Predictions for 2026

The Ipoleco Definitive Guide to 2026*.

Every year I compile a list of three plausible but not obvious scenarios I expect to come to pass. Most years I’m wrong, on one if not all of my predictions, but the point has never been to be correct but to be interesting; if you are interested you can see last year's results here. This year I’m breaking one of my informal rules for this excercise: no repeat predictions. I will try to justify this, and the audacity of the other two predictions hopefully outweigh the disappointment of a repeat. More than most years though, this time my predictions are gloomy. Luckily, predictions are hard, especially about the future.

1: AI Induced Financial Crisis

I predicted in 2024 that AI would lose its lustre and I could not have been more wrong. I was convinced then that more people using the technology would be enough to dispel the lies and hype surrounding it, but it has just gotten worse and worse. Furthernore, American financiers have tripped over themselves to throw money at a college dropout who claims his company will manifest God through a machine.

The defining feature of modern finance is, as Susan Strange noted in the 90’s, opacity. It is impossible to know exactly who has invested how much in OpenAI, CoreWeave, and the various other shady characters which make up the AI data centre boom. It is also impossible to know whether or how much money has been borrowed to make those investments, and who exactly gets what if the neocloud companies default on their loans. On top of this Nvidia’s status as the world’s most profitable company is dependent on AI capex at a time when American and global equity indicies are more concentrated than ever in American tech giants whose valuations are based on AI hopes.

The stage is set for a financial crisis of epic proportions. Given that AI firms do not make money, the AI bubble will burst this year. My current guess is in March or April, but definitely by the end of the year.

2: President Vance

I usually try to construct my prediction based on logic if not sources, but I’ll confess that this one is mainly intuition. Since Donald Trump won the election in 2024 I have been convinced that he will not finish his term. Maybe it will be a health issue, maybe the Epstein files scandal, maybe a recession, maybe impeachment, or maybe it will be political violence. Either way, I think Trump will have left the White House come January 1st 2027.

I think he is losing his grip on his party in a way he would not have five years ago. Age catches up to all of us eventually, and the sycophancy is way more intense in his second term which I think could make him vulnerable to being forced out as he is not warned against bad ideas the way he was in his first term. This is also a prediction which builds on the previous, as Trump was at his most insane during the pandemic during his last administration. If he gets into a deep and intense financial crisis he could well go off the rails again and have another ’inject bleach to cure covid’ style insane episode, which could prove the push his party colleagues need to defenestrate him.

3: Russian Mykolaiv Offensive

I wrongly predicted in 2024 that the Russo-Ukrainian war would end but I have now reversed course almost completely in my thinking about how the war ends. I actually think that Russia will try to escalate the war rather than to slowly try to win a war of attrition. The reasons are twofold: first, increasing the intensity increases the rate of attrition and as the larger, richer, more populous side with a bigger and more productive military-industrial base it makes some sense to for Russia to try to force a Ukrainian collapse. Especially as the Russian economy is not doing all that well anymore; why suffer for longer if you can just up the dosage? Second, I’m increasingly starting to believe that Russia wants more than political control over Ukraine. I think it craves recognition as a Great Power, and to get it Moscow needs to win decisively.

Therefore, I expect a new Russian push over the Dnieper towards Mykolaiv and, if the Russians get what they want, Odessa. Putin is talking more and more about Novorossiya, and Odessa is the most important city of that historical region, and it would be extremely challenging for the EU and Kyiv to frame the war as a success for Ukraine if Russia captured Mykolaiv and Odessa and controlled access to the Black Sea. They would be forced to recognize Russia after that.

I don’t think Russia will capture Mykolaiv or Odessa by the end of the year, but it will have started trying to.

So those are my predictions for 2026. Feel free to argue with them and share your own in the comments, and remember where you heard it first! Have a great 2026!

If you liked this post you can read a previous post about last year's predictions here or the rest of my writings here. I also have a section for longer reads I call essays here, I particularly recommend my series called The Bird & The Technoking exploring Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter, and its political and cultural implications. It'd mean a lot to me if you recommended the blog to a friend or coworker. Come back next Monday for a new post!

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I've always been interested in politics, economics, and the interplay between. The blog is a place for me to explore different ideas and concepts relating to economics or politics, be that national or international. The goal for the blog is to make you think; to provide new perspectives.

Written by Karl Johansson

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Cover photo by Arnesh Yadram from Pexels, edited by Karl Johansson

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