If you look back at HP's annual prediction threads, you'd be freaked out.
We're good.
So have at it - what's December 31, 2009 look like?
* Housing
* Stocks
* Dollar
* Arrests
* Gold
* Black swans
My belief?
2009 will be one of the most historic, shocking and eventful years in modern history.
May you live in interesting times.
Soot & Ashes Favourite Blogs
PerpWalkWatch - # of Hours New AG Eric Holder Has Let Angelo Mozilo Run Free
Eric Holder and Barack Obama
Failure to
Arrest
Angelo Mozilo
2862 Hours
(countdown suspended 6/21/2009)
ERIC HOLDER - YOU ARE A COWARD
DO YOUR JOB
(UPDATE 6.4.09 - SEC CHARGES MOZILO WITH INSIDER TRADING. YET ERIC HOLDER STILL SITS ON HIS ASS AND DOES NOTHING)
Posts
Comments
59 comments:
Here's Roubini:
For the next 12 months I would stay away from risky assets. I would stay away from the stock market. I would stay away from commodities. I would stay away from credit, both high-yield and high-grade. I would stay in cash or cashlike instruments such as short-term or longer-term government bonds. It's better to stay in things with low returns rather than to lose 50% of your wealth. You should preserve capital. It'll be hard and challenging enough. I wish I could be more cheerful, but I was right a year ago, and I think I'll be right this year too.
http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2008/fortune/0812/gallery.market_gurus.fortune/index.html
Here's Saxo Bank:
1. There will be severe social unrest in Iran as lower oil prices mean that the government will not be able to uphold the supply of basic necessities.
2. Crude will trade at $25 as demand slows due to the worst global economic contraction since the great Depression.
3. S&P 500 will hit 500 in 2009 because of falling earnings, vaporizing housing equity and increased cost of funds in the corporate sector.
4. Chinese GDP growth drops to zero. The export driven sectors in the Chinese economy will be hurt significantly by the free-fall economic activity in the Global Trade and especially of the US.
5. Reuters/ Jefferies CRB Index to drop to 30% to 150. The Commodity bubble is bursting, with speculative excesses so large they have skewed the demand and supply statistics.
http://briansullivan.blogs.foxbusiness.com/2008/12/18/outrageous-2009-predictions/
The USD will have collapsed and have been replaced with the Amero.
Holders of USD assets will have been wiped out as Dollars are converted to Amero's at a rate of 50 Dollars for 1 Amero.
Unemployemnet in the US will exceed 15% and martial law will have been declared in hot spots around the country. The military will enforce curfews in those hot spots.
Over 50% of US banks will have been merged into larger banks or shut down by the FDIC.
Global trade for '09 will be a small fraction of what it was in 2008.
Gold will trade in London between @9000 and @11000 /oz. It will take between 50 to 80 oz of Silver to Buy 1 oz of Gold. [Note: The '@' system is being used to denote the Amero currency, as my keyboard in 2008 does not contain the proper character, which will be a letter 'a' enclosed by a circle].
Trillions more in government spending manage to keep world markets trading sideways. Protectionism around the world makes a huge comeback!
Maybe an asteroid will just hit the earth and make all of our problems go away.There are to many doom and gloomers out there.Went to bjs brewery last night and standing room only in the bar area and restaurant was packed.Some recession here folks.
> So have at it - what's December 31, 2009 look like?
Contemplative. A few months into 2009 they'll have to rename the "crisis" into something more appropriate.
> * Housing
Well, once again it's about choosing the right word:
2007: Real Estate
2008: Housing
2009: Shelter
> * Stocks
Uninspiring unless carefully picked up. I'll be entering domestic manufacturing stocks in a few steps into mid-2009, looking for any saucerpan bottoming patterns.
> * Dollar
Not necessarily junk but no longer the icon. My plan is to dishoard USDs gradually.
> * Arrests
Risks of cardiac arrest for those pursuing riskier investment strategies.
> * Gold
The random-number generator.
