| This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, the domestication of Bloomberg Opinion's opinions. Sign up here. The nice thing about making predictions in a newsletter is that this email will end up in your trash or spam folder in a matter of days, easily forgotten in an abyss of digital receipts and marketing ploys. Nobody is going to pull up this note to make sure all my predictions are right. But a century ago, they didn't have it as lucky. People shared their predictions in print instead. And in 1924, people thought some pretty weird things would happen in 2024, according to these newspaper clippings from Paul Fairie, a Canadian researcher and author based in Calgary: - Beds will automatically fling children out in the morning
- Horses will no longer exist
- Women will be beautiful, physically strong dancers (true!)
- Men's legs will wither away from underuse
- Diamond engagement rings will be replaced with 100-pound bags of sugar
- Men will stop wearing corsets
While I do wish I could forge a diamond ring with an $86 bag of sugar, I am glad that the horse extinction thing didn't pan out. Clearly, it's not easy making predictions for the century ahead, nevertheless a year ahead. In the spirit of accountability, I've made a 2024 Bloomberg Opinion-themed Bingo card for us to follow. You can even print it out, just like the olden times. It's a one-of-a-kind roundup that's peppered with politics, pop culture and everything in between. Seriously: Who else would put Timothée Chalamet and The Business Roundtable on the same board?  Although it's too late to include a square about Harvard President Claudine Gay's resignation (that happened this afternoon), Adrian Wooldridge
did allude to the possibility in his column (free read) earlier today. His other predictions include the domestication of AI (think trusted virtual assistants scheduling your haircut), "the Trump comet," the fall of defense dinosaurs such as Raytheon, and Chinese advances in hypersonic missiles, which already can travel five times the speed of sound. In India, meanwhile, Andy Mukherjee says the Narendra Modi government — expected to maintain power in this year's election — will help mint not one but two centi-billionaires in 2024. "Expect a further consolidation of wealth in the hands of Mukesh Ambani, Asia's richest businessman, and Gautam Adani, his closest rival," he says. When it comes to the US economy, Matthew Yglesias is quite optimistic, writing that falling mortgage rates and a strong stock market will make 2024 an outstanding year. Claudia Sahm, too, says the jobs market is in "much better balance" due to more workers joining the workforce. But Allison Schrager sees it a bit differently: "This year will mark the end of the free-lunch economy," she writes, pointing to the dearth of savings-rich households and a labor market that may be weaker than it appears. If the Fed pursues rate cuts this year, there may be some unfortunate trade-offs. "Bringing inflation down to 2% will mean inflicting damage to the economy, in 2024 and beyond," she warns. What about the apocalypse? A New Year's Bingo card would be incomplete without a reference to some sort of world-ending event, whether it be an asteroid impact, environmental collapse, pandemic, global thermonuclear war or, perhaps most likely, AI Armageddon. Luckily for us, Aaron Brown — a well-seasoned risk manager — has a guide about how to handle threats posed by AI. "The conventional computer controlling a nuclear power plant might cause a meltdown in the plant, but it can't fire nuclear missiles, crash the stock market or burn your house down by turning your empty microwave on. But malevolent intelligence could be an emergent phenomenon that arises from the interaction of many AI implementations, controlling almost everything," he predicts. More immediately, Parmy Olson sees AI becoming a major propaganda tool ahead of the 2024 US presidential election. By making AI image-generator Midjourney increasingly more powerful, CEO David Holz has "laid the groundwork for fake images to proliferate," she writes. But before you go calling Mark Zuckerberg to see if he has room in his underground bunker in Hawaii, I'd encourage you to hear out Paul J. Davies, who says doomsday fear-mongering is sooo 2023. "We've had a wealth of political rhetoric in recent years leaning into the language of Armageddon," he writes. "In 2024, we should encourage each other to focus on ... immediate and solvable problems." Like, say, figuring out how we can get our beds to automatically fling us out in the morning? That could be fun. Bonus Year-Ahead Economy Reading: - The Federal Reserve will set the pace for stocks and bonds more than ever this year. — Mark Gilbert and Marcus Ashworth
- In 2024, will those who were right about 2023 continue to be proved right? — John Authers
- Changes in interest rates don't appear to explain the performance gaps of growth and value stocks. — Nir Kaissar
