Dan Mitchell, of the CATO Institute and an excellent defender of those much-maligned tax havens, has a list of predictions for 2012 about the global scene. I agree with all of them apart from the sports one. Here are mine:
Obama will be re-elected by a whisker, but the GOP will cement its control of Congress. Hopefully, a credible, free marketeer Republican will be chosen in the next election who does not carry some of the baggage of Ron Paul regarding his more unusual supporters or his flaky views (in my opinion) on foreign affairs. But in fairness to Paul, his achievement in getting the libertarian message out there on issues such as the economy, role of the Fed and the bailouts will continue to resonate, for which he deserves great praise.
Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged will continue to sell lots of copies; Detlev Schlichter will continue, hopefully, to spread good sense among the financial community and among some policymakers.
China’s property market and wider economy will slow down markedly, though I think it will avoid a hard landing. I am not sure that the country will fully float the yuan in 2012, although it should do so.
The UK coalition government will struggle on, although at least one high-profile Lib Dem minister will resign. I hope it is Vincent Cable, who is an idiot.
Brazil’s economy will continue to grow rapidly. The Latin America economy will gain momentum, apart from such wrecks as Venezuela.
The London Olympics will go off largely without incident and as predicted, the British taxpayer will be paying for it for many years. Boris Johnson will try and milk it for his own political purposes, probably with some success.
Sarkozy will lose the French presidential elections unless the economy improves. The French National Front will again get a lot of votes.
Mobile technology will continue to change the banking industry.
Italy’s public finances will remain a mess. And yet in spite of it all, the northern part of Italy will continue to be the rich, beautiful place it often is, confounding some of the doomsters.
Greece will leave the euro; possbily one more country may do so. Turkey’s efforts to join the EU will continue to founder.
The issue of the “education bubble” will remain one of the biggest domestic policy screwups in nations such as the UK and US. Policymakers will tinker with it.
Cheap flights will remain one of the main positives about living in Europe.
Pope Benedict’s failing health (he looked absolutely shattered in his Christmas address) will become more of a talking point.
AGW alarmists will continue to lose ground. A major politician in a big country will take on the Green lobby. (Well, we can hope so).
There will be continued big advances in areas such as nanotech and medicine, mostly shockingly under-reported.
Parts of Africa will get more prosperous.
Commercial space flight will loom even larger as a reality. Hooray!
Piracy in the Indian Ocean might abate as countries adopt harsher methods to deal with it. More merchant vessels will be armed or escorted by vessels that are as insurance premia adjust.
Argentina will occasionally make sabre-rattling remarks about the Falklands, which will be largely ignored.
England might actually do quite well in the European Championships soccer tournament; England’s cricket team should have a decent year. People from Northern Ireland will continue to win lots of golf majors. Roger Federer might – as he has shown from recent form – win Wimbledon again, confirming he is the greatest sportsman of our time and the most famous Swiss person in the world.
Lady Gaga will start dressing demurely as a way of shocking her fans (I am one of them).
The quality of driving in Malta will continue to get worse.
Latin will make a comeback as a subject in UK state schools.
Finally, more of a hope than a prediction: Hollywood will make a decent hard science fiction movie this year and Ipswich Town will avoid relegation, just.
Happy New Year to you all (apart from the trolls).
There is a big bubble in Brasil too.
Robert L Forward’s Saturn Rukh, or Piers Anthony’s Macroscope could make great movies.
Starship Troopers should have been a great movie. Heinlein sure gave them enough material for a great movie. Too bad Hollywood couldn’t be bothered to include even the jumpsuit.
Promethius?
The Iowa Caucuses will bring about renewed interest in Mayan eschatology.
For anyone interested, I do have 2012 predictiions at my blog. The American football-related prediction will not make sense to anyone unfamiliar with Jerry Jones’ history of annoying his team’s fans.
The Democrats most heard slogan will be “Making every graveyard count.”
China is going to have the biggest hard landing in the history of the world. The only real question is when.
This time next year, as President Obama returns from his month long golfing vacation, it is with a heavy heart that he begins removing his things from the White House to make way for President elect Santorum.
The sound of exploding heads accompanies his every move.
UK Homes Ponzi Scheme: The UK Government will continue to inflate house prices for the benefit of greedy homeowners.
Economy: UK failure to make anything anyone wants will begin to bite. Many, many more bank bailouts. UK’s 1000% debt will bite hard.
UK Disaster: Massive rail crash courtesy of the UK’s craptacular and inept rail service, this showcase confirming it as worst in the world.
London Olympics: See above.
Generational war: Baby Boomers will become most hated generation.
Tech: Nintendo’s awesome and innovative Wii-U will obviously be the star of 2012, expect the superior talent at Nintendo to show the goons at Apple what real innovation is.
China: Yuan will be adopted as reserve currency by more and more nations as the dollar is abandoned across the globe. Like Germany, China is insulated by the fact it actually makes stuff which people will always want.
Brazil: Overtaking dull boring Britain and continuing to surge ahead of the “Ponzi Nations” (US, UK, France).
Greece: Lucas IMF Riots. “Goldman” Papademos will be assassinated.
Italy: Continued decline, Mediocre Mario “Goldman” Monti will continue to waste taxpayers money on silly Operas while Italy burns. IMF Riots.
Germany: German work ethic and the fact they actually make things means Germany will continue to grow.
Ireland: Depression. IMF Riots.
BTW I suggest the OP actually read the Argentine constitution; it demands Argentine government seek to reclaim La Malvinas/Falklands. To do anything other than that would be treason. There is no resolution to the Falklands dispute, people need to grow up. Neither side is going to change its mind. Ever.
I pretty much agree with MB’s predictions, except for China. I think you grossly overestimate the power of the Yuan. Yes, China actually “makes stuff”, but most of their economy is diverted into thoroughly wastful “make-work” projects like their many “ghost cities”. Their economy is due for a hard crash, and that fact, coupled with the inconvertibility of the Yuan, renders it unsuitable as a reserve currency. When the dollar collapses there won’t be a “reserve currency”.
Greece will try to pay off its debt by shorting the Euro.
Mendicant Bias, you are one grumpy sonfabitch, that I will grant. Not sure that there will be riots in Ireland: they would have had them already if they were going to do so. I am actually quite optimistic about Ireland.
UK Disaster: Massive rail crash courtesy of the UK’s craptacular and inept rail service, this showcase confirming it as worst in the world.
Again, unsure. There have been worse crashes in supposedly better funded systems (Japan, Germany) in recent years.
I like your Greek prediction, though.
I disagree the UK actually has a good rail service, it now carries more people than since the 1920’s. We may not have a purpose built high speed network, but out network runs at a high average speed. Most continental cites run long trains(16 carriages) between cities at an infrequent network. Many UK cities are connected by half hourly or better frequency. Our core cities are connected by in effect a national metro network. As for trains being on time just search for the legions of complaints about delays on deutschebahn.
Also since privatisation the death rate on our network has fallen by 2/3.
The are problems with how the industry is structured, but we have a pretty good systems.