> * Black swans
Roosting, breeding and hatching up in numbers (see "Arrests"). Hope we don't see the geopolitical variety of this species.
I am thinking a little more long term on this . Obama is pumping a Trillion in his New Deal version 2.0
history is repeating itself.
Everything will float along for another 2 years. Then the whole thing comes crashing down. WW III
I just wonder where I should live during 2009. Where would be the best place to ride out the storm? NYC? D.C.? Key West? Bumf*ck, Idaho???
* Housing Dead
* Stocks Dead
* Dollar Burnt toast
* Arrests only blue collar
* Gold $5,000
* Black swans too many to count
Joe M.
"We're going down and we're going down very fast," said Nigel Gault, director of U.S. research at HIS Global Insight.
"At this point, we're not looking for signs of a turnaround, we're looking for any sign we're going down more slowly -- and I don't think we'll get that in any of these numbers." - dec 21 2008
My predictions for dec 31 2009:
1. United States no longer on the map.
2. Capitalism - the way it is today - dead.
Everything else - just details.
Get Real, I wonder where you live. I'm in Texas, and it's the same way here. I think many people are totally oblivious to the economy because they never were savers or investors, therefore it hasn't hit them yet. They also still have a job, and they price of gas is down. So, for them, life's still a party. Just wait.
Black swans yes. Definitely. Messy,smelly arrangements come to the fore. Companies and markets will crash worldwide. Banks wiped out wholesale. Credit a thing of the past. Some will still exist, small banks.
Despair and panic. Money wiped out across the board. It will be meaningless to those who still have some because nobody else will.
By fall, next year, many will become frail in health due to hunger. Trucking in of food, very irregular. Stores close, and scarcity 'abounds'. We will become ragtag traders, all. Many, many shared housing arrangements.
I've always felt fashion picked up on the collective unconscious. Rag-tag layering, mismatched, ripped clothing has been in vogue for some time now.
Nurses will provide health advice, service, in home grown clinics.
Community child care situations, ad lib for most part. Farming done whereever it can be done.
This will be different than the great depression because the collapses will be such large scale ones. Our financial system WILL NOT HOLD. Just paper, after all.
The man Taleb, who has written re the black swan type of event, and his colleague, Benoit Mandelbrot, of fractal, non-linear math fame, have a great interview available on web as transcript, have both said they aren't sleeping much...
Last few days, I feel like I can hardly breathe, something feels so close, and it feels like a dark gray disaster.
Grandma PKK
I wonder which ended the Great Depression. Was it The New Deal or was it WWII?
Cinch
Collapse of the dollar
earthquakes
social unrest
martial law declared
Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be) becomes a world top hit again.
Renovated with new lirich phrases such as.” Figures don't lie and liars don't figure" "What comes around goes around" "The check is in the mail” The definition of IS”, “Looking for weapons of mass destruction in oh so many different places”,” The fundaments of the economy are basically sound",”I made mistake”,
”But I did not inhale”,
* Housing - GSEs required to turn any delinquent mortgage into a lease to own at massive cost to taxpayer as mortagae note is paid.
* Stocks - Up 10%, CNBC told me that's how stocks work. Seriously though, 10% is only S&P 1000.
* Dollar - The dollar carry trade heats up. Euro buys 1.85, Yen at 75
* Arrests - Angelo goes down for insider trading.
* Gold - Trading range of 800-1100. Iran and Venezuela begin accepting only gold for oil.
* Black swans - The million homeowner march!
Just reading news from stateside, and looks like a few states - California being number one, will be forced into Bankruptcy. . .think what THAT will do for the Muni Market. . .read that oil states like Louisiana are in trouble too. . .
Things seem pretty normal here in Zurich now - people do not seem to talk much about the economy - ski condos are not selling, and bookings by Brits are down for ski holidays . . .time will tell. . .
As for US economy? That is a real crapshoot to predict - we may muddle through for a while with Obama's trillion spending plan - God knows we need to rebuild some infastructure. . .
