The saying goes that economists have successfully predicted nine of the last five recessions.

In that passage, Taleb correctly identifies some systemic problems that led to the 2008 crash. That's not quite the same thing as predicting the crash. (If I say "San Francisco is built on a big fault, and it hasn't had a really big earthquake for some time." do I get to claim I predicted the Next Big One, if and when it happens?)

So (1) the impressiveness of that passage depends on how unusual it was to recognize those problems. I don't know the answer to that; perhaps scarcely anyone else did, or perhaps most of the people with any information did but most of them found it expedient not to say so, or perhaps actually lots of people said so and we didn't listen.

And (2) whether or not we take this as a prediction, and taking him at his word that he predicted Brexit and Trump and whatever else he said he predicted: what else has he predicted, and how did the other predictions turn out?

For instance: perhaps all his recent predictions have been of the form "populism is in the ascendant". If so, then that would lead to correct Brexit and Trump predictions, and maybe some others, since populism is indeed doing well. If he noticed that before everyone else, that's impressive. But it doesn't necessarily indicate that he'll predict well outside that domain.

Or perhaps he's predicted hundreds of things and most of them were wrong -- but he doesn't mention those. If so, saying "I predicted Brexit and Trump" would be entirely misleading and he deserves no credit for anything.

Or perhaps he's predicted hundreds of surprising things and got lots of them right, in which case we should indeed take seriously the idea that there's some fundamental thing he's doing right and others are doing wrong.

Anyone got more information about his actual predictions and how they've turned out?