Month: January 2025

Sports

All NBA predictions refer to the 2024/2025 season that ends June 2025.

• The NBA MVP will once again be Nikola Jokic. (I drafted that a couple weeks ago. SGA is now the favorite, but I’m sticking with Jokic. His stats are better this year than last year, c’mon.)
• The Thunder win the Western Conference. Sorry Nuggets, Rockets, Grizzlies – there is one elite team in the West and it’s the Thunder.
• The Cavaliers or Celtics win the Eastern Conference. Sorry Knicks, Bucks, 76ers – there are two elite teams in the East and it’s these two. I went back and forth on The Celtics – it’s very easy to see how they could win it all, and it’s also easy to see them getting knocked out in the second round (they might meet the Cavs before the conference finals), in the end I’m not predicting anything for them.
• The Oklahoma City Thunder will be in the NBA finals three of the next five years . They are already one of the best teams out there and have a sickening amount of high draft picks and cap space over the next few years. This won’t be settled for a few years of course.
• The Atlanta Hawks will continue to be mediocre or worse. Sorry, I don’t buy the hype. Last year I correctly predicted they would be under 55%, and they ended the calendar year just below that. The prediction is that they will finish the 2024/2025 season at 60% or less. That is, they might improve slightly in the back half of the season, but not much.
• The NBA All Star game will continue to suck. You can play with the format all you want, but the stars still don’t want to play hard.
• Payton Pritchard will win the sixth man award, the stupidest of all NBA awards.
• The New England Patriots win two more games in 2025/26 season than in 2024/25. The Patriots finished 4-13, so I predict them to win 6 or more games next season. This is a combination of Maye getting better, getting a decent coach (please be Vrabel), and regression to the mean. Update: They did hire Vrabel. That’s worth a win or two, and they have a great draft pick, let’s be optimistic and predict 8 wins.
• Bijan Robinson will have over 1,500 yards in 2025/26: (He had over 1,7000 this year so this is not a longshot. But Pennix is passing more and more, they won’t have to relay on Robinson as much.
• Saquon Barkley will have less than 2,000 yards in 2025/26. Regression to the mean again.

The Economy

My hypothesis is the economy under Trump won’t change much. It’s been consistent since 2010 (excluding the pandemic and aftereffects). Trump will change his mind about many ideas, won’t be able to make them happen, or they won’t matter that much.

• Inflation does not increase much in 2025. Although Trump comes to office explicitly planning policies which increase inflation, it won’t happen. The post-pandemic inflation bubble will continue deflating (in the USA as everywhere). Prediction is that the average for 2025 will be between 2.3% and 3.5%. Source.
• The Misery Index will stay below 7 in 2025. The Misery Index is the sum of unemployment and inflation. Despite Trump’s terrible policy ideas, the American economy will continue to hum along. Trump was handed a great economy, he won’t screw it up much.
• Electric car sales finish above 10% in 2025 Q4. Even if all incentives are removed, that won’t happen until 2026. Many consumers will buy now, while the tax credit is in place.

Politics

• The election interference case against Trump in Georgia will not be decided against him in 2025. That weird phrasing is because I think the likeliest outcome is it all falls apart somehow, and the next most likely is that it is delayed past 2025.
• Congress passes no significant legislation about immigration. Why start now?
• There is at least one real threat of government shutdown in 2025. (Holy cow, there was already one before Trump even took office. WTF.)
• No major Democrats are indicted for crimes related to their political activities. That is, while Trump and the FBI may go after his various enemies, none of them will be formally indicted. (If they are indicted for the usual corruption that doesn’t count, only political activities.)
• At least two of these four get confirmed… Trump owns the GOP, they won’t push back. The picks are Pete Hesgeth for Defense, RFK Jr for Health and Human Services, Tulsi Gabbard for Director National Intelligence, and Kash Patel at the FBI.

Randoms

• One of these three people will die in 2025: Clint Eastwood, Alan Greenspan, Mel Brooks.
• Muttroxia will have a month with four or more posts after January. I’m switching it up! I’ve always taken the under.

See you next year for the scoring!

2024 was a good year for Muttroxia predictions.

In 2024, I made a change. Although I gave confidence levels for each prediction, I am scoring as simply right or wrong. There isn’t enough of a difference between the levels and the sample size is far too small to conclude anything.

Interestingly, Matt Yglesias came to the same conclusion, all his 2025 predictions are set at the 80% level. As I modeled these posts on his, it’s good to see we did the same tweak.

At press time, I have correctly predicted 12 out 14 (85%), with two questions removed. and one more waiting on data.

That’s much better than in 2023 (56% right). Why? Either I got better at predictions (that is the entire goal of the exercise), I got more cautious about predictions, or maybe it’s just random variation.

Sports

• The NBA MVP will be Jokic (70%).
  • Yes. I should have specified the year. This refers to the MVP award given out in 2024, for the 2023/2024 season. For the NBA I am making awards based on half the season already played.
• The NBA MVP will be Jokic, Luka, or Giannis (90%).
  • Yes.
• Celtics make it to the NBA Finals (80%):
  • Yes! The boys won it all!
  • Neither University of Georgia nor University of Michigan will win the College Football National Championship (that is technically played in 2025) (80%):
• Yes. The returning champs University of Michigan had a bad year, although they had several huge wins (beating Ohio State never gets old, and same for Alabama). Although they were ranked at #2, UGA lost to Notre Dame last night in their first CFP game.
• Bijan Robinson will have over 1,200 yards (70%):
  • Yes. He’s at 1,693 yards and the regular season isn’t over yet.
• The Atlanta Hawks will continue to be mediocre or worse. They’ll end up at 45 wins or worse, a winning percentage of 55% or worse as of December 31, 2024 (70%).
  • Yes. The Hawks have 18 wins and 15 losses, which is 54.5%. Whew, barely made that one! There is a lot of talk about The Hawks this year. Trae Young had modified his game and is trying to play defense, De’Andre Hunter is suddenly great, and the rookie is good. They are doing better this year than last (they finished at 43.9% last year). Fans should feel positive about the improvements, but they are still not a great team.

Six for six in sports predictions!

The Economy

• Inflation continues to decline in 2024 (90%). The prediction is that inflation will be below 4.1 (Dec 2023) in December 2024.
  • Yes. Technically not determined yet, but c’mon. The last 11 months have all been below the benchmark, it has averaged below 3% for the year so far — this is an easy win. Enjoy your gift of a good economy Mr. Trump.
• Average Gas Price has gas price at $3.00. on Election Day (70%):
  • No. Gas prices were around $3.20 on election day.
• The stock market will become more unbalanced (70%).
  • I’m going to kill this question. I found many interesting sources, but nothing with a straightforward number tracked over time. JP Morgan and others see concentration at an all-time high, and believe it may/will reverse. I believe it is a consequence of true changes in the world, and will continue.
• Electric car sales top 10% in the USA. (80%)
  • TO BE SETTLED Q3 was 8.9%, and it has risen each quarter, so maybe? It’s pretty close. By the way, this prediction was for fully electric cars. When you include hybrids, it’s over 21%. Wow, I didn’t realize it was so high.

Inflation:

Politics

• None of the four Donald Trump trials finishes before election day. This does not include appeals. No verdicts. 80%.
  • Yes. The New York trial finished, he was found guilty on 34 counts. But he wasn’t sentenced. I don’t know how to score this one because I didn’t define “finished” well enough. Update: My favorite legal podcast offhandedly said that a conviction isn’t final until sentencing. The judge may push for sentencing, just to preserve the conviction.
• Congress passes no significant legislation about immigration (90%):
  • Yes.
• No major political figures are both impeached, and then convicted by the Senate (90%):
  • Yes.
• Dems retain control of Senate (60%):
  • No. The GOP has 53 seats now. What a dumb prediction, I just really wanted it to be true.
• Trump or Biden, who wins?: Nope. Pass. Next one. I can’t even talk about it. God help us.
  • NO JUDGEMENT. The fact that I wouldn’t make this prediction tells you everything. In my heart of hearts I knew what would happen. Sigh. I gave Kamala 40-45% odds of winning, and she was obviously better positioned than Biden, so I kinda did predict the outcome.

Leftovers

• Two of these five people will die in 2024 (70%): Jimmy Carter, Ethel Kennedy, Mel Brooks, Dick Van Dyke, Alan Greenspan
  • Yes. Ethel Kennedy died on Oct 10^th. Jimmy Carter died on Dec 29^th. (Dick Van Dyke looks great for 99, and this video is just wonderful.)
• Muttroxia will not have any months with over five posts after January. (80%). Last year I set this at 10 posts and was nowhere close, it’ll be a little more competitive this year.
  • Yes. The closest was July with four. I don’t expect much of a change this year.