3 financial predictions for 2009:
1. commercial real estate collapse
2. credit card implosion
3. pensions go belly up in droves.
Agree with Roubini (and Mish) on what's in store for 09. I finally figured out the Elliott Wave theory, and I'm kind of liking it as a market forecaster.
Look out below in 09.
These are just guesses. And I've chickened out and hedged them all.
Housing - a lull in foreclosures as fewer resetting subprime mortgages creates a false bottom in housing. The real housing disaster begins in earnest in 2010 when the alt-a and option arms reset. Prices only decline 7-10% in 2009 but decline another 20-40% cumulatively over 2010, 2011.
Stocks - another down year. Stocks associated with commodities may rise or they may not until 2010.
Dollar - down by the end of the year. However, it could continue to rise for the first several months as deleveraging continues.
Arrests - I don't have much faith that the culprits will be brought to justice anytime soon. Then again, someone could really make their career by bringing down a beast like mozillo.
Gold - I would love to see it go parabolic but I can envision a scenario where the continued deleveraging and possibly even some hanky-panky manipulation of comex causes a decline for the first 6 months. However, it will have begun it's ultimate enormous upswing by the end of the year - perhaps it already has.
Black Swans - political assassination. (do you realize the word 'ass' appears twice within the word assassin? Kinda makes you think, doesn't it? What??) Perhaps even a real assassination. The obvious target is Obama but it could be someone in the SEC, new york or california attorney general? Made to look like an accident? Who knows.
Some people will still try to sugarcoat things in 2009.
It's not a "slump". It's not a "recession" The economy is not "drooping"...It's DEAD! We need to start calling it what it is; it's a f*cking DEPRESSION. There's no room for optimism in times like these.
Even if these people don't care to admit it, optimism is what got us in the hell we are in today. Let's see what it does for them when they're waiting in soup lines.
1. The next Batman will make a gajillion dollars
2.ManBearPigs(half-man, half-bear,half-pig) will roam free and unchecked wantonly consuming the truffle supply.
3.Will Smith will save us from either aliens, zombies, or... no it'll be aliens or zombies
Who cares? I just want my gold to go up!!! C'mon Schiff be right!
It hath been foretold
It will be a fairly uneventful year, except at the White House press office.
I could give one fantasy predictions:
Arrests: Bush Chenneyburton will be held to face their crimes against humanity. This results in a restoration of confidence in the US and the dollar, thus leading to flows of captial to pay for infrastructure projects and new business generation. A boom begins by the end of the year.
Off topic, but here we go:
>I almost never like columns by Nicholas Kristof. Today is an exception. He concedes what is now well known from many studies: conservatives give much more money to charity than liberals, who want government to do the work for them, and Americans are far more generous than Europeans (who also expect government to do the charitable work for them).
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/12/truthtelling_at_the_nyt.html
Didn't we have a clown here recently saying that by and large Americans have no heart? Of course he got that from the left wing blogs, which are poison.
* Housing
Drops another 15-20% nominally, propped up by deflated dollar, low interest and stupid American knife catchers.
* Stocks
Flat to rising, keeping pace with inflation.
* Dollar
Flat to falling slightly against other currencies. No fiat currency is that much stronger, so we'll all rise and fall together.
* Arrests
A few small potatoes.
* Gold
UP UP UP!
* Black swans
only if HP/S&A'ers paint their faces black.
Riots spread all across Europe, then escalates into huge internal wars that lasts for several generations.
WIll venture only two predictions here:
Black Swan:
Iran's nuclear facilities destroyed. You can guess what will happen after this happens.
Dollar = Out
Barter = In
-Mammoth
US growth rate will be larger than China's.
I don't know if this has a chance of happening, but it would be great if Obama grabbed a microphone and said into a television camera,
quote:
Bush has been a real Dick Head about letting criminals run wild, and I am going to round them up.
end quote
I was a McCain guy but I do admit that Obama has impressed me with the steps he's taken since the election.
