Ivan: I don't know if any of them made landfall in the U.S.
Sam: Okay. I'm gonna say zero to two.
Sam: Okay, next up. We ask this every year. Will 2020 2026 be the hottest year ever?
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: I'll say yes as well. You're more likely to be right with a yes than a no.
Sam: Like, we do have some years that it comes in number two or number three instead
Sam: of number one. But it's number one a lot.
Sam: Okay. My next one is one specific to Yvonne.
Sam: And it was prompted by your complaints at the beginning of the show about the
Sam: coldness of the weather.
Sam: Will Ivan, with his own eyes, in person, see snow in 2026?
Sam: It doesn't have to be snow at your home. You could have traveled somewhere and seen it somewhere.
Ivan: I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, that's happened.
Sam: Obviously. Oh, and I will add, it can't count seeing the top of a mountain from
Sam: a distance. has to be like, you physically, the snow is where you are.
Ivan: So it's not like if I'm on an airplane and we fly past a snow-capped peak.
Sam: No, that doesn't count. If you fly over Greenland on the way to Europe, that doesn't count.
Sam: No, you have to be physically present with the snow.
Ivan: Shit. You know what? I'm going to go with a no.
Sam: Okay. I will say yes, even if I have to mail you a snowball.
Ivan: No, I'm not going to nail you a snowball. You can. I mean, you pack it in dry ice.
Sam: Yeah, yeah. It's possible. I'm not going to do it, though. I promise I will
Sam: not do it. But I will say yes, you will see snow.
Ivan: But it will be quince- You may be right.
Sam: You will end up, it won't be at your house. I'm going to make myself- Listen.
Ivan: If it's snowing in Boca Raton, it's going to be really a- I mean,
Ivan: I know this year's probably going to be very fucked up. But shit,
Ivan: if it's snowing in Boca, then it's really, really beyond fucked up.
Sam: No, it's, you're going to travel somewhere and incidentally you're going to
Sam: happen to be there during a cold snap.
Ivan: Yeah, I mean that's the way that I normally see snow, so yeah.
Sam: Okay. When is the last time you saw snow?
Sam: How many years ago was the last time you saw snow?
Ivan: I think that the last time I saw snow, I think it must have been at a meeting
Ivan: in Rochester, New York, where I went for work.
Sam: So like five years, six years ago?
Ivan: Yeah, it must have been in 2019. Yeah.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: But I went, yeah.
Sam: Okay pop culture John wants to know will the Rolling Stones release a new album
Sam: and of course my immediate reaction is they're still alive heck.
Ivan: I just heard they canceled a tour I think because one of them didn't feel well
Ivan: so I'm gonna say no they're not gonna release.
Sam: I'm gonna say no they canceled and they apparently said they're probably never
Sam: gonna tour again they've in you know.
Ivan: They're really old now.
Sam: Well, a lot of these bands do the things where they switch out members,
Sam: and they keep going even after none of the original members exist.
Ivan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but no, well, it's not none. Usually,
Ivan: at least, the bands stay together because, like, one or two of the key original
Ivan: members stay, even though everybody else changes.
Sam: Usually, not always, yeah.
Ivan: Okay, but, you know, yeah, yeah, I mean, they're old.
Sam: Yeah, I'm going to say no.
Ivan: Hey, Mick Jagger is 82. fuck Jesus
Ivan: Christ McJaggar's 82 Keith Richards is 82 as well and Ronnie Wood is 78 the
Ivan: youngster I mean yeah these guys are not touring again come on gotta be done.
Sam: Next question from Bruce best picture Oscar winner now I've looked up like contenders.
Sam: And apparently this is from Variety and Rotten Tomatoes with an AI assist from
Sam: something. I don't know, whatever, AI crap.
Sam: It lists the contenders as one battle after another, sinners,
Sam: hamnet, wicked for good, and sentimental value.
Sam: Now, I've only seen one of the five and I've only even heard of a couple of the others.
Sam: So I have seen Wicked for Good. I haven't reviewed it on this show yet,
Sam: but I will say that it was fine, but not as good as the first movie,
Sam: which a lot of people expected because the second half of the musical wasn't
Sam: as good as the first half either.
Sam: but I don't I think if it was going to get an Oscar it should have been for
Sam: the first one so it's going to be one of these others that I've never heard of,
Sam: of these others the only one I've well, the ones I've heard of,
Sam: a little bit of buzz about but not enough to even tell you what they're about
Sam: are One Battle After Another and Sinners I heard more buzz about One Battle
Sam: After Another so I'm going to pick that one just because I've heard about it more Okay.
