Successfully giving an early warning for the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 and the subsequent Global Recession of 2009.
Following the 2008 credit crunch, the global economy entered a serious recession, marking negative growth rates in 2009 for the first time in 60 years. The initial efforts of the G20 to reinitiate the economy through the deployment of extensive stimulus packages, although successful in the beginning, resulted in a significant rise in public debts challenging the credibility of even the largest economies. Beyond any doubt, this is the most severe economic slowdown that we faced since the Great Depression, with lasting repercussions in the following years. But was this a random incident in our history or could we have predicted it and taken the necessary steps to minimize losses?
A published forecast made before the collapse of the Lehman Brothers in 2008 discovered an economic cycle and predicted a crisis in our times of a magnitude similar to the oil crisis in the 1970s and the Global Depression & WWII in the 1930s. We now know this was the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, followed by the Global Recession of 2009.
The forecast leveraged an earlier version of the Predictive AI econometric model we use today at FutureUP and allowed for proactive, long-term planning.
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A two-century growth wave in five seasons
According to the forecast, the global economy follows a two-century growth wave attributed to globalization, starting from the 20th century, with a peak in 2015. This period is divided into five “seasons” that last nearly 40 years and constitute successive periods of growth, saturation, and decline.
A cyclical effect within the long-term growth wave of the global economy
A “hidden” cyclical effect within the long-term growth wave results in a major crisis near the middle of each season, roughly every 40 years.
Based on the forecast, a new crisis was expected in the 2010s. We now know that the latest cyclical crisis was the 2008 Global Financial Crisis and the subsequent Global Recession in 2009, causing shock waves all through the 2010s. And it could have been predicted based on the forecast!
Both the two-century growth wave and the cyclical forty-year trend have been saturating as we were approaching their peak points in 2015 and 2013 respectively. Therefore, we should have expected a gradual deceleration of the economy as we were getting closer to the end of the first decade of the millennium and a major cyclical crisis, and this is exactly what happened. The first signs were there all along, and we could have started preparing early on instead of trying to find a last-minute solution.
So, what lies ahead based on the forecast?
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