 Source: Paramount Do you think Regina George secretly shops at Zara? I know she's all about the luxury items, but she's also dead-set on matching catwalk trends within weeks — Zara's bread and butter. Plus, it'd only be fitting if the queen of The Plastics were to cover herself in polyester and PU leather, manufactured fabrics that are increasingly popular, thanks to the rise of fast fashion:  I ask this not only because the reboot of Mean Girls comes out next week, but because Zara is currently in a catfight not unlike the one that takes place in the movie. Inditex, the Spanish company that owns Zara, is trying to cut its emissions in half by 2030. But Zalando, one of its biggest distributors, is balking at demands to stop distributing its clothing in polybags. Who's right? Although the Zara parent's fight sounds honorable, "Zalando isn't wrong to smell hypocrisy in this crusade," David Fickling writes. In 2014, packaging accounted for only about 5% of H&M's carbon footprint — a figure that's unlikely to be very different at Zara, he says. Patagonia — considered to be one of the more climate-friendly retailers — actually still uses polybags after it found 30% of items that weren't bagged became damaged to the point they were un-sellable.  "Even before fast fashion encouraged consumers to fill their wardrobes with surplus clothes, retailers were filling their stores with excess inventory that needed to be cleared out in an orgy of discounting," David writes. Only 40% of the clothes you see in stores is retailed at full price — the rest is either discounted or never sold. "Reducing that wastage would do far more to cut carbon footprints than getting into fights with distributors to sustain the pretense that you don't use polybags," he concludes. The plastic bags aren't the problem; the shopping habits of The Plastics are. Just before the holidays, Saudi Arabia announced a plan to develop a glorified SimCity outside of Riyadh, which will house 30 video-game companies, 25 e-sports teams and four e-sports stadiums. Already, Adam Minter says, Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman has committed nearly $40 billion to make his nation the center of the $184 billion gaming market by 2030. "That's more money than it's spent so far on becoming a global player in soccer, golf and other sports," he writes. But why video games? "Gaming allows Saudi Arabia to capitalize on sports' economic and soft power dividends without relying solely on countries that are skeptical of its human rights record," he explains.  One of the biggest challenges of our time is the youth mental health crisis. It's no secret that the number of kids who need help exceeds the necessary number of available school counselors, psychiatrists and other mental health providers. But it's an unacceptable shortfall that begs for a solution. Enter: the child behavioral health specialist. It's a new bachelor's-level position that Lisa Jarvis says works in "community settings to identify struggling kids and offer brief and early interventions to help them." In turn, these specialists could "prevent some kids from ever needing more intensive resources, freeing up people with advanced degrees to focus on those who need them most." Let's hope these two lines meet in the middle sooner rather than later. If you trick people into getting surgeries to implant fake medical devices in their bodies, is that securities fraud? — Matt Levine If you raised your glass to a happy new year while missiles rained down on Kyiv, beware of your blindfolds. — Niall Ferguson Although Israel's court managed to reinforce the separation of powers, Netanyahu will stay determined. — Noah Feldman Inflation isn't just a change in consumer prices, it's the struggle to make ends meet. — Kathryn Anne Edwards Why did Ukraine attack a railway thousands of miles away from its border with Russia? — Hal Brands Big breakthroughs in fusion, Crispr and astronomy made 2023 a special year in science. — F.D. Flam Voters' fear of immigrants is fueling a new fascist threat in the West. — Max Hastings Can apprenticeships restore the American Dream? — Romesh Ratnesar All 379 people on the Japan Airlines flight got evacuated. Fox is hosting a Trump town hall during CNN's GOP debate. The US government's secret mission to take out Bambi. Only 13 cars qualify for the 2024 EV tax credit. Jeffrey Epstein's list is about to come out. The managers behind Travis Kelce. Hot-girl toilet seats are not it. Poke bowls are coming to Walmart. Trash cans are disappearing in NYC. Love Honk music will never be popular. The Mickey Mouse horror movie looks bad. Notes: Please send 2024 Bingo cards and feedback to Jessica Karl at jkarl9@bloomberg.net. Sign up here and follow us on Threads, TikTok, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. | 
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