You have no way of knowing that he's pulling them out of his ass. And even if he is, I think it's appropriate for this thread. There are dozens of equally unjustified predictions below that you didn't jump on. WTF?
I looked through this thread and didn't see anything equally unjustified. The only prediction that came close was the one about a US state seceding, and that was by a user who was willing to make bets on their other predictions. This is just good-old-fashioned "Hey Rocky, watch me pull an amazing prediction out of my hat!"
I would like to propose this as a thread for people to write in their predictions for the next year and the next decade, when practical with probabilities attached. I'll probably make some in the comments.