Doug Lorch was simply a retiree who, rather than collect stamps, or play golf, or build model airplanes, made forecasts, and he was so good at it that there wasn’t a lot of room for an experienced intelligence analyst with a salary, a security clearance, and a desk in CIA headquarters to do better. Someone might ask why the United States spends billions of dollars every year on geopolitical forecasting when it could give Doug a gift certificate and let him do it.
