predictions

PREDICTIONS


Man, what a crappy winter. No sun a week at a time ( one week clouds, one day sun, repeat ). The high for two weeks in the upper twenties. Hell, I’ve had to stop using the regular grey water tank and set up a liquid only camp toilet and haul it outside daily. Snow storm after snow storm so it is getting really hard pedaling into town ( wet crap on top of old icey crap ). So, here I am today working an hour and a half but it will take me two and a half hours to round trip commute. I’m in a foul mood. 

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I never have any desire to make resolutions on New Years. Why wait until you improve your behavior? However, I am seeing everyone else make New Years predictions and I can’t help but want in on the fun. This is the first time I’ve done this specifically. I always rant and rave how we are all going to die, but never tell you exactly when. Well, now you have something to look back at and sneer and snarl about. Assuming we make it through the year grid up so you can go back and check on my predictions. They are all mostly economic. And they are all, as far as I’m concerned, squarely in the “No Friggin Crap, Sherlock” camp. I’m making these easy and obvious predictions for two reasons. One, I’m lazy and don’t want to think too hard. Two, if I’m wrong about them then I really am a dumbass and you can fall on the floor laughing at my stupidity.

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1)Any increase in the stock market will be below the rate of inflation. The real rate of inflation, not the rate the gubment uses to screw over Seniors in their COLA. This merely shadows what happened this year, so no surprise here. And as I keep pointing out as you ignore me, 2010 will be more like 2008 than 2009. An easy first guess.



2)Related to the first, any rate of growth in the economy will be below the real rate of inflation. If the economy grows 2% and the rate of inflation is 7%, in reality you see a 5% decline in the economy. Does Zimbabwe have 1,000% economic growth each month? No, they have that rate of inflation. Same difference. And while I’m getting all agitated about the subject, look at the unemployment rate. If you need 200,000 new jobs a month just to keep up with population growth, you aren’t seeing a 300,000 growth in unemployment. You are seeing one of a half million.



3)GMC will keep getting government “loans”. Crap, this forecasting stuff is easy as pie! Government Motors Corporation is a socialized car company. The taxpayer is helping them survive. No shame here, the government is socializing almost anything not nailed down. But wouldn’t it be easier to just close the company and put all the workers on food stamps and section 8? Hell, even on the Congressional retirement plan it would be much cheaper.



4)Oil will go over a hundred bucks a barrel. Hell, I would say $200, but that be slightly pushing it. Not that it would surprise me, but $100 is a gold plated slam dunk. And if anyone mentions Brazilian oil fields five miles under the sea bed I swear I will make an image of you in effigy and wipe my bum with it.



5)Priced globally, at least one cereal grain will double in price and stay there. Another real hard one to figure out. Fertile land shrinks, drought worsens, erosion increases, energy inputs go up, population growth continues, inflation gets worse. And you think that food won’t go up? Wheat and corn doubled and stayed there even after oil costs halved. Perhaps rice is next, perhaps they will double again.



6)Oil imports into the US will decline at a Year To Year rate of 15%. I keep hollering at you about this ( as I get it from http://www.americanenergycrisis.blogspot.com/ ). Two years ago we saw an 8% decline in oil imports. A year ago it was another 8%. Just ending the last years numbers our oil import decline stood at 11 ½ %. Not a reach to say in a year it goes to 15%. Why not another 11%, you ask? Mexico should be close to played out. As their population increases and less of our corn reaches them, they need more of their own oil. They will stop exporting. Not to mention the free fall of their Cantrell field in output.



7)Real unemployment goes over 20%. Guaranteed. 25-30% would be quite possible, but I’m trying to get all correct bets here. So I’m low balling. The retail sector, the only salvation in our last few recessions, is in no shape to employ all the laid off financial/computer/real estate/construction/etc. Look at the bright side as you get an extended vacation. The last depression you had to dress up in a suit and sell apples on the street corner in cold weather. As long as our welfare state holds together you can lay on the couch in your undies and scratch your ass as you watch So You Want To Sing As You Dance And Become A Fat Idol.



8)Gold will have to reach $2k before the Bison Blog gets 2k daily readers. I’m not forecasting gold at that level, although certainly possible. I’m doubting enough people will want the unvarnished truth to get my numbers that high. But if gold does get there, my numbers will follow. I haven’t done in depth research, but at a casual glance it seems my reader numbers follow the dollar gold price ( $1200 gold is 1200 daily readers ).



9)California will get serious cash from the Feds, although not actual called a bailout by them. Hell, I hope so. My dad gets California employee retirement. If they go broke ( the pension fund recently had a disproportionate amount in bad real estate investments ) I have to squeeze an old guy and his high maintenance wife into the trailer. Their over priced Nevada house is paid for by the retirement fund.



10)Last one, so I tried for a prediction that would get you all worked up and uppity and would fill my soul with a warm fuzzy feeling for putting you there in that state. Battle rifle ammunition ( not pistol or carbine ), current manufacture, brass and reloadable, will go over a dollar a round regular price ( discounting any company offloading inventory before bankruptcy ). Not because of the Feds wanting to tax it ( a separate increase, if any ). Because of the skyrocketing material and manufacture and transport costs. I’m not even counting the increased demand, although that could factor in. As might inflation. But mostly because everything is getting so expensive. Mostly. Nothing is clear cut, there will be a half dozen factors in the increase. But it will go up.



Well, that was fun. In a year, if we are all still here, we will tell if my eyes are hazel, as claimed on my drivers license, or if they have turned brown.

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