9 Not Well thought Out Predictions for 2009

Posted by Andy Boyer in Uncategorized

In no particular order…

1) Facebook will start charging $10 – $20 a year for company Pages, and no one will mind. Every small business has to pay $10 a year plus hosting for a web url, why shouldn’t they pay a yearly fee for a Facebook one?  Other companies like YouTube, MySpace and Twitter will attempt to follow suit.

2) Seattle sports:

  • Mariners’ youth movement is fun yet painful to watch.  Bedard and Washburn are moved to contenders in spring.
  • Since the Bidwill family owns the Cardinals, they make a huge off-season mistake and plunge themselves back to the NFC West cellar.
  • The Seahawks meanwhile make a brilliant off-season acquisition, and climb back through a weak division to 9-7 and the NFC West title.
  • UW football beats UCLA and guarantees Steve Sarkezian “hero status” for a year.

3) Layoffs at WAMU, Microsoft, Starbucks and other large companies create two phenomena:

  • A greater number of qualified, highly educated, intelligent, white collar professionals than ever apply for teaching credentials.  The Teacher’s Union immediately works to figure out a way to stop this from happening.
  • With a lack of full-time jobs and everyone fearful of the stock market, people turn to entrepreneurship, opening coffee stands, noodle trucks, photography studios and more.

4) Some state goes nearly bankrupt, and teachers and public workers get paid in IOU’s so that there is cash for welfare and unemployment checks.  This finally makes a segment of the voting population ask if things are out of whack.

5) New industries asking for government bailouts:

  • Ski Industry:  If Global warming is real, and the US is responsibile for Global warming, then the US government should pay reparations to the US ski industry for screwing up their climate.
  • Major League Baseball Players Association:  They’ve never needed a reason before, so they’ll ask for the fun of it.  And threaten to strike if they don’t get it.
  • Green Technology:  Anyone who invested in a green company, bought a green car or acquired a green investment fund when gas was $5.00 a gallon now wants money back, blaming the US foreign policies for bringing prices back down to a reasonable level.

6) In a change, a number of ordinary line workers employed by the UAW are caught in an expose detailing some sort of extravagance.  Since its not an executive scandal, but ordinary workers living lavishly on tax payer money, we see a huge backlash toward more bailouts.

7) A perfect storm of rising dollar and great airline deals make it cheap to travel to Europe – cheaper even than Asia.  Tourism booms to Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania.

8) With oil at $40 a barrel, this ridiculous winning streak the state of Oklahoma is on finally comes to an end.  Florida 59, Oklahoma 35. 

9) Thanks to the Sonics debacle and the host of other circus events coing from City Hall, people actually CARE about City Council elections this year, and a highly qualified pool of moderates and business people come in to take some of the spots. 

Got any predictions of your own?  Put them in the comments section below.  Happy New Year.