Ivan: So I've not watched any of them,
Ivan: I really have very little idea what any of them are about. The only one that
Ivan: I've heard of some talk about is Sinners.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: So simply on the basis of the fact that I had heard of the name of the movie,
Ivan: and it's not Wicked for Good, which I know is a much bigger movie,
Ivan: which I will go with Sinners.
Sam: Someone pointed out recently, I was watching probably a TikTok recently,
Sam: of somebody analyzing how up through about the 1970s,
Sam: The list of Oscar nominees and Oscar winners often aligned very closely to the
Sam: biggest box office winners.
Sam: But starting in the 1980s, that deteriorated. That's right. And so now there's
Sam: almost no correlation at all.
Sam: You almost never see an Oscar winner also be a big box office winner or vice versa. It's very rare.
Sam: Anyway, okay, that's our predictions for that. Obviously not knowing.
Sam: And here is my Epstein files follow up.
Sam: You know, we talked about Trump Epstein files. We talked about other politicians Epstein files.
Sam: So will there be a major impact on any other famous individual from the Epstein
Sam: files that come out this year, whether it be, you know,
Sam: wealthy people or entertainers or anybody who's well known for other reasons?
Ivan: I got to believe that the answer is yes.
Sam: I got to say yes, too.
Ivan: There's somebody that we hadn't really talked about that is going to get blowback from this.
Sam: You know, and I'm going to, I will say yes.
Sam: I will go further this time because we already know Melinda French Gates specifically
Sam: said that one of the reasons for her divorce was her husband's involvement with Epstein.
Ivan: But we've already heard about him.
Sam: He's already gotten some blowback. But we will have something in the Epstein
Sam: files that validates an issue with Bill Gates above and beyond pictures of him
Sam: with Epstein that are arguably innocent.
Sam: We're going to hear something about Bill Gates involved in a way that is not innocent.
Ivan: I hope not. I mean, I, you know.
Sam: I hear you.
Ivan: And I, and I, and I hope not, not in a way of like, I don't,
Ivan: I don't want to hear it if it really happened.
Sam: If it really happened, string him up at his knees, you know, whatever.
Sam: But I'm just going to say, like, if Melinda French Gates believed Bill Gates
Sam: when he said, oh, yeah, I hung out with him, but it was nothing.
Sam: They might not be divorced today. So she's got to know something.
Sam: I'm going to take that as the extra smoke on Bill Gates.
Ivan: Okay.
Sam: But whether or not it's actually Bill Gates, I'm going to predict there are
Sam: going to be some other people above and beyond who we have heard about already,
Sam: where there is something that comes out of the files that is extremely bad for them.
Sam: Now, on all of these, Trump, the other politicians, this one,
Sam: I want to caveat this by saying this might not mean proof that would hold up
Sam: in a court of law that they committed a crime.
Sam: that's a really high bar and that
Sam: might not be in there but but allegations
Sam: things that seem credible things that are like okay we may not be able to prove
Sam: it but that looks pretty damn fishy you know that kind of stuff okay okay and
Sam: we are at the very last thing which is our traditional death predictions Transcription by CastingWords.
Ivan: Which one broke up?
Sam: People who will die in 2024.
Ivan: Oh, the dead. Okay. Our dead pool. Okay. All right. So who are we?
Sam: Okay. Now, we've also typically put this into two categories.
Sam: One are just celebrities that are really old.
Sam: And it's like, okay, at some point, their time will come.
Sam: And then we've always made ourselves go with somebody who's not old that we're still predicting.
Sam: So I will go, let's go with the old ones first. Now I brought up a list.
Sam: IMDb has a list of oldest living actors and celebrities.
Sam: The first few, I don't even, well, Ray Anthony, I have no idea.
Sam: Jacqueline White, no idea. Eva Marie Saint, I've heard the name,
Sam: but I couldn't necessarily bring her up.
Sam: She was apparently in some Hitchcock movies and some other stuff.
Sam: Bridget Ober, no idea. Lee Grant, no idea. First one that I'm like, oh, yeah, definitely.
Sam: Dick Van Dyke just turned 100 a few days ago. There were pictures of his birthday
Sam: party and him doing stuff at his birthday party.
Ivan: Yeah, but I tell you what, he looks pretty good. I'm not betting on,
Ivan: I guess, Dick Van Dyke. Okay, I'll tell you what.
Ivan: I've seen him exercise still. 100 is 100.
Sam: I've seen him drive.
Ivan: I know, but I've seen, listen.
