Happy Birthday Canada! You are 150 this year!
And Happy Birthday to Finland - celebrating 100 years of independence from Mother Russia!
Here are the predictions for this year...
Sports:
Chicago's Heyday returns...
Baseball - The Chicago Cubs will repeat as World Champions; the Toronto Blue Jays miss playoffs by 3 games. The post-AA Jays management will keep stocking the farm system in preparation for another generation of mediocrity.
Hockey - The Toronto Maple Leafs, Ottawa Senators and Montreal Canadiens make the playoffs. The Canadiens go the farthest, eliminated in the semi-finals. The Chicago Blackhawks win the Stanley Cup.
CFL - The Calgary Stampeders will win the Grey Cup.
Super Bowl - The NY Giants will win the Super Bowl, 35 - 21 over the New England Patriots, proving Eli Manning is not a fluke.
NBA - The Cleveland Cavaliers will repeat, but the Toronto Raptors will push them to 7 games this time, with four of those games going into overtime. LeBron James will say in later years that this year's Raptors team was the toughest team he ever played against.
National Politics:
Ontario - Premier Kathleen Wynne will be dumped by her party by the Spring. Hydro rates will rise in celebration.
Canada - Expect a Constitutional Crisis as the new Senate asserts a role beyond the traditional and conventional "sober second thought" role, prompting a suspension of all appointments, and a strong push to abolish the Senate as soon as possible led by Premier Wall in Saskatchewan.
International Politics:
This will be the year that peace broke out....
Syria - A viable plan for ending the civil war, including a plan to rebuild the country and the return of millions of refugees, will be agreed to and will take hold - sponsored by Putin, Trump, Merkel, and Erdogan. They will jointly win the Nobel Peace Prize.
China - Will spark a military confrontation with Japan in the South China Sea as a way to push the USA out of the region, and to deflect internal dissension. The result will be a short, sharp air war that the Japanese will win easily. The new UN Secretary General will launch a multi-country dialogue - China, Vietnam, Japan, The Philippines, Brunei, Taiwan - that will result in a resource-sharing and environmental protection agreement for the South China Sea, effectively diffusing this powder keg.
Ukraine/Crimea - Trump will broker a deal that recognizes the Russian occupation of Crimea, with compensation to be paid by Russia to Ukraine, and a mutual undertaking on the part of Russia to leave Ukraine alone as long as it never joins NATO. Tensions in Europe will ease.
Africa - The new Secretary General will push for and get an international undertaking to focus on peace in Africa. The result will be substantial new commitments to peace keeping forces through the continent, especially in Mali, the Congo and Nigeria.
North Korea - Kim Jong-un will be assassinated by the military, supported by China which is getting very concerned about the nuclear weapons program of North Korea and the increasingly irrational behaviour of that country's leader. The military will immediately declare a state of Martial Law, after which it will enter into negotiations with South Korea to unify the Korean peninsula. People will freely cross the DMZ by the end of the year. Korea will be unified by the end of 2018.
USA! USA! USA!:
Trump's First Year - Expect a massive split between Trump and the Republican Congress, seeing Trump seek and obtain allies among the Democrats to keep most of Obamacare intact while revamping the tax code so as to tax the wealthy more, transferring tax cuts to the middle class and poor. Trump will also refuse to sign any legislation until congress agrees to term limits and campaign financing reform - millions of Americans will take to the streets to support him, and the Congress - both the Republicans and Democrats - will fold. He will launch more vigorous reviews of refugees, but nothing like a ban on all Muslims; he will expel illegal immigrant criminals from the USA, while hinting at a possible path to normalization short of citizenship, both of which will totally confound his critics. His approval rating will hit 75%.
Canadian Economy:
Housing - Expect the bubble to start to implode. It will start with a very slow drop in housing prices, 3% this year nationally. With interest rates at historic lows, the B of C will drop them even more to try to keep the bubble afloat. It will fail...the big implosion comes next year, and will see a 50% drop in prices in Vancouver, and 40% in Toronto with a national decline of 10%.
Growth - Canada will enter into recession again as the world's economy slows, specifically Europe and China.
Deficit - All provincial governments and the federal government will run larger than anticipated deficits. Ontario - the most indebted sub-national government on Earth - will need a cash infusion from Ottawa. The year 2018 will see the start of a decade of significant austerity that makes what happened under Harper look mild.
Banks - The main Canadian banks will go from the world's darlings during the last recession, to being seen as a very significant risk. Expect 20% declines in share prices.
Stocks/Investments:
Have you been reading my other recent posts?
S&P 500 - Expect 3% rise, then a 20% decline below 1,700 by the fall.
DOW - Expect a 3% rise, then a 25% decline below 15,000 by the fall.
Europe - Expect no rise, then a 35% decline by the fall.
Canada - Expect a 1% rise, then a 30% decline to below 11,000 by the fall.
This year could hearken an era of zero stock market price growth similar to what has afflicted Japan for 25 years as politicians worldwide lack the guts to deal with the need to deleverage economies from fiscal and monetary stimulus. The problem with addictive drugs is that they eventually stop working, and you need them just to feel normal...welcome to the stimulus addicted normal.
World Economies:
In general, recessions worldwide. They will be far worse in Europe. This is the year that the stimulus stopped working.
China:
Changes in this country will rock the world...
Economy - A significant recession will hit, leading to...
Stock and Housing Markets - A collapse of the housing and stock markets, leading to massive losses on the part of small investors, leading to...
Military Aggression - A military adventure against Japan in the South China Sea to deflect internal dissension (see above), leading to...
Purge - The purge of hard-core Communists by President Xi Jinping will continue and pick up steam, including revelations that these people orchestrated a mass harvesting of human organs from Falun Gong members with the subsequent killing of hundreds of thousands of these people, leading to...
Democracy - The establishment of an independent commission to recommend a path forward for China to move to a democratic form of government.
WOW!
Popular Culture:
One word.....DISCO!
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