Reversals And Revivals: Predictions for 2014 From Thomson Reuters

The editors say at the outset that when people ask them how their past predictions panned out, they have a simple answer: “We nailed a few, missed a couple – but they were all interesting.” It’s safe to predict they will be able to give the same answer next year. This is a free-wheeling set of brief takes and prognostications, broken down into sections: “people and power, money and markets, buys and sells, fees and fortunes, mergers and manias, and odds and ends.” What they consist of is free of the cant and recycled platitudes typically found in big annual prognostications, with one tongue-in-cheek exception, authoritatively titled “Buzzword Visionaries Will Rightsize the Lexicon” and consisting of a string of pronouncements, cautions, and knowing questions couched in the high-consultant style. Other entries are about such subjects as solar power, the energy boom, the “gun bubble,” how China is likely to flex its economic muscle, which hot Silicon Valley internet companies are most likely to come to market and why we are likely to see the rise of “small tech” cyber-security companies. And why Germany will win the World Cup.