2009 will be The End of Redundancies
Where there are 2+, there will be one:
Staples, Office Max, Office Depot, Linens'n'Things, Bed Bath and Beyond, PetSmart, PetCo, Circuit City, Best Buy, Tweeter, etc., etc, etc, ad infinitum.
Home plus vacation home will become just home.
Four cars in the driveway will become two.
Seven pairs of jeans will become three.
Soccer, karate, music lessons will become soccer.
It will be the first step in going from what Americans want to what Americans need.
Imagine what America would look like if everyone had to pay cash for every purchase, large and small. We'll start to look like that Q4 2009.
Deflation will end in 2009.
The $1T stimulus package is inherently inflationary in the short-run. Okay, it's $1T over 2 years so just $500B this year, still not a trivial sum.
Obama has 3 main components to his economic recovery plan: 1) education; 2) infrastructure; 3) energy.
All of these components, within the short-run, will actually reduce productivity, will reduce the overall goods and services produced by the US economy.
Explanation:
1) Education - while this will eventually bear fruit, (assuming we don't just spend money on graduate programs in basket weaving and sociology) the programs will initially just occupy more teachers and more students in the process of education.
2) Infrastructure - while improved roads and bridges (assuming they're not to nowhere) will eventually reduce the costs of bringing goods to market, initially they will involved closed traffic lanes and higher shipping costs as trucks languish in bottle-necks and slower detours.
3) Energy - while this will also eventually, hopefully, result in more energy for less money, the amount of money you spend this year will give you a lot less energy than just buying a barrel of oil. Spend $35 on a barrel of oil and you get $35 worth of energy right now. Spend $35 on solar panels and you'll get only a few bucks worth of energy this year - the rest of it comes back to you over the next several years.
I'm not saying we shouldn't embark on these projects - we should. They are good investments.
I just wanted to point out the immediate inflationary impact of these programs. These programs will increase the money in circulation and decrease the immediate output of the economy in 2009 - an inherently inflationary situation.
4. Chinese GDP growth drops to zero.
If that happens, Australia - for one, is toast.
I think we only have to look up at the price signs on the gas stations to see what's really happening. Tonight I looked up and saw $1.65 here in my town. Rather than the elation at the low prices that I have been feeling, suddenly this time it felt...different.
Scary. It kind of hit home that something is happening. Something we aren't going to like. It's like we have been feeling the small cool wave of water, right before the tsunami hits.
Hey,
Some dude over at boston.com says he's an economist and that 'almost none' foresaw this economic storm coming. I guess we're 'nobody'. Either that or we're better economists than the economists. I guess 'Fraudsters and idiots' are heavily entrenched in every field.
>With very few exceptions, economists did not predict the crisis either. Some warned of a housing bubble, but almost none foresaw the resulting cataclysm. An entire field of experts dedicated to studying the behavior of markets failed to anticipate what may prove to be the biggest economic collapse of our lifetime.
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/12/21/paradigm_lost/
Obama puts greenspan back into fly bernanke's Helicopter of dollars Except Greenspan cant drop enough dollars to create another bubble so he drops the amero and starts anothter bubble from infancy
Oh, and one more line from that boston thing:
>And at economics powerhouses like Harvard, MIT, and the University of Chicago... they were nowhere near the foresight at Housing Panic.
Opps, I had to add that last part. I guess he's still fucked up.
As the Proxi Economy collapses the basic economy will re-asert itself. Agriculture will lead the way. Paper money will be king as credit and debit cards stop being accepted. Gold will flounder against intuition since there is not enough to serve as tender in a global economy. National governments will be the guarantors of large trade such as in food and oil. Militaries will escort the completion of this trade. Retired people will flood into the abandoned suburbs since they don't have to commute to work. Naturally asperated free markets will spring up everywhere and local banks will have a rebirth. Buy globally invest locally will be the strategy. The Village will once again be the central organizing force of human exsistance but peppered with high-tech efficencies.
