The Futurist's Top 10 Predictions for 2008

These predictions obviously extend beyond 2008 and their overall tenor is pessimistic and problematic. My grandchildren will inherit a very different world than the one I grew up in.

1. The world will have a billion millionaires by 2025.

Is this good news or not? I would argue it is, but the socialists among us will say this represents more unequal wealth distribution.

2. Fashion will go wired as technologies and tastes converge to revolutionize the textile industry.

This is good news because more jobs will be created as
people buy this stuff.

3. The threat of another cold war with China, Russia, or both could replace terrorism as the chief foreign-policy concern of the United States.

Definitely bad news, but should we expect something
different as we have exported our manufacturing base, and lately our financial interests as Asian companies invest in many of America's largest banks and financial institutions to help bail them out of the sub-prime mortgage mess.

4. Counterfeiting of currency will proliferate, driving the move toward a cashless society.

Mixed news here. Criminals are alive and apparently
thriving. If we move more or our financial life online, the security must increase simultaneously.

5. The earth is on the verge of a significant extinction event.

Very bad news, indeed.

6. Water will be in the twenty-first century what oil was in the twentieth century.

More bad news, but big companies will make a lot of money on this....GE for one.

7. World population by 2050 may grow larger than previously expected, due in part to healthier, longer-living people.

Should we expect anything less as medical science and agriculture continue to enable peole to live longer. The strain on the world's resources is the bad news.

8. The number of Africans imperiled by floods will grow 70-fold by 2080.

More bad news for the basket case that is most of Africa.

9. Rising prices for natural resources could lead to a full-scale rush to develop the Arctic.

Mixed news here. On one hand, the expanding
population must have resources, particularly fossil fuels and minerals. On the other hand , more people and development in the cold, but warming, North will displease the environmentalists.

10. More decisions will be made by nonhuman entities.

Not good, but because technology has advanced to this state, robots and other macro and micro devices will pervade our lives.