Tuesday, January 06, 2009
10 Predictions for 2009
I can't resist: I got a new crystal ball from a Certified Authentic Psychic who tells me I can't possibly go wrong this year.
1. Oil prices will continue to be wildly volatile; oil will cost more than $100 per barrel again on at least one day in 2009.
2. Congress will pass, and Obama will sign, an economic stimulus package larger than $900 billion.
3. The economic recession will last through the entire year.
4. Conservatives will claim that the stimulus is causing the recession to last longer.
5. Progressives will claim that without the stimulus we'd be in the Second Great Depression.
6. General Motors will declare bankruptcy after getting billions more dollars of bailout money.
7. Now that Home Depot is open, Rocky's Ace Hardware in Hadley and Leader Home Center in Amherst will close in 2009.
8. Mark's Meadow school in Amherst will be closed.
9. Lance Armstrong will not win the Tour de France again.
10. I'll only get 7 of these 10 predictions right. I really hope I'm wrong about #3...
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3 comments:
I'm going to go out on a limb here and meta-predict that you're only going to get two of these picks (#1 and #2). I'm discounting #4 and #5, as these are pretty much givens no matter what happens (you can probably already start to chalk these up if you'd like to).
Yeah, I suppose #3 and #4 are perfectly correlated-- I'll either get them both right or both wrong.
Scenario 1: The recession lasts all year, and lefties and righties react as I predict.
Scenario 2: The recession is over before the end of the year. Lefties say "See! The stimulus worked!"
I don't think most Righties will claim that the stimulus made the recession worse if this happens, though-- they'll instead claim that the stimulus will trigger ANOTHER recession sometime in the next few years (that we've just kicked the problem a few years down the road).
I'm claiming the title of Psychic of the Year for correctly prognosticating two correct predictions (even though I picked the wrong ones).
By my tally, you managed to hit #6 and #9. Close but no cigar on #1 and #8. Thankfully wrong on #3. Note that I'm not counting #4 and #5, since they were already true at the beginning of the year.
Looking forward to your 2010 picks!
- Jonathan
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