DMP
2009 will be a very ugly year.
Hope everyone on this board followed Keith over from the last site, and has been getting prepared however they can. (Cash, Cash, CASH, downsize living situation if needed, pay off cars and debt.)
Anyone just paying slight attention over the last 3 years knew a collosal crash was coming. Thanks again to Housing Panic and bloggers everywhere for getting the discussions going.
I know I never would even be half as prepared as I am today if I had listened to the mainstream media or our govt!!
We have a financial Katrina coming our way folks.
Best of luck to all
So we have to live with "less stuff"...who gives a DAMN...That will be GOOD for us, and our ridiculous consumer, materialistic society.
We never needed half of it to begin with!
It would be interesting to see where the YEN end up.
http://www.time.com/time/business
/article/0,8599,1868045,00.html
Despite Friday's move, currency experts say that the yen could possibly climb to 85, which could trigger direct government intervention to halt the rise.
Upon speculation that the lower 80s could be reached within weeks, Japan's Finance Minister Shoichi Nakagawa confirmed Thursday that Japan was prepared to intervene and sell the yen, something the Japanese government has not done since March 2004.
Deflation will end in 2009? They would have to bail out every state government (with no budget cuts), every municipality, every bankrupt company, every home debtor, etc AND mail a $10K check with a free starbucks everyday for 5 years to every tax payer before we'd see the hyperinflation everyone here seems to think is imminent. This on top of keeping interest rates near zero.
The inflation was the now famous and historic housing/credit bubble. This is the deflation of that bubble and it is going to be just as epic going down as it was going up.
Even Roubini, Mr. Doom himself, is saying to "stay in cash." That isn't something you do in an inflationary environment.
Welcome back, Mr. Yen Carry Trade poster!
Please, please once again plaster Keith's website with fascinating cut & paste articles regarding the Yen Carry Trade.
After all, this is really what HP'ers and S&A'ers come here to read.
On second thought, please just go the f*ck away and don't come back here.
When the Yen exchange rate broke through 95, that was a direct signal that inflation is here in a big way. The collapse of the USD and the issuance of a new currency will be the biggest economic issues in 2009.
Hi Paul E. Math,
I remember you said you were going to buy GM on the speculation that they'd get bailed out based on the Citi bailout.
Did you actually buy the GM stock? What kind of profit did you make?
Well done Paul!
-Mike
Mike, I would love to accept congratulations on being such a genius but my victory on GM was a small one.
I did buy GM at about $3. I watched it go up to like 5 bucks or something - I was up around 80%. I thought it would keep going.
Then it started to slide and I chickened out and I sold it at $4.41. I just checked now and it's at $4.48.
I feel good about getting a 40% return after holding it for less than 2 weeks. I could feel regret that I didn't sell at a better price but there's just no way to time it perfectly.
Anyway, I considered it a high risk thing so I was only gambling a small amount and my profit was only a couple k. It's not going to change my standard of living and who knows if my next high-risk gamble will pan out as well. Still, it's fun and addictive.
My (very hopeful) prediction is that home prices will have dropped to where they actually should have been all along, but without causing financial ruin for the entire economy. And that the consumer culture will come to a quick and ugly end, replaced with a switch to a need, rather than a want based economy, which will go a long way towards our self-sufficiency. Oh, and a little self awareness from the Hummer/McMansion crowd would be nice.
Having said that, I have no idea how this is all going to shake out...
OK Keith...save this post. Everything down except the dollar. The dollar will continue to be the world's reserve currency and as a currency trader, I will predict I make lots of money off those that think the dollar is going to fall. There is always a bull market in currency trading. It is always the the dollar as compared to what? The euro is in BIG trouble as are all commodity dependent currencies.
Biggest sea change of our lifetime!
Paul,
40%- well played. Keep us posted on the other opportunities you see. Should a lot of shoes to drop in the coming months.
-Mike
Shocking evidence will emerge in 2009 tying former Bush Administration officials to foreknowledge/planning of the 9/11 'terrorist attacks' and lead to widespread arrests and prosecutions in several federal agencies.