Sam: Yeah, I know, I know what you're saying.
Ivan: I see a lot of people are getting to 100. What I'm saying is I'm not predicting this year.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: It's just that I've seen him. He's still working out. He's still,
Ivan: you're still driving until recently for heaven's sakes. Okay.
Sam: So are you going to explicitly predict he will be alive at the end of the year?
Ivan: Yes, I'm going to go with Dick Van Dyke will make it to the end of 2025.
Sam: Okay, I will say Dick Van Dyke will not. But I definitely see- I mean.
Ivan: 2026, sorry.
Sam: Yeah, 2026. Yeah, he, I mean, you're right. For 100 years old,
Sam: he looks pretty good. He's pretty spry still for 100.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: The next one I recognize, age 99, Alan Greenspan.
Ivan: Shit for real he's.
Sam: 99 yep.
Ivan: Okay pass I don't want to predict Alan Greenspan's death I think he gets a lot of shit.
Sam: I'm going to say yes to Alan Greenspan I'm going to hit the other 99s and I'm
Sam: not going to go past 99 Gene Shalit, David Attenborough and Mel Brooks Jesus.
Ivan: David Attenborough is 99?
Sam: Yes Okay. I'm going to say all three of them die. All three of them die.
Sam: Gene Shallot, David Attenborough.
Ivan: You're killing them all.
Sam: I'm killing them all.
Ivan: I'm going to just go predict one. Gene Shallot.
Sam: Okay. Will you, are you predicting the Attenborough and Brooks live or just not?
Ivan: No, no, no, no, no. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm passing on predicting those.
Ivan: I'm just going to predict that Gene Shallot dies.
Sam: Okay. Do you have any other old people that you want to predict?
Sam: And then we'll talk young people.
Ivan: I already predicted Fidel would still be dead, so okay.
Sam: Yeah, you already predicted Fidel will still be dead.
Ivan: Let's see. Well, one that is old that I saw on the list, Clint Eastwood.
Ivan: And he recently stopped working, by the way.
Ivan: I mean, you know, I remember he canceled some work recently.
Ivan: No, I don't want to predict any more of these people dying right now.
Ivan: I'm good with the ones we predicted.
Sam: Okay. And obviously I predicted, well, I didn't predict he'd actually die.
Sam: I predicted a significant health-related issue for Donald Trump.
Sam: Any young people you want to add to our dead pool? Steve Miller.
Sam: I'll say young, under 40, under 40.
Ivan: Steve Miller.
Sam: Oh, the one in the administration.
Ivan: Yes. That's Steve Miller.
Sam: Is he under 40?
Ivan: We have us.
Sam: I just said under 40.
Ivan: No, he's under 30. He's under 40.
Sam: Because there's also Steve Miller, the musician, but that's entirely different.
Ivan: No, that's not the same Steve Miller I'm talking about.
Sam: Okay, let's see. Born in 1985.
Ivan: I told you.
Sam: Oh, that makes him. He was born in August. He is over 40.
Ivan: He just turned 40.
Sam: I'll let you have him. I'll let you have him.
Ivan: Okay. All right.
Sam: I'll let you have him. Let's see. Do I want to do one of these?
Sam: Okay, fine. I'll do one that I hope is incorrect. But I will do Adriana Grande.
Sam: What? And the reason is...
Ivan: Why are you killing her? She's so young.
Sam: The reason is, on her press tour for Wicked 2, she looked really awful.
Ivan: Okay.
Sam: She looks like she's going through some stuff. That's why.
Ivan: That sucks.
Sam: Now, I don't know...
Ivan: I wish her well.
Sam: I wish her well, too. I think, you know, but, you know, she didn't look great.
Sam: Now, and of course, there was a lot of pushback.
Sam: We're like, you know, don't talk about people's appearances.
Sam: You don't know what's going on with them.
Sam: Don't judge them. They've got their own thing going on. Granted, all of that, sorry.
Sam: But she looked unwell. I'm sorry. She didn't look great.
Sam: Like, and hopefully she'll snap out of it and she'll be doing great soon. But anyway.
Sam: Okay, that's all I have.
Ivan: Okay, by the way, one guy. I'll predict that Joe Biden's still alive by the end of this year, 2026.
Sam: I will say yes. I will say, in conjunction with my prediction about Trump,
Sam: I will say Joe Biden will continue to look like he's better,
Sam: healthier, and more mentally with it than Donald Trump.
Ivan: Yes, I will agree with that as well.
