Tag Archives: Egypt

Barbara Buono will Win, Apple will Grow, Assad will Die and other forecasts for 2013


LF_w_Barbara_Buono

In “The World Will Not End and Other Predictions for 2012,” I developed a set of predictions for 2012, the accuracy of which were described by me in 2012 Revisited. Here are my predictions for 2013. As noted last year, I am extrapolating from patterns that I see – also known as reading tea leaves.

  1. New Jersey’s Governor Chris Christie will lose his re-election campaign to NJ Senator Barbara Buono, pictured with me, above. The Tea Party Republicans will not compromise with President Obama, Democrats in the House and Senate, or the Republican Leadership in the House and Senate.  They will, again, threaten to shut-down the U. S. government.
  2. A major hurricane will batter the Gulf Coast or the Eastern Seaboard, causing $25 to $80 Billion worth of damage. FEMA will be there to help.
  3. Apple will continue to report record sales and record profits. It will close out the year with a market capitalization around $650 Billion, up from today’s level of $470 Billion. If HP‘s Board doesn’t fire CEO Meg Whitman, HP may return to profitability. Dell‘s market share and market capitalization will fall.
  4. The wind and solar industries will increase in the US and globally, particularly Japan, which is now planning to have 100% renewable energy by 2040, and India, which is learning from the mistakes being made in China, Japan, and the West.
  5. Large industrial conglomerates will continue to design and sell wind turbines, LED lighting, PV solar modules and more energy efficient medical devices, etc.
  6. Assad will fall – and will die – by the end of 2014.
  7. Mohammed Morsi and the Moslem Brotherhood will consolidate power in Egypt, but will not abandon the Egypt – Israel peace treaty.
  8. Iran will provide weapons and support to Islamists in the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia.
  9. Israel, feeling threatened, and very concerned regarding Iran, Syria and Egypt, will ignore pressure to negotiate with the Palestinians.
  10. Roger Saillant and RP Siegel will not win any awards for their novel, Vapor Trails.

For an overview of the details see below.

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Egypt, Wisconsin – It's the Economy, Stupid

Image of the James home

The James home, Knoxville Biz.

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is trying to stimulate the economy by eliminating corporate income taxes and regulations on businesses and cutting taxes on wealthy people (click here or here). These kinds of activities do stimulate GDP.  Here’s how.

Wealthy people, like Lindsay Lohan, Brittney Spears, Mel Gibson, and Charlie Sheen have people, including paparazzi and media people following them around.  That costs money. They do things in a spectacular way,  and when they do stupid things in a spectacular way they have lawyers get them out of trouble. Economists call this “multipliers.” The lawyers, paparazzi and media folks need to eat, sleep, rent hotel rooms, etc. And they don’t camp out and chow down on toast, water, and dried fruits and nuts. Celebrities often require high powered consultants from the sex and pharmaceuticals industries.  When they trigger rapid increases in the entropy of hotel rooms, by “trashing” them, carpenters, electricians, decorators, architects and others need be hired to restore the room – all this costs money, and stimulates GDP.

When regulations are lax or eliminated businesses regulate themselves.  This stimulates GDP.  Consider the recent GDP stimulus of Wall Street, when those now-legendary credit default swaps raised real estate values (until they crashed). Similarly, when industries are releived of the burden of environmental regulations, they create products which increase GDP and pollution which is not counted in GDP.  When the pollution is cleaned up, at taxpayer expense, the GDP again increases. We see this dramatically in Tennessee, at the site of the Kingston Steam Plant. When a flood released 1.2 billion gallons of toxic coal ash sludge from the coal-fired power plant, December, 22, 2008, the cleanup costs were added to the bills of the people who buy power from the TVA.
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