December 31, 2011 prediction thread

[piasabird]

Health care costs will rise 40% and O'Bammah will blame it on Bush.

 

[Lemon law]

According to Harold Camping and Mary Exley, the world end will begin on May 21, 2011 or 138 shopping days from now.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110103/ap_on_re/us_rel_apocalypse_soon

You better hope you rapture or some months of torment will remain before the final end.

 

[jhu]

The sun will have enough hydrogen to continue shining for the coming year.
The Earth will continue to orbit the sun.
There will be a partial solar eclipse.
Wayne Brady actually does make Bryant Gumble look like Malcolm X.

 

[nageov3t]

Sarah Palin's intentions to play Kingmaker instead of actually running for office will be made clear.

The debt ceiling will be raised, spending will continue unabated, and all politicians will duck their heads into the sand and blame the other guy rather than making any touch choices that might not be popular with old people.

 

[Saint Nick]

I would be very interested in moving over seas for a job if there were better prospects. I agree with the "brain drain" theory. This country will become over run with too many well-educated and unemployed Americans and work will be sought elsewhere.

 

[Double Trouble]

Cubs win the World Series!!!

lol, we know that won't happen

 

[Zebo]

Nothing huge just downward spiral.

Employment will be worse
Housing prices will be worse
Gas and other commodities will be significantly higher I see gas at $4
there will be at least 50 municipal bankruptcies

2012 will be big year.

 

[Zebo]

Inflation will continue to be very high (it already is, but the government calculating the number doesn't want to admit it because it would be devastating to an already troubled economy). The quantifiable result will be a rise in oil and food prices. I'll speculate that these will respectively increase by 35% and 20%.

US stocks will do fairly well this year, though this will primarily be a result of inflation. This will cause the DOW to go back up to 13,700.

Unskilled laborers in the US will continue to sit on their couches receiving unemployment since the minimum wage is set higher than their worth in the marketplace, even after accounting for transportation costs to/from developing nations. Quantitatively, unemployment will be ~14%.

The first large health insurer will go belly up late in the year as a result of the ridiculous stipulations of ObamaCare. More will follow like dominos, though this may not occur until well into 2012. The impending healthcare crisis will be the determining factor in the 2012 elections as we finally decide whether we are going to adopt a single-payer system (which we eventually will) or continue to fight it.

A brain drain will occur in which well-trained Americans will start moving to more capitalistic places (e.g. Germany and Singapore). I'm not sure how to quantify this one (since I don't think stats on such things are tracked), except to say that I might be one of them.

The UN will start to show signs of a backbone, passing resolutions implying the use of military force if Iran and North Korea keep screwing around. These resolutions will still lack the teeth to have any real effect, resulting in increasingly deep divisions in the world community: the lines for the next big war will be clearly drawn, but this war won't be fought in any traditionally recognizable manner. The US/EU/South Korea/India coalition will align against Russia/China/Iran in an ugly mess of girly fighting that won't be started in earnest until 2012.

Mexico will continue its descent into the seventh circle of hell. Africa will continue to circle the drain. South America will begin its rise to prevalence as its economies develop and populations continue to increase. The correlation between growing population and economic growth will finally become apparent. Many liberals will still reject the implicit causality because they're bad at math, all the while watching their favorite social programs continue to ruin countries with low birth rates.

Or not...

Germany more capitalistic then we are? You can be on unemployment for life there.

 

[senseamp]

CycloWizard will move to Germany, find out they have individual mandate, run away to Singapore, discover they have universal health care, and will come running back to the US with a tail between his legs.

 

[Zebo]

A shorter list is to ask which industries are doing poorly. Companies are sitting on 1 trillion in cash since they have so much profit right now.

I don't think we'll hit 7.5% in 2011, but we certainly will be close to 8.5% by the end. On what industries? Manufacturing is up 17 months straight. Oil and commodoties are doing well. So are farms with record or near record prices. Airlines are now profitable. Autos are doing much, much better than in 2008. GDP has basically recovered to its pre-recession levels. About the only industry that really hasn't recovered is anything related to housing (building, banking, real estate, furnature, etc). Housing starts have been flat at a low level since Dec 2008. I don't see that recovering significantly in 2011, and it is about 20% of the economy, which is why I don't forsee 7.5% unemployment in 2011.

Actual GDP is down over 7% govt deficit spending is 1.73 trillion or 11.64% of GDP giving illusion of being up with nominal GDP. And it's sure to blow just like Ireland and Greece who ran similar scams.

Your manufacturing data is BS too. It's based on prices. Not orders. Prices have gone up.

 

[dmcowen674]

http://money.cnn.com/2011/01/03/news/economy/ism_manufacturing/index.htm Oil and commodoties are doing well.

So are farms with record or near record prices.

The rise of energy and food prices combined with the fact wages are still going down spells a disaster for a recovery.

Why are so many Americans specifically rich Republicans blind to this?

Oh yeah because they have so much money they are not affected.

 

[rockyct]

Cubs win the World Series!!!

That's more realistic than most of the predictions here.

