Prediction Lattice

Ok I have read plenty of prophecies or predictions in this forum, none of which have come true or even close to true. It seems to me prediction is the art of calculating likely events and not having the ability to foresee the exact future. If one could know the future then the future must have already occurred which is impossible.

I was wondering if anyone has produced a prediction lattice of likely events with their associated probabilitie?? Obviously this would need to be updated somehow whenever breaking news occurs.

This way instead of predicting some outlandish claim we could have a realistic model of where we are likely headed in the near future and how far we are from the path we would all like to be on.

For instance I can start with the obvious issues:

If Bush wins the election (70%):

Predictions for 2005:

US still involved in Iraq in a major capacity (100%)
US attacks Iran (5%)
US attacks North Korea (0%)
US suffers another major terrorist attack on US soil (10%)
US continues on the path to economic recovery (65%)
US is involved in a nuclear war (0.01%)

If Kerry wins the election (30%)

Predictions for 2005:

US still involved in Iraq in a major capacity (100%)
US attacks Iran (0%)
US attacks North Korea (0%)
US suffers another major terrorist attack on US soil (10%)
US continues on the path to economic recovery (75%)
US is involved in a nuclear war (0%)

This may be a good way to come up with likely scenarios for up to 4-5 years away. Obviously these are just my best guestimates. So one could extrapolate these results until 2009 and I think perhaps we would see a large divergance in a few of these catagories:

Bush 2009:

US still involved in Iraq in a major capacity (80%)
US attacks Iran (25% cumulative probability between 2005-2009)
US attacks North Korea (5% cumulative)
US suffers another major terrorist attack on US soil (40% cumulative)
US continues on the path to economic recovery (50%)
US is involved in a nuclear war (0.1%)

Kerry 2009:

US still involved in Iraq in a major capacity (20%)
US attacks Iran (2% cumulative probability between 2005-2009)
US attacks North Korea (0% cumulative)
US suffers another major terrorist attack on US soil (30% cumulative)
US continues on the path to economic recovery (85%)
US is involved in a nuclear war (0%)

Based on these probabilities it may seem I am a Kerry supporter. However these are my unbiased views and guesses. I detest Kerry as much as Bush - they are both weak and I would much prefer to see Giuliani or Hillary making the decisions (so I won't be satisfied until 2008). If we could get a poll going on these issues as well as include many more I believe the mean estimate will be very very close to the true probabilities.

Perhaps if a major news publication ran a predictive poll similar to this most americans would be quite shocked at how different a country this could be based on the outcome of this election.

That raises an interesting issue -- whether "groupthink" predictions are more effective than individual predictions.

For instance, I believe that most people would scoff at the idea that a comet is going to hit the earth and cause a major catastrophe in 2 weeks. But what about other issues? Might be fun to do a little research on this over the holidays.