Ray Kurzweil

The US economy will expand continuously, without recession, from 1999 through 2009.

“Despite occasional corrections, the ten years leading up to 2009 have seen continuous economic expansion and prosperity”

Said on

1 January 1999 · Prediction for 2009 (business and economics section) from The Age of Spiritual Machines (1999), as quoted in his 2010 self-review "How My Predictions Are Faring".

Source

How My Predictions Are Faring (October 2010) · The Kurzweil Library

Should come true

2009

How sure they sounded

none (stated as fact about 2009)

Categories

Economy

Importance

3 of 5 · Concerns the economic trajectory of the US over a decade.

Outcome

Inaccurate Happened 30 June 2009.

NBER dates two US recessions in the decade, March-November 2001 and December 2007-June 2009 (the Great Recession). Both are full contractions, not "occasional corrections", so the predicted continuous expansion did not happen. (Kurzweil's own 2010 review grades it Correct by pointing to decade-level GDP growth; the more cautious reading of "continuous expansion" is used here.)

Evidence:

• https://www.nber.org/research/data/us-business-cycle-expansions-and-contractions