For the amusement of our readers

NOT being able to comment on the AL election results, since at the time of writing residents are still casting their votes, I propose an exercise for the amusement of our readers. Here are some predictions that went wrong:

“The director of the Xinhua (news) agency in Macau, Wang Qiren, said that the gaming sector will continue after 1999, but Chinese companies wont be able to invest in that sector” – in Futuro de Macau, June 9, 1995.

Talking to the Associated Press, diplomat José Calvet, the Portuguese Consul in Hong Kong, predicted that betting and gaming activities would be gradually suppressed in Macau, until finally becoming extinct in 1949.

“Casino king Stanley Ho has a lot to lose when China takes control of the Portuguese enclave of Macau in 1999. The 68-year-old Hong Kong businessman is doing everything to make sure the odds are in his favor. He is weaving his Sociedade de Turismo e Diversões de Macau, operator of the enclave’s five casinos, deep into the fabric of the Macau economy to ensure that the future Chinese leadership has no choice but to let the company continue to prosper. (…) This strategy will strengthen Ho’s bargain power should Peking insist upon taking partial or even total control of STDM. This is a real possibility: in Hong Kong, Peking-controlled companies have already begun to buy strategic stakes in local utilities, transport companies and banks, with an eye towards holding the ‘commanding heights’ of the territory’s economy.” – in Far Eastern Economic Review, September 1990

“Democracy will be dead by 1950.” – in “A Short History of the Future” by John Langdon-Davies, 1936

“It will be years – not in my time – before a woman will become Prime Minister.” – Margaret Thatcher, 1969

“Reagan doesn’t have that presidential look.” – United Artists Executive, rejecting Reagan as the lead in the 1964 film, ‘The Best Man’

“There is no doubt that the regime of Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction. As this operation continues, those weapons will be identified, found, along with the people who have produced them and who guard them.” –  General Tommy Franks, March 2003

“Romney will be elected the 45th president of the United States.” – Fred Barnes, editor of the Weekly Standard

“Some in the media and elsewhere claim there is a housing bubble, and that it will eventually burst, similar to the stock market bubble debacle in 2000. As I demonstrate throughout this book, their reasoning is flawed.” – in ‘Why the Real Estate Boom will not Bust’ by David Lereah, 2006

“Television won’t last because people will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.” – Darryl Zanuck, movie producer for 20th Century Fox, 1946

“There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will.” – Albert Einstein, 1932

I close with this self-evident truth that, whilst I don’t know why, reminds me of the local elections:

“Monsieur de la Palisse is dead,
he died before Pavie,
Fifteen minutes before his death,
he was still quite alive.”

Couldn’t one state that the local elections were alive fifteen minutes before 12 lawmakers were indirectly elected and another seven appointed by the Chief Executive?

(in MDT, 16/9/13)