My only prediction is that 2011 is going to be a year of everything "cooling off". Unemployment will drop, but not a lot, maybe to ~8%. Stock market will make modest gains. Oh, and the crazies will finally shut themselves off in their sealed bunker never to be heard from again...I can dream right?

 

[sportage]

5000 birds dead. 1000 fish dead. How will we react when 10000 people mysteriously drop in a single day?
Prediction? Hope not.

 

[William Gaatjes]

There will be another internet bubble. Some investors are going to be very unhappy. Short term greed will reach it's maximum again for a short while.
Look closely at which bank is going to control the whole wall street blah blah.

Groupon. Facebook. Skype. Twitter.


Google will not be in this group. These guys have figured it out but care must be taken. Think about how much patents are there, income of android, investors, commercial advertizers, government stimulation of google. What is the TCO of google. Google can and probably does provide limited free echelon for the government agencies but within reasonable use and with a reasonable amount of privacy. Thus will not fall but will also not be sold. Learn a valuable lesson : "Keep it in the family !". Friends for life can also be considered family too.

Learn the lessons about how something worthless became something of value. Virtual hyper-valuation.
Real market value and media inflated value. Do not make the same mistake. Only commodities have real physical value ! How it was done before during the last internet bubble. This will be repeated before the next presidency election comes up in the US.

 

[CycloWizard]

Germany more capitalistic then we are? You can be on unemployment for life there.

Things are changing there in the opposite direction they're changing here. Thankfully, they started much further to the left this time, so a shift to the right doesn't necessarily mean what it did in the 30's.

 

[Cogman]

Several old celebrities will die
A new number 1 song will be released
The stock market will have a different value than it does today
Nobody will attempt to assassinate the president
Congress will manage to royally screw something up
Environmentalists will find some other new "Its the end of the world" hot button topic whose only solution is giving money to their organizations.

 

[William Gaatjes]

Several old celebrities will die
A new number 1 song will be released
The stock market will have a different value than it does today
Nobody will attempt to assassinate the president
Congress will manage to royally screw something up
Environmentalists will find some other new "Its the end of the world" hot button topic whose only solution is giving money to their organizations.

That is the spirit !



Although youtube is widely used and best supported, i predict no new media will become as big as long as google can keep the copyright robbers under control.

Chad Hurley, i wonder what the future will bring for this person. Perhaps he better return to google. Lars Rasmussen the same. I fear these people are similar as singers with 1 wonderful number one song. The same trick can not be performed over and over again unless google destroys itself because of greed.

EDIT:
Lars Rasmussen will get very far.

 

[rudder]

Republicans refuse to raise the debt ceiling (as they should).
Democrats refuse to cut spending.
Ceiling is reached.
Government defaults.
Government collapses.
Anarchists and Libertarians rejoice!

Nah republicans will vote to raise the limit and all the democrats will join in the largest circle jerk known to man. Because your second point is correct... spending will not be cut and the republicans want votes so they will not cut off all the people receiving government assistance.

 

[shiner]

5000 birds dead. 1000 fish dead. How will we react when 10000 people mysteriously drop in a single day?

Depends on who the 10000 people are.

 

[dank69]

CycloWizard ... will come running back to the US with a tail between his legs.

C'mon man, try to at least be a little bit realistic.

 

[Nemesis 1]

1) Republicans will be under fire, because after a year in Congress they haven't accomplished anything.

2) Obama will shift to the middle, trying his best to position himself for 2012 re-election.

3) Stock market will see modest rise (5&#37

4) There will be a full blown war between South and North Koreas.

5) New York Giants continue to disappoint Argo.

1) Republicans will get national support as they try to push threw bills that dems block .

2) Stock market tanks.

3) Us enters mexico to aid government in drug wars.

4) Obama sells out the Left to appeas the right in failed attempt to get 2nd term.

5) Favre stays retired.

 

[dank69]

Bump for the lulz. Seems we forgot to bump this last year.

 

[Acanthus]

DOW: 12200

American forces will remain in both Afghanistan and Iraq with no clear end in sight.

With no new regulations passed the finance industry will continue to siphon wealth out of the average american at record, pandemic levels.

The housing industry will remain sluggish, the average price of homes sold will fall.

Existing real estate will continue to lose value in major cities on average.

U3 Unemployment: 7.4%
U6 Unemployment: 12%

U3 7.7%
U6 14.4%

DOW 13170

Admittedly I expected housing to drag harder on the economy than it did (as far as the DOW goes).

 

[rockyct]

U3 7.7%
U6 14.4%

DOW 13170

Admittedly I expected housing to drag harder on the economy than it did (as far as the DOW goes).

Well, you did pretty much spot on pick the DOW for Dec. 31, 2011. The rest was muddled.

What is pretty clear is that hard core conservatives can't predict jack shit and that in general, a year's time doesn't really change much.

 

[dmcowen674]

dmcowen674 will be carded at CVS while trying to purchase panty liners.

shiner
Banned

Join Date: Jul 2000
Location: Earth
Posts: 17,124

Oh look, he was wrong and got banned :thumbsup::thumbsup: