20 Trends Part II

Yesterday I published a list of Business Insider.com's Twenty Trends That Will Dominate America into 2014.  Last year they published their inaugural twenty trends list.  Just for fun I decided to look back and see how prescient they were.  Today we'll take a look at that original list and give them a grade on how their predictions are panning out so far. The grade is to my "curve so to speak.  Others can feel free to agree/disagree with my results.

  1.  The end of the "Big Box" retailer.  Grade Incomplete.  Expansion may have slowed but these stores still exist and in the aggregate seem to be holding their own.  Too soon to judge how this will pan out.

  2.   America is aging.  Grade A.  Obvious from census data.

  3.   The mobile revolution.  Grade A.  I would add tablets into this category as well.

  4.   Weakening Infrastructure.  Grade A.

  5.   Epic rise of student loan debt.  Grade B.  Debt still an issue but has tapered in 2013.

  6.   US energy boom.  Grade A.  This also made their list in 2013.

  7.  Car culture on the decline.  Grade B.  Millennials not as interested in cars but car makers are on track to have a record year of sales again in 2013.

  8.   Political partisan divide grows.  Grade A.  Just read the papers the past year!  See Tuesday's headlines about the Senate's nuclear option regarding filibusters of judicial nominees.  

  9.   New health care mandate.  Incomplete.  Obamacare roll out fiasco makes this hard to judge.

10.   Pension crisis.  Grade B-.  Still and issue in many places but economic recovery has perhaps taken a bit of an edge off of this issue for the time being.

11.  High frequency trading domination.  Grade C.  Less of a trading factor in 2013.  However, to be fair, it's possible that their role has been masked by this year's bull market.

12.  Housing market recovers.  Grade A.  Housing prices are up double digits in many US markets.

13.  Manufacturing roars back.  Grade. B.  Manufacturing has come back as have some of the jobs but there are fewer workers in this sector of the market than before the recession began. 

14.  Much less profitable banking sector.  Grade D.  Banks and financials have had a stellar 2013.

15.  Agriculture and climate change.  Cannot grade.  Effects of climate change on US agriculture at least are so far unclear.  US will likely have something close to a record harvest in 2013 and it's unlikely that last summer's drought will ever be definitively linked to climate change.

16.  The end of the Post Office.  Grade C.  Still losing money but the mailman still shows up every day.  Efforts so far to streamline the system and make it more efficient via efforts such as deleting Saturday delivery have so far been stymied by Congress.

17.  American cities as economic juggernauts.  Incomplete.  Hard to judge how this will pan out.  For every Boston there seems to be a Detroit.

18.  Immigrants driving product innovation.  Not enough data for me to judge how this has panned out.

19.  Military spending under pressure.  Grade A.  Sequester hit Pentagon especially hard.

20.  The pharmaceutical industry's patent cliff.  Grade B-.  Data is out there on when a series of major drugs comes off patent but pharmaceutical industry has had a pretty good year market wise.

So there's the list with the grades.  By my way of viewing things not bad results.  We'll maybe come back in a year and see how both these lists have fared by then. 

Link:  Busines Insider.com 20 Big Trends That Will Dominate America's Future {2012 Edition}