predictions05

Issue #44

Last Update March 2, 2006

National New Year's Predictions by Gerry Krownstein Looking into my crystal ball, and muttering the magic words honi soit qui mal y pense, I am now able to foretell certain events of 2005. A word of warning, though: my crystal ball is never wrong, and all events foretold will come to pass, but so powerful is my scrying glass that it views several alternate universes at once. Rest assured that any prediction not fulfilled here will be fulfilled in one of these alternative realities. Here are eight of the most interesting predictions about the economy, politics and national defense, technology and the arts.

The Economy:

•The dollar will continue to fall against the euro, Sterling and other currencies, but it will not plummet disastrously this year. This is because China and Japan, the biggest contributors to our balance of payments problems, will not be able to shake free of the dollar until other markets expand to take their goods. If they stop buying dollars to fund our trade debt, we stop buying goods, and they go into recession. Other markets are expanding for them, but not fast enough to make 2005 the year they liberate themselves from the dollar.

•Economists will continue to mistake stock market gains and corporate profit levels for prosperity. As long as layoffs continue, pay and benefits are squeezed, the job market expands more slowly than the population, and off-shore outsourcing grows, the bulk of the American people will fail to share in the good news, and consumer confidence will remain shaky. 2005 will begin on an upbeat note, but by the end of the second quarter the consensus will be that we are in trouble again.

Politics and National Defense:

•Donald Rumsfeld will resign in 2005, at the first face-saving moment. His mismanagement of the military, his arrogance, and the fatal mistakes he has made in Iraq have generated a growing coalition of Democrats and Republicans who want to see him gone. Add to this the complaints of numerous generals and admirals, the precipitous drop in Reserve enlistments, the budget-busting military expenditures that nevertheless leave our troops ill-equipped for their current mission, the daily increasing death toll among our soldiers, and the looming threat of a draft to supplement the exhausted Reserve and National Guard rolls, and you have a prescription for cabinet change. He will quit after some piece of upbeat news allows him to pretend he is going out a winner.

•National Guard and/or Reserve troops, scheduled for yet another Iraq tour, will sue in Federal Court to set aside the order for their departure. The persistent Iraqi quagmire, coupled with the enormous disruption in the lives of these citizen soldiers, will cause them to challenge the unequal burden they have been subjected to. The crystal ball is cloudy as to whether the courts will rule in their favor, but a message will have been sent to senior military officials and the Administration.

Technology:

•Gadgets will continue to grow in functionality and shrink in price; already, cell phones take pictures, play mp3s, have games embedded in them, act as PDAs, and provide email and internet access. The Next Big Thing, however, will be the expansion of free wireless internet accessibility. Connectivity will be considered a right, not a privilege, and those who profit from on-line activities, which is most companies and individuals, will drown out the screams of the for-pay internet providers. The more nimble of these providers will morph into sellers of bulk capacity for the free access systems, and will be paid by municipalities and companies for their services. The mayor of New Orleans has already promised to provide city-wide wireless availability, and free hot spots in New York and elsewhere have been growing in number and convenience. Peer to peer connectivity will help keep costs down, especially in densely populated areas.

•The pharmaceutical industry will suffer a severe crisis when, due to growing concern about the approval of new drugs, they are forced to not only prove safety and effectiveness, but also that new drugs are better in some way than existing ones, and that long-term consequences of daily use are not deleterious to health. Pharmaceutical stocks will remain depressed throughout 2005, but a blockbuster announcement (the crystal ball is cloudy as to what) will spark renewed interest in these stocks.

The Arts:

•Record company executives will finally figure out, in 2005, that suing their best customers for trying out their products before buying is not a good marketing strategy. They will also come to grips with the fact that they are needed for publicity and support of new talent, but that their traditional major role in product distribution is no longer viable. Technology will allow them to become access points for product download, rather than CD burners and record pressers. They will continue to produce hard media, however, adding value over the downloaded product with written materials, videos and previous of other groups that might be of interest to the buyer.

•The Christian Right will yet again attempt to censor our movies, music and reading materials. They will yet again fail. Meanwhile, Christian rock groups and Christian movie makers will turn out songs and films that are increasingly indistinguishable from regular fare. Crossover artists will be popular in 2005, defeating the purpose for which they were created.

The crystal showed one further thing, but it was very hazy, as if it happened further out than 2005 or in another universe far away: like Nixon, George W. Bush will not serve out his full second term. We await a clearer view.