Looking Into My Cynical Ball

ORIGINALLY POSTED August 14, 2008

Two posts in a week? What is going on?

I thought I’d take this opportunity to lock in some predictions for the future. I don’t claim to be a prophet or psychic, but I am a cynic. I also don’t claim to be an economic or political expert but quite a few of my previous predictions have come true so I thought I would put my current forecasts on the record backed up only by a hunch and a creepy feeling of history repeating.

The optimistic side of my brain hopes I’m wrong but here’s what I reckon will unfold over the next few years.

The economic slump I predicted in Australia is unfolding (I was a year off. I said 2007). This will see house prices slowing or falling and many in the mortgage belt going to the wall thanks to massive debts they were encouraged to take on over the last 10 years (anyone want to buy a second-hand plasma TV?). The rich, of course will be fine. The good news is that Today Tonight will have plenty of Aussie battlers being thrown out of their homes to report on. You might also see some great bargains on flats and apartments as people give up their investment properties.

We will see swings to the Liberals in most states (like the recent NT elections) and the upcoming WA election might just go to the Libs even with the recent change of leader.
****UPDATE - Labor has been ousted after a very close election****


The Rudd government will not be able to do much about the slowing economy that they have inherited. The mining boom will slow once China demands cheaper iron ore. ***UPDATE Read this story.
Closer to the next Federal election Peter Costello will emerge from his convenient exile (who was it that encouraged everyone to borrow and spend?) and claim that he can rescue the economy as it was running well while he was in control. He will become leader if he can push Malcolm Turnbull’s ego out of the way.
****UPDATE - .Peter Costello has stepped out of contention and Malcolm Turnbull has taken over the leadership of the Liberal opposition. As I predicted, Mr Costello will wait for Malcolm to become unpopular and will throw his hat back into the ring closer to the election.****

We will see an increasing push for the creation of an Asian Pacific Union, much like the EU. Possibly the tough economic times will be used as an excuse for this but get ready for a combined currency (probably starting with a merger with NZ). ***UPDATE: I've since found evidence that this plan is already underway but in its early stages.

Fuel prices will steady for a short while until everyone calms down and then in six months or so another war or disaster in the Middle East will force the price up again to $2 a litre. Everyone will freak out but will feel better when it drops back to $1.80 even though its 30c more than we were paying before the crisis. (Sound like a familiar scenario? It’s the same pattern we’ve seen for the last 20 years.)

The climate change problem will be magically fixed once Carbon Taxes are successfully introduced. (You don’t think they really want you to stop using fossil fuels do you?) The words ‘climate change’ will disappear from our TVs and we’ll go about our lives just like we did after the nuclear threat in the 80s and the Greenhouse fears of the early 90s. And what did ever happen to SARS and the Avian Flu?

The US elections will go one of two ways. If Barack Obama gets elected there will, no doubt, be an assassination attempt on him. A couple of people have already been arrested on suspicion of trying this and God knows that in America, gun-toting nutcases are seldom a ‘one-off, isolated case’. ***UPDATE It's started Not sure which way this will swing the election.

The other possible eventuality (and this is for the hardcore cynics) is that the US election will be postponed or canceled due to some kind of national emergency that will require Mr Bush to declare martial law and test out the Patriot Act and new continuance of government legislation. No doubt the emergency will involve domestic terrorists or a biological threat that will blamed on Russia or Iran and conveniently give them an excuse to invade and take control of some more major oil supplies. ***UPDATE: The US got to have its election and Obama is still alive.

The bad news is, even if Obama gets through unscathed Iran will still be attacked based on some hyped up nuclear threat. He has already pretty much admitted that he’s happy to attack. ***UPDATE: There is unlikely to be any change in US policy towards Iran.

Also get ready for a major change on the internet. New, faster services will get introduced but they will only give you access to ‘approved’ or monitored websites. This will be brought in under the guise of protecting children from paedophiles and pornography or stopping terrorists after a sudden spate of ‘shocking’ incidents.
***UPDATE: It's worse than I thought. They are going to censor the net and not even give us the faster speeds as a trade off.
Emails will be subject to surveillance and will possibly become a charged service requiring the purchase of a virtual ‘stamp’. (There is speculation about this in IT circles and my next blog will address privacy issues of the future)

On the positive side, the emerging trend of ‘buying locally’ and farmers’ markets will continue to grow and communities will start to band together again out of necessity. Tough economic times bring people together and reset our priorities. See? it ain’t all bad.

So there you go. Let’s hope I’m wrong. I’m happy to be so. I will post links to evidence on each of these points as they either unfold or become unfounded.

Stay tuned.

The Devil Went Down to Georgia

Once again I have to apologise for my slackness in posting to my blog. My writing efforts have been recently redirected to other projects and the poor old blog has suffered as a consequence.

In lieu of new blog articles I’ve decided to at least keep the blog active by posting links to interesting news articles that might otherwise slip under the radars of most people. I get the feeling that some very interesting times are ahead with an imminent economic downturn and a looming US election. Rather than editorialising about my views and predictions I’ll leave it up to you to put the pieces together.
Enjoy:

While the world is watching the gold medals being given out in Beijing there is actually other stuff happening around the world.

There’s this report from the news.com.au:
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,24166750-401,00.html

But then there’s this from Russian news:
http://www.russiatoday.com/news/news/28824

But what’s really going on I wonder?:
http://www.voanews.com/english/2008-08-11-voa65.cfm

Then, to really get the brain going there’s this. It isn’t a news article but rather, an interesting observation by a gamer. Curiouser and curiouser.
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread380280/pg1

Of course it wouldn’t be the first time an event was pre-empted by writers:
http://www.plaguepuppy.net/public_html/Lone%20Gunmen/The_Lone_Gunmen_Episode_1.htm

Strange days indeed.