Cheney will flee to Dubai to avoid testimony/prosecution.
GWB will attempt suicide under the influence of drugs/alcohol.
Laura Bush will file for divorce.
* Housing
In most of CA NV FL and AZ the worst is over. There may be some more downside from here but the majority of the declines are in, especially in the exurbs. ARM resets will have minimal negative impact because LIBOR and Treasury rates have dropped so much that many homeowners will actually get a break when the resets happen. Mortgage rates will drop to around 4% to 4.5% for new purchases, which will slow if not halt price declines in most places. The national median will not drop much. That said there are still some bubblelicious markets that still need to decline further to become affordable. I expect at least 10% price declines over the next year in NYC, DC, Seattle, SF / Silicon Valley, and LA. The bottom is most likely in in the exurban neighborhoods of these metros but the closer in suburbs and urban areas of these metros still have further to drop. I would shop distressed property in these exurbs but rent patiently closer in. The rest of the country should troll the bottom for the next few years before any appreciation comes back.
* Stocks
Stocks will sell off sharply during 1st quarter earnings season as the results show that its way worse than they thought. Expect corporate bankruptcies to increase significantly. The Dow will bottom between 6500 and 7500 during the first quarter and trade within 1000 points of it either way for the rest of the year. Some components of the average will be replaced.
* Dollar
Deflation is here to stay for the forseeable future. Bugabe's helicopter drop will slow the rate and possibly even turn deflation into noflation but thats a best case scenario. Every dollar he prints is replacing more than one dollar destroyed by bad debt. Dollars are still becoming more scarce and that means deflation. Those calling for a dollar panic forget that the rest of the world is dropping fiat currency from helicopters, slashing interest rates, and spending government money like theres no tomorrow as well. Relatively, were in pretty good shape so there will be no such panic.
* Arrests
Arrests are for poor people. The rich are and will continue to be above the law. Mozillo will still be a free man this time next year but the ranks of county jails will swell with petty criminals as the crime rate increases in bad times with the unemployment rate nationwide. There will be a couple of high profile arrests but they will pale in comparison to those that should be arrested.
* Gold
Gold will perform well relative to other asset classes. You may even make some money on it but a moonshot is not in the cards in a deflationary environment. Cash is still king until inflation returns.
* Black swans
Iran, Pakistan, or Al Qaida uses the bomb and starts WWIII
CA, NY, NJ, MI, and/or IL go bankrupt because the feds refuse to bail one or more of them out when asked. Credit crisis 2.0 begins and deflation ramps up with interest rates.
Public pension systems implode causing mass civil unrest.
Worldwide joblessness exceeds expectations causing mass civil unrest in the countries where this occurs.
Obama gets assassinated causing race riots 10 times worse than in the 60s. Black neighborhoods nationwide turn into Mogadishu overnight and the National Guard is called in to quell the rebellion, making things worse.
Foreigners quit buying US Treasuries forcing the US to monetize the debt. Dollar weakens significantly and commodities spike in dollar terms. Inflation comes roaring back, along with manufacturing as we become a low cost producer due to weak currency. Unless this happens there will be no moonshot for gold.
The good news will be that 2009 was the bottom of the abyss...which means we still have a ways to fall. So, what will have passed by this time next year?
One, the Age of the Investor will have passed. We'e going to be cash and carry for awhile. It's all going to be so old-fashioned. Three generations of a family sharing a home, with most of the backyard given over to food gardens. Everybody working to well past 70 if health allows. Everyone sharing one automobile. We will focus on what we need, a little else. Luxuries spending will disappear, as will all the business that cater to it. The Big Three automakers will no longer exist, Ford will survive, I think. Everyone will shop at WalMart. Professional sports will implode financially and leagues will shrink as franchises disappear. Several TV networks will be merged and we'll end up with two, maybe three like it used to be. Immigration will no longer be a hot button issue as Americans will start taking the jobs back from illegals, who will return home in increasing numbers. Once the moratorium periods for foreclosures pass, there will have been a tsunami beginning in the second quarter and property values will fall another 30-50%. The propect of sovereign defaults among the states will force a wholesale re-evaluation of government priorities. As a whole, we will be far more frugal and fastidious in our habits, and we may even begin saving and making things again. We can feed ourselves, and if we produce the fuel we need. There will have been great change (the Dow at 5000), but we will survive.
