Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Predicting the Past

Macroeconomist
Prognosticator
Baby Boomer
Microeconomist
Strategist
Portfolio manager
Symbolist
Entrepreneurial capitalist
Movie reviewer

Chapter 2: Predicting the World

Interesting times
Studying nuclear deterrence
Economic consequences of the peace
Multilateral world order
China opens the door
Brief world tour
Global synchronized booms, busts, and stagnation
Globalization and its discontented

Chapter 3: Predicting Technology and Productivity

Going virtual
Revolutionary
Adding up the digital economy
Lottery principle
Productivity puzzles, miracles, and mirages
Brave New Worlds
iSpartacus

Chapter 4: Predicting Inflation

Inflation matters
Getting disinflation right
Tolstoy Model of inflation and deflation
Three varieties of deflation
Macro inflation models, briefly
Grand unified theory
Target practice
Measure for measures
Fistful of dollars

Chapter 5: Predicting Business Cycles

Recession matters
Leading the way
Profits cycle
Boom-Bust Model
Great moderators
Multipliers
Credit cycles and debt weights
Cycle tours
Accounting for macroeconomists

Chapter 6: Predicting Consumers

One of the crowd
Purchasing power to the people
Born to shop
Mood swings and dopamine

Chapter 7: Predicting Demography

Aging is a drag
Adultish minimalists
Dropouts and slack
Households, families, and selfies
Income stagnation myth

Chapter 8: Predicting Real Estate

Home sweet home
In the beginning
Cautionary tale
Rounding up the suspects
Weapons of mass financial destruction
Great Recession
Prophets of doom
Faulty insurance policies
Flaw in the model
Feddie

Chapter 9: Predicting the Fed

The Committee
Punch bowl
Arthur Burns: The first professor
G. William Miller: The inflator
Paul Volcker: The great disinflator
Alan Greenspan: The flawed maestro
Ben Bernanke: The great moderator
Janet Yellen: The gradual normalizer
Central monetary planners

Chapter 10: Predicting Bonds

Hat-size bond yields
Riding with the Bond Vigilantes
Surfing the Age Wave
An r-star is born
Yield curve’s slippery slope
Glut ridden
Unconventional global norm
High yield, high risk
Deficits and helicopter money
Go with the flows

Chapter 11: Predicting Commodities

Old adage from the pits
Industrial spot prices are spot on
Commodity correlations
From peak oil to cheap oil
Malthusians and their dismal science
Gold rush
Goldman’s index

Chapter 12: Predicting Currencies

Currencies have consequences
Brief history of the dollar
The oil standard
The balance of payments always balances
Capital flows in and out
The Fed and the dollar

Chapter 13: Predicting Corporate Earnings

Industry of industrious analysts
Discounting forward earnings
Flying with the Blue Angels
Lots of S&P 500 earnings measures
Slicing and dicing NIPA’s profits
The trend in earnings
On the margin
Financial engineering
Corporate Finance 101

Chapter 14: Predicting Valuation

Judging a beauty contest
Irrational exuberance and the Fed’s Model
An expanded valuation model for CFAs
Fed’s Model drives buybacks
Getting really real
Mean reversion
Inflation’s impact on valuation
Discipline of dividends
Greenspan on bubbles

Chapter 15: Predicting Stocks

Path of least resistance
Timeline
Dancing with bulls and bears
Active versus passive
Go with the flows
Leading the way
Front-cover curse

Chapter 16: Predicting the Future

Future of forecasting
Globalization and geopolitics
Demography and growth
Technology, inflation, and productivity
Central banks and cryptocurrencies
Bonds, stocks, and swans
The science of prosperity

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