Alan Duff: Predictions have experts running for cover

Emmanuel Macron will one day be considered France's finest ever political leader, says Alan Duff. Photo / AP

Easy to do the diagnosis after the patient has died: Arise instant experts. Theresa May, the British Prime Minister, for example. First they said it was a brilliant stroke to call a snap election when her Labour Opposition party - and in particular its leader, Jeremy Corbyn - stood at least 24 points behind in the polls.

Come election time the pundits were proved wrong - again. Corbyn closed the gap; May's conservatives have to form an alliance with a fringe party to govern. Immediately, commentators said May's call was a disaster. Her parliamentary colleagues went from loving her, to two thirds wanting rid of her. Politics, politicians and pundits will never be your friends.

Hedge fund stars are that until they become just ordinary investors, like the people whose money they take for a 2 per cent management fee and 20 per cent of profits but suffer no personal loss unless they've invested their "own" money in the fund they manage. And it isn't really their money as the top 25 fund managers charged - not earned - over US$1billion each last year.

You read right: I said the B-word. "But, hey, we're expert investors even when we aren't. And the rest of you are fools." Bankers' economic analysis comes out with all the right terms. Just wrong predictions. Crystal-ballers they are not.

Economists are just sociologists using numbers and, unlike the former, predict an event rather than describe it after it has happened. And when they get that wrong they go silent for a while and let other economists tell us, "I told you so".

Or go on to the next wrong prediction.

In this age of social media empowering virtually everyone, armies of people become instant experts on everything. Or at least think their uninformed opinion matters. If this is the Age of the Entitled it is also the Age of Bums. That is: like opinions, everyone has one.

Even without social media our predictions are not what they used to be - they are more like uneducated guesses based on the sparsest information. But you try to tell a sports fan he's not an expert on the sport he loves! So the Lions will be no match for the undefeated Crusaders. The TAB thanks you all very much.

So this member of the Bum Club is going to make a prediction: Emmanuel Macron will one day be considered France's finest ever political leader and likely one of the best the world has seen. No president of any major country has ever chosen his parliamentarians on a 50-50 gender split. Not even remotely close.

This is major in itself: a French president quite rightly declaring that since women are half the population then they should damn well be half its political representation. Beautiful. Macron is reaching out to all political parties, asking they unite/forgive/forget for the sake of the country.

Man/woman, this is powerful stuff and sure to convince an awful lot of French voters to put aside their ideological differences and just reform their nation.

Watch his wife grow into the role of First Lady, turn the concept on its ear, as a sort of firm but still feminine school Ms whom the whole school knows has the hots for one of her students - but still she commands their respect.

Any man who can best the gorilla of international handshakers, Donald Trump, not only upstages but exposes the bully. And he did it with a smile that will become known as the Macro-Macron - even his smile thinks big.

Next is not a prediction so much as a hope: Capital gains on all New Zealand property sales, with an extra 10 per cent surcharge on Auckland houses. This can only be done in the first six months a party is in power - giving two years to get used to it, six months of pre-the next election promises to modify it and then go back on their word as soon as they're voted back in.

This next is a prediction: either major political party will drastically reduce immigrant numbers and continue to restrict work visas until the house-building backlog has ended.

When an ex-state house in Mt Roskill costs the same as a renovated six-bedroom, five-bathroom, two-living-room, centuries-old stone manor anywhere in France except Paris and the big cities, something is drastically wrong.

Oh, and I predict a 3-0 clean sweep for the All Blacks against the Lions. Says the rugby expert.