The rest of the world is something else again. Russia will begin to collapse and break up from internal unrest. So will China. Protectionism will return with a vengeance. There will be many sovereign defaults. There will be revolution in Iran and war between India and Pakistan. It will be briefly nuclear. Israel will wage all-out war against Hamas in the Gaza and will seek alliance with Fatah in the West Bank. There will be civil unrest in every country; and famine in Africa, South America, and Asia.
On December 31, 2009 we will step out of The Wayback Machine and find ourselves in a slightly different version of the late 1940's.
Housing: More of the same for prices and legislation mutes foreclosure growth but the big story will be lost mobility as no one can move or wants to move. Staying put=free house for a year and avoiding capital losses.
Stocks: They'll be surprisngly quiet and stable for most of the year. The bad news has less of effect and everyone talks about a rally that never comes.
Dollar: Stays strong and bubbly all year.
Arrests: Having your bank implode=arrest...if your bank is sold or propped up then you're a free executive.
Gold: Just like stocks, everyone waits for a rally that is just around the corner. Only this rally will happen by 2012, just not in 2009.
Black Swan: The US government creates a second currency for domestic use only.
1) Another 50% decline in housing prices from current levels.
2) Most Americans will be renters.
3) 12% Unemployment.
4) Ford will survive. GM and Chrysler will not.
5) Dow at 5,000.
6) Gasoline at $1.00 a gallon.
7) Sovereign defaults by California and Illinois. Abroad by Ireland, Argentina, Brazil, Pakistan, and several OPEC member countries.
8) Russia begins to implode from internal unrest. Public protests increase, repression eventually fails, the Russian Federation becomes a failed state requiring UN intervention to stabilize.
9) China uses her military to forcibly repatriate millions of urban unemployed to the rural areas from which they came. While this will bring some temporary relief from unrest, it will eventually result in an uprising that will sweep away the Communist Party.
10) It will be revealed that Osama bin Laden died quietly a couple of years ago.
11) Kim Jong-Il will die. So will Fidel Castro. One former US President will also die.
12) The US will begin secret negotiations with Mexico that will result in amnesty for illegal Mexican immigrants in exchange for the US military operating within Mexico to combat drug cartels.
1) More than one major American professional sports league/circuit will fold or undergo severe downsizing due to the drop in ad revenue. Most likely candidates...NASCAR and the LPGA.
2) Stephen Harper will be removed from office in Canada, but that won't help matters. It will get so bad up in the Great White North, that there will be whispers in some provinces of union with the USA.
3)The federal government will impose "ala carte" pricing on cable TV distributors. Fees for Internet access will skyrocket, dozens of cable channels will go out of business. The Internet will begin to emerge as the nation's largest movie theater, and at least one theater chain will go out of business.
4) The bailout of the financial system will begin to crumble. A wave of consolidations will take place among big national and regional banks, the survivors all partially owned and operated by the US government. The FDIC will act as the government's agent in day-to-day operations.
Here's Andrew Hac:
Lots of charbroiled Americanos, skewered head to tow, rotating slowly, spitting body juices over a bed of white-hot coals.
Same as last year: This planet is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions. What do I mean by "biblical"? What I mean is Old Testament, Keefer, real wrath of God type stuff. Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling! Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes... The dead rising from the grave! Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!
It might become part of a small segment of society who realizes that one cannot expand indefinitely in a finite system. Any economic system in which interest is involved, needs to expand to pay the interest. We are presently bumping against this reality, and this superstition based economic system will become The Suicide Economy.
