patrick.net

They'll come up with a catchy new word that means Depression w/o using the D word.

In the press conference last week, the president made a remark to the effect that he'd work to get his party's nominee elected.

Could be an October surprise.

HARM gets shot in Oakland, but fortunately it's only a flesh-wound. HARM then sees the light and moves to Idaho, where he packs heat.

Peter P gets tomaine from eating raw fish, so he changes his culinary preferences to BBQ. He then moves to Kansas City.

Newly elected President Condi Rice taps Patrick for Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Patrick's first official act is to prosecute WS, the banks, and others under the RICO statutes, causing them to forfeit all REO. The REO's are then distributed to worthy people who live within their means.

Surfer-X's father tells him a family secret - that Surfer-X had a 15 year coma early in life and has amnesia about that period. So Surfer-X turns out to be a Boomer.

California will see an "off the books" population decline. It will show up in increased rental vacancies putting even more downward pressure on prices. I say that with the entire state in mind. The fortress, a strong maybe.

As the economy sags further the MSM finally begins to publish stories on the bogus government inflation and labor statistics. I see bloggers talking about these cooked stats now like the real estate a couple years ago.

Commercial real estate begins to show clear signs of a bust.

The dropoff in tax revenue combined with evaporation of investment portfolios will cause some former booming municipalities to tip into bankruptcy.

Politicians will scramble to come up with bailout plans that will not be effective and will only bankrupt the government sooner.

CNBC remains bullish.

More and more people start living off the grid, and even off the monetary grid. A sort of "people's money" develops, with a real silver US coin being perhaps considered worth $10 in paper if it's a dime. A quarter is thus $25 and a copper penny is $1.

Hoovervilles multiply and a few debt-slaves finding themselves in them, get online and write about it, finding that when it comes down to it all, sitting in a Hooverville teaching one of the kids how to do cat's cradle and smelling the pot of beans cooking for lunch beats the hell out of the 60+ hour week and ulcers of being a good little debt-slave. Especially since the informal dentist (who started out training to be a vet before he started working on people) pulled that perpetually-aching molar they never had time or money to get done before.

Bartering and local currencies, already present, grow a bit more. A few decent Web sites explaining them and advocating them arise.

Interest in permaculture, already rising, increases. Rachael Ray does a show cooking with all stuff grown on her block.

Skynet finally becomes self aware and immediately decides to nuke humanity on what is known as Judgement Day.

Killer robots will stalk the remaining humans who live like rats in the wreckage of their once great civilization.

Oh, and lots re-runs since the writer's strike will neva eva end.

Predictions on what 2008 will bring?

Jeebus.

sybrib Says:
In the press conference last week, the president made a remark to the effect that he’d work to get his party’s nominee elected

Wait - who are you talking about? Putin? Or Musharaf? :-)

Okay, this was fun (not that there's anything wrong with that. But I was hoping for a few serious guesses too.

Here are my serious guesses:

Hillary wins in 08. She pursues the current policies even more aggressively, both abroad and domestically. But that is in 09.

08 will be a lot like 07 except more so. Real estate will continue to tank and realtors will continue to desert the profession in big numbers. It will become common knowledge that houses aren't really worth as much as people thought, so all the money hurled out of helicopters doesn't help anyone.

Foreclosures continue to rise, even in the fortress, and we start to see more and more infomercials about how to get very rich using pre-foreclosures.

The Internet 2.0 bubble finally deflates although some companies continue to do well. The job market starts to hurt and this, combined with the loss of jobs related to housing, really hurts the economy.

Bush seriously starts considering if he can declare emergency and stay the president for much longer.

Gas hits $4 a gallon.

What else?

Sriram those sounds like good predictions to me.

Ugh! Hillary! Yuuuuck!

ESR, I really hope that doesn't come true. But is definitely conceivable that the race next year will be between Hillary on one side and Guiliani or Huckabee on the other.

Then, no one can save this country.

Guys I just took the AOL straw poll for President. Although it is totally unscientific, the survey seems to have some controls to prevent multiple votes like using the passkey to submit. It seems like they are trying to take it seriously. It is worth noting that for the Republicans, Ron Paul leads with 27%, Giuliani is in second a full 9 points behind with 18%. Then, no statistical difference between Huckabee, Romney, and Mccain who follow at 17, 16, and 15%. This is based so far on 58,000 responders who picked from the Republican side.

Bap33 Says:

> I’ll bet you $1,000 USD, CASH, that Comrad Clinton is no
> where close to winning anything.

I would not bet that Clinton can’s win “anything”… She will win again in New York and would even beat Boxer if she moved to California (It is kind of funny that Clinton’s brother has been accused of “actually” beating Boxers daughter:
http://www.nypost.com/seven/12202007/news/nationalnews/hills_brother_a_deadbeat_514395.htm I couldn’t find the domestic violence story, but above is a recent story that is almost better).

Here in the Bay Area since almost everyone is a Democrat (people talk about family members who vote GOP like they were child molesters) people that live around here (where Gavin is a “right winger”) think Hillary can win a national election. I have yet to meet anyone who has spent a lot of time in a “red state” that thinks she (or a black guy) has any chance of becoming our next president…

Then Malcolm Says:

> Guys I just took the AOL straw poll for President. Although it is
> totally unscientific, the survey seems to have some controls to
> prevent multiple votes like using the passkey to submit. It seems
> like they are trying to take it seriously. It is worth noting that for
> the Republicans, Ron Paul leads with 27%...

Remember internet polls will always favor the candidates that tech savvy people like. Most people in red states are just now talking about “the all new aol dial up service” and will vote for whoever their Pastor or Union leader tells them to vote for (it will be the mainstream candidate supported by the party who gives money to the Pastor and Union Leader

Hillary's popularity right now is the difference between voting for someone in principle and actually voting for them in practice.

My serious predictions :

1. At least one major financial institution - here or abroad - that is too big to fail will *almost* fail.

2. The spring market in BA will shock a lot of people. Including bears - as it will not tank as much as they hoped. Many people will try to purchase thinking it's a good "deal" but will have a very hard time getting a loan. Resulting in very long closing times, and houses falling out of escrows. So end of summer will look lot worse than spring.

3. CPI will not be able to hide inflation and people will realize how trapped the Fed is. Panic will set in stock market and in general it will be a good year for short sellers.

4. CNBC will keep trying to convince people that "consumer is not dead". Of course consumers will have to spend on basic needs. But apart from that they won't spend much on anything more.

5. Since solutions to the bubble aftermath won't show any positive result, the real game will start playing in DC and in election campaigns - finger pointing. Candidates will be asked about their "solutions" to the bust in debates.

6. May happen in 2008, but more likely in 2009 - at least one local CA government will go bankrupt.

Overall, 2008 will be far more pessimistic than 2007. To the extent that it will become common, fashionable to espouse such thoughts. Such people will be viewed as pragmatic and not gloom and doomers.

FormerAptBroker Says:
December 23rd, 2007 at 10:22 pm
"Remember internet polls will always favor the candidates that tech savvy people like. Most people in red states are just now talking about “the all new aol dial up service” and will vote for whoever their Pastor or Union leader tells them to vote for (it will be the mainstream candidate supported by the party who gives money to the Pastor and Union Leader"

You are right, but we must observe that his rank is twice as high as regular national polls, and the internet is the new mainstream. It has totally disrupted the traditional mainstream networks for news, and could make the difference. Something exciting is happening, you can almost see it gaining momentum.