2025 - Fearless Predictions!

The board of mewetree.blogspot.com would like to revive a past favourite blog topic, namely the fearless predictions for the upcoming year!

Here we go...

Sports:

• Baseball: The Toronto Blue Jays will finish at the bottom of their division, with the Dynamic Duo losing their jobs. The Atlanta Braves will win the World Series.
• Hockey: The Montreal Canadiens will make the playoffs and will go to the semi-finals. The Toronto Maple Leafs will make it to the second round. The Edmonton Oilers will win the Stanley Cup.
• Canadian Soccer: The Women's National Team will get to 5th in international rankings. The Men's national Team will get to 25th. There will be a cleaning house of management and coaching of the national teams following the 2024 Olympic "drone" scandal. Other international teams will reveal similar malfeasance.

Culture:

• Wicked: This movie will win five Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Musical Score, and Best Special Effects. Cynthia Erivo who plays Elphabas (the Wicked Witch) will win an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony! (Prediction courtesy of Wicked Bunny!🐰)
• Catholicism: The world will wake up to the slow, world-wide growth of the Catholic Church, especially amongst Protestants and Muslims. There will be an existential crisis in the Church over the question of whether non-believers can make it to Heaven, with the Pope on the wrong side of that debate.
• Feminism: The modernization of traditional feminism will take off, after its stunning pop-culture launch courtesy of the movie Barbie. Babies are good.
• The Peterson Effect: Jordan Peterson is about to cause way more people to rethink all manner of cultural issues from promiscuity, to marriage, religion, the essence of freedom, compassion, and free will. The Reaction has its apostle and is now well underway.
• Babies: The Western World, Japan and South Korea will start having babies again. Babies are good.
• Weight: The Western World will start to get back into shape, courtesy of aggressive public health policy moves by RFK Jr.  The "reshaping" of America will be one lasting legacy of Trump's second term.
  
• K-Pop: This will sweep the world, again. The world will acknowledge the superiority of South Korean pop culture.

Politics:

• Canada: There will be a new Conservative government. It will severely disappoint supporters, and be less awful than imagined by detractors. 
• Ontario: There will be a renewed Progressive Conservative government. It will not get along with the new federal Conservative government. Ford will apologize for more things.
• Trump: His government will be less activist than hoped by supporters and feared by detractors. Think fewer illegal immigrant evictions than suggested to date; smaller tax cuts than promised; only minor revisions to Obamacare; smaller than threatened tariffs on China, and very limited tariffs on Canada and Mexico. A year into his presidency he will run out of steam, and it will become obvious that his only real concern is staying out of jail.
• UK: Sir Keir Starmer will resign in disgrace as a new range of improprieties emerge. Labour will split - Moderates v Socialists - making the UK largely ungovernable.
• Germany: The Right will end the year ascendent. Yup...

International Affairs:

• Pax Americana: Trump will reveal plans for a much more isolationist foreign policy, with Canada and Mexico offered a customs union as part of a new American sphere of influence and following the US-led obliteration of globalization.
• Un-Brexit: The UK will seek to re-enter the European Union. The French will tell them to "Mange merde...
• Ukraine: The war will be over by May, with a peace treaty similar to what had almost been hammered out in March, 2022 - Russian control of Eastern Ukraine and Crimea; a loose Western security guarantee for Ukraine, but not NATO; Ukraine free to join the EU. The driving force here will be Trump who will leverage both parties to the table.
• Israel/Gaza: The war will be over by April. Israel will settle much of Northern Gaza under the rubric of its security needs. Hamas will retreat to a favorable country to rebuild...a.k.a. Iran. Financial and other aid will flood into the non-Israeli portion of Gaza. Numerous Arab nations will sign onto the Abraham Accords, creating the possibility of a permanent semi-peace in the region. The driving forces here will again be Trump, but also Saudi Arabia.
• Iran v Israel: Israel will take out Iran's nuclear capability - one way or another.
• NATO: The alliance will come under stress as certain members pursue pro-Russian stances, based on need for Russian energy (Hungary), while others prepare for war against Russia, based on a desire to redraw post-WW2 borders (Poland.) Nothing much will happen, except that all members will get to 2% of GDP spending. The driving force will again be Trump.
• Taiwan/South China Sea: China and Taiwan will go to the brink of war as China seeks to divert the attention of its population from a deteriorating economic situation. Expect some shot-down aircraft, sunk or damaged ships, and not much else.
• Iran, Myanmar and Venezuela: Expect civil wars in these countries, with anti-government forces making massive headway. One of these three governments will fall.
• China: There will be very significant civil disturbances following a partial collapse of the Chinese economy. Expect repression.
• Afghanistan, Syria, Mali: These countries will show the world why any attempts to return to theocracies circa the 6th century AD are a bad idea.
• Germany, Poland, Japan, Ukraine, Taiwan, South Korea and BOOM!: With the USA becoming more isolationist under Trump, these countries will no longer trust that the Americans will include them under their nuclear umbrella in case of a confrontation with Russia and/or China. Expect at least one of them to announce a new nuclear weapons program, or to even announce that - Surprise! - they already have one! We're looking at you, South Korea and Taiwan.

Economics:

• World-wide Recession: Driven by Trump tariffs and the obliteration of globalization, and in light of the withdrawal of COVID stimulus world-wide - especially the return of real interest rates - the world will move into a blood-curdling recession. Expect 10% unemployment in OEDC countries and a loss of 5% GDP over 18 months.
• America: Trump tariffs will drive significant inflation and a recession before he starts his second year in office. A recession means a 30% drop in stock market prices, and high unemployment. Trump will blame Biden, Obama, FDR...
• AI: It will reach its limited utility, quickly - glorified search engines and illicit essay-writing for students, some useful "big data" advantages for researchers, with other uses severely restricted as artists and others protect their intellectual property from misuse and theft. And that's the point.  AI has no innate organic intelligence - their base knowledge comes 100% from us. People will realize that without us, it is useless. We are the "intelligence" in AI.
• Canada: There will be a significant down-grade of federal and provincial sovereign debt, driving a new round of austerity at all levels of government. Trump tariffs will force productivity increases on Canadian business. Housing prices will fall significantly revealing a massive real estate bubble that had been masked by immigration housing concerns.
• China: The Chinese economy will partially collapse in the wake of US/European/Other tariffs. "Never in the field of human economics has so much been build by and for so many that will eventually be enjoyed by so few..." Capitalism absent political liberty always fails.