* Housing
Down 25%
* Stocks
Down 20% from 1/1/08
* Dollar
Still enjoying the flight to safety, but slowly weakening vs. other major currencies.
* Arrests
Up--in towns that can still afford cops! Kidnapping for ransom becomes a common news story.
* Gold
$1200 (down from $1600)
* Black swans
>=30 of the 50 states go bankrupt
The Chinese use $ reserves to buy large swaths of US farmland and/or water/timber rights
Sallie Mae collapses from massive levels of default: several large university systems mothball their satellite campuses, cut enrollment, cut programs, cut tuition. A few household names struggling to keep their lights on.
Low grain prices + high fert prices drastically reduce planted acreage in 2009, due to low supply the post-harvest prices soar.
The Pakistani Revolution: theocratic regime takes the wheel, invades Afghanistan
Good gried, this site is an idiot magnet. The average price of a house is now 180k, compared to an average income of about 50-60k it has finally corrected.
The unemployment rate is 6.7 (and yes I know it is going up) and GDP is decreasing slowly around 1-2%
In the great depression the unemployment rate was 25%, and in the recession in the early 80s it was around 10%, just to keep things in perspective. GDP contracted in the great depression by double digits over several years as well.
The economy had been so good for so long up until mid 2007 that everyone has totally lost perspective.
Get a clue folks, the biggest problem America has right now are the idiots who are obsessed with reliving their dream of a great depression 2.
I do admit though that the blog is spot on with respect to the criminal behavior of the Fed and the real estate investors who cause this mess. We should start executing people for white collar crime. It would never happen again.
Unlike you keith, I ACTUALLY WENT BACK and found the 2008 predictions. Here are just a few from various different posts, mostly from the first 20% or so of the thread:
My prediction for 2008 is that the real estate market will recover and our stock market will go through another bull run after it hits a low of 12000.
Hitlery wins primaries in a landslide.
Rudy wins primaries but Romney/Huckabee make it interesting until March.
Rudy wins election by about 75 electoral votes.
$100 a barrel will be cheap oil and gas will be $4.00 a gallon by Q3 or Q4 of 08.
Gold new highs
Oil new highs
War breaks out in a new Middle east country
A major "Accident" around election time.
we're a nation of idiots, we will elect an idiot = either Hillary or Huckabee.
-Pres-o-dent Huckabee
-Housing prices go down to a maximum of 2001 prices
-War with Iran and Syria courtesy of AIPAC et all
-Bush declares state of emergency and elections suspended indefinitly
-Everyone who can breath is drafted
-WWIII as Iraq, Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan all collapse into the war vortex
-Europeans flip out
-China and Russia jump into the fray
The end of America :(.
Oil prices skyrocket more - $5/gallon gas. Gold continues to rise on a weak dollar.
Ron Paul is going to win the first few primaries and caucuses, leading up to a Clinton/Paul showdown. Paul wins by such a landslide that both parties are thrown into total disarray.
1) Beware the October surprise.
2) The Bush crime family moves to South America with their loot.
3) Gasoline shortages.
4) Riots.
Michael Bloomberg will launch a third-party Presidential bid by February or March. The result will be election of the next President by the House of Representatives. Neither he, nor the Democratic or Republican nominees will be elected, however.
The 2008 Summer Olympics will be an international embarassment for China, which will react with a belligerent burst of xenophobia.
Several states, already poorly managed by incompetent politicians, will default on bond payments. Some will have to close parts of their higher education system (colleges and universities) in order to remain solvent.
China calls our debt then offers to forgive it on conditions like the World Bank gives 3rd world. Yuan becomes world currency.
WOW, it's EERIE how SPOT ON they are, LOLOL! In fact, these are among the LEAST accurate predictions I saw from ANY source. Listen up, IDIOTS, WISHING for something to happen to save your ego or your investment bets (Ron Paul, riots, Yuan world currency), doesn't make it more likely!
TRY AGAIN!
Post a Comment