Ivan: You know, one thing that I reminded me why I really deeply appreciated that
Ivan: man so much is that I am sure that Joe Biden could have found somebody to give
Ivan: him a fucking private jet to fly to St. Croix.
Ivan: And instead, he flew commercial anyway to go on vacation.
Sam: Okay, yeah.
Ivan: I'm sorry, but.
Sam: By the way, people have been criticized, like, there was somebody on Fox complaining
Sam: that he was on vacation in the week between Christmas and New Year's.
Ivan: What is he supposed to be doing?
Sam: As, you know, as an ex-president, like, they're like, oh, look,
Sam: Joe Biden's on vacation again.
Ivan: What the fuck? Did they explain what the hell he's supposed to be doing?
Sam: I mean, frankly, his entire life should be vacation now. Yes!
Ivan: Pretty much!
Sam: Leave him alone.
Ivan: That was Tommy Lahren, who has absolutely, I mean, her head has a for rent sign in it.
Ivan: I mean, you know, there's just nothing there, so whatever. All right.
Sam: Okay, we're done. Okay, we are done. That was the last question I had.
Sam: And any other last-minute predictions you want to make about anything at all?
Ivan: Anything at all? Well, one very important thing.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: I don't want to be remiss.
Sam: Pain. That's right.
Ivan: We're in for a lot more of it. Yes.
Sam: Unfortunately, I think you're right.
Sam: Yes, 2026 will be another year for pain.
Sam: Anyway, that's it. Thank you, everybody, for joining us. Next week,
Sam: we will be reviewing the predictions we made about 2025.
Sam: And we will be recording that on January 4th, which means I only got a couple days.
Sam: It usually takes me—this is a three-hour show. It's going to take me like six
Sam: hours to go through last year's show and try to pre-fact check everything that
Sam: we predicted last year, write down every prediction we made.
Sam: Because even though we had like a document like we did have this time,
Sam: the actual set of predictions we make in the show does not exactly match.
Sam: So I listen to the show a little bit at a time, pause it, write down predictions,
Sam: go check whatever I can find, et cetera.
Sam: It takes a long time to prep for this show. So everybody, you better appreciate it.
Sam: Anyway, we'll be recording that show next week and putting it out a couple days
Sam: later. So hope you enjoyed this year's prediction show for 2026.
Sam: Tune in a year and a week from now, and you will hear how we did on our 2026 predictions.
Sam: And tune in next week.
Sam: Do you hear how we did last year? And that is it.
Sam: I think, Yvonne, we can dispense with the highlights from the Slack and all
Sam: that kind of stuff, unless you're really anxious for it.
Sam: You have one? Okay, go for it. Go for it. Go for it.
Ivan: Sam shared an article that the headline was, what did we get stuck in our rectums last year?
Ivan: Okay, this is the time of year to be grateful for not having things stuck up
Ivan: our asses and to think of those less fortunate than us.
Ivan: So spare a thought for those Americans who misjudged their capacity,
Ivan: the capacity of their own orifices. All reports are taken from U.S.
Ivan: Consumer Product Safety Commission's database of emergency room visits.
Ivan: Yeah, there is a list of that.
Sam: I'm not going to go into the detail. And they list multiple orifices, not just the one.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: And things that have been reported in those over the course of last year.
Ivan: Apparently quite a lot of things. They may get to the Consumer Product Safety
Ivan: Commission for some reason. So there you go.
Sam: Well, because apparently that product is not safe for that use.
Ivan: Well, yes, that would be a problem. So anyway, on that note.
Sam: Okay, with that, give the full reference. Where was that publication in case
Sam: people want to look at it?
Ivan: This was called on defector.com, D-E-F-E-C-T-O-R.com.
Ivan: And that was the name of the article, What Did We Get Stuck in Our Rectums Last Year?
Sam: Excellent. So anybody wanting to go look at that, have fun, it is worth a chuckle
Sam: because you do envision like, what the hell were these people thinking?
Sam: And sometimes you know what they were thinking and you'd rather not. But, you know.
Ivan: Exactly.
Sam: Okay, we're done. Thanks, everybody. We're out of here. Have a great week. Oh, a happy new year.
Sam: Well, by the time you listen to this new year, the moment will be passed.
Sam: But I hope you had a good new year.
Ivan: Well, you can still, I mean, we still cheer like happy new year to so many people
Ivan: like even a week afterwards. So, okay.
Sam: Happy new year. I hope you have a whole great new 2026, despite our prediction
Sam: of pain. We're out of here.
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: Goodbye.
Ivan: Bye.
Sam: Okay, that's it. Later. Bye.
Ivan: Bye.