Annual Forecast Issue (Part 2)

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More specifics than generalities now, as we roll through the details of what we think will happen in 2020. Already, we have seen Bitcoin drop under $7,000 as one of our outlooks seems poise to fulfill.  Though $7,132 at click time today.

Other outlooks are not particularly “scary” if you are “system independent” but if you rely on government to “rent you your life” then there could be some difficult times ahead.  This is because compound interest effects will – necessarily – over time, swamp current incomes and taxes.  Runaway compounding can take down everyone.

We will start with financial views and then the other systems.  Not how Maslow is laid-out, but it is how us greedy capitalist-types view things.  After a few headlines and charts…

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38 thoughts on “Annual Forecast Issue (Part 2)”

  1. “VR, MR, and AR. If you’re not tinkering with virtual reality, mixed reality, or augmented reality………”

    George,

    It seems to me that you might have left out one of the fastest growing (pun intended) resources for the above – CANNABIS

    Since it was legalized here in Canada a year ago, consumption is skyrocketing. One of the biggest markets is for seniors. Perhaps it is for pain but maybe a growing number of people just want to escape from it all.

    You can smoke it, eat it or even rub it on your skin. Takes you to places you only dreamed of.

    I agree with you that next year is going to be one for the books, especially for the USA. A stake in the ground year that will live in history. I look forward to your 2020 wrap up and 2021 predictions, if you are still able to write them.

    Merry Christmas to you and Elaine and thank you for writing my favourite column every day.

    To Urban Survival only readers, drop 40 bucks for Peoplenomics in 2020. You are missing some great stuff. Best bang for your buck in internet blogs!

    • Thanks for the kind words.

      The reason I didn’t mention da ganj as a growth industry is that I see it more as a transformative, rather than growth oppty. E.G. anyone with 30 acres (ahem) could find a place to plant something. IOWS those who want to smoke already have a hook-up. What will changes is the profit distribution. Instead of the “dealer chain” it will flip over into the government chain and will be taxed.
      Still cloudy about whether MJ companies will have access to government reg’ed bank capital. Seems silly if we have half of Mexicom coming in because they can afford it (with one load) why we don’t all just put in three plants and really, actually shut the borders.
      \But I’m a little too practical.
      Gotta say if there was not Harrison Act wouldn’t break my heart, but then I always was a “liberal” republican – strong on civil rights (and God doesn’t make mistake with plants, only people do that) and at the same time able to read a balance sheet.
      Trump coming around to national legalization for at least medical weed would drop a lot of the dem sup[porters into the r column, I’d think…

      • “IOWS those who want to smoke already have a hook-up. What will changes is the profit distribution. Instead of the “dealer chain” it will flip over into the government chain and will be taxed.”

        That’s the way it should be..regulate it the same way you do alcohol.. it would free companies to study the lifesaving drugs let industry use it for a huge number of products that would touch everyone’s life.
        It’s not a secret that I’m pro cannabis legalization and reform.. I personally dont like to get cognitively impaired so I dont go that route. Those that use it for its psychotropic abilities already are. Legal or not.
        The more caustic drugs the usage is down in states that have legalized it. So is violent crime and accidents.. the accidents there are have alcohol involved..
        The positive results of legalization so outweigh the negative it’s just a no brainer that it should be legalized..
        And to think it was outlawed because some asshole had a pile of sawdust and wanted to corner the toilet paper industry.. ( that’s the story I liked and use..theres a lot of other theories on why that guy wanted to make it illegal)
        It’s a miracle plant.. non addictive those that are only addicted to it..is at seven to a million.. everyone else has an addiction personality and are addicted to various other substances.
        The studies done around the world are truly eye openers..

      • thats the thing…Because of all the negative publicity that was used to get the sentiment of the public to make the plant illigal the vast majority assume that everyone will be walking around in a zombie like state.. what did they call it.. REFER MADNESS LOL LOL… how anyone could have bought that BS is way beyond my comprehension… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbjHOBJzhb0
        those that are using it for the recreational psychotropic results already are.. many thousands of the compounds that can be made from it.. are not psychotropic in any way.. you won’t get stoned on margarine made from the plant or the cooking oil.. nor will you from the coconut oil and canabinoide suppository to fight cancer.. the jeans you wear.. won’t get you high unless you buy a pair two sizes to small then you may just faint from blood restriction… etc etc etc..

  2. In response to the next employment boom, you said that at the turn of last century, Cars and tractors were ascendant. The template for today is converting today’s horse and buggy, the internal combustion engine to electric. When all my critics here on PN and Urban S. were saying saying Tesla was going out of business when the stock hit the low $200’s, I knew better and predicted the stock would double by year end. Well yesterday it closed at $405.59 making it by far the nations highest valued auto company. The most impressive part of Tesla’s growth is that they did it without a lick of broadcast or print advertising. Keep costs down, quality up and stockholders happy! What a concept! But electrics make sense for a variety of reasons. 500 mile range between charges is around the corner. My Tesla has been increased Through an in-home software update, from 310 miles to 330 miles in less than a year. 350 is coming soon. But, it’s so easy to come home, park in the garage and charge up for the next day if I choose. Most days I don’t need to charge, because I only drive maybe 50 miles a day, but it’s comforting to know that I can do it without a trip to the gas station. And like most offices here in the Bay Area, my work office building also has 10 charging stations…available for no charge…so there is that convent as well. But Electrics mean re-tooling and that means more jobs and that means happy workers, unions etc.

    As for an increase in unemployment in 2020, that won’t happen. Remember in the next 10 years over 20% of our population will be 65 years old or more. 10,000 people per day turn 65 now. That’s retirement age and those people that choose retirement will be eliminated from the employment roles. We can drastically reduce unemployment by doing one simple thing. Reduce our reliance on Indian, Chinese, Korean and Taiwanese engineers to code our tech companies. Stress STEM as the new “Sport” in elementary and high schools across the country. They are all Over the Bay Area now.

    Instead of football as a lead in to a possible but statistically low chance career, what about robotics competitions that can more likely lead to a promising and high paying job. Americans keep reproducing while we bring in millions of engineers from other countries and that had an impact on our employment as natural citizens. I am not trying to rid the country of immigrants…a majority of them are my very good friends, but we must also look within to improve the lives of people that were born and raised here.

    This is why the worst Leader in the history of human civilization got elected POTUS. The thing is. President Do Nothing has implemented squat for education, re-education and has zero plan for the rise of the machines. Thank his hand picked and wealthy election and re-election Donation queen, Betsy DeVoss for a part of this ignorance on the importance of education here in the US.

    It is time for all of us to rise up and demand a leader that cares about us and not poll numbers…which really suck for him anyway. Yes, T-rump has tried to make it harder for immigrants, but you can’t get rid of something without a replacement plan already in place. He has no replacement strategy. He thinks getting rid of the issue will make it all better. That’s poor leadership and shallow management.

    • Love how Trump excels as our President! This country proudly has a strong businessman in charge and is getting things accomplished – in spite of the congressional hateful opposition. The Donald is positively positioned to lead us for the next 5 years.

      • T-Rump is a weak to non Existent businessman that went bankrupt 5 times despite Daddy’s $400 million now he has less than that. He has accomplished nothing! He is too stupid to know anything that actually been accomplished. His handlers do everything and he just watches TV and tweets.

    • I have little to no use for Trump (as my father use to say he’s as useless as teats on a boar hog) he rates just about where the Clinton’s,Reagan,the Bush’s father and son,Obama and the rest of the crooks rest at the bottom of humanity, peons for the 1%. Its the two houses where the change must be made for they craft the laws and pass them,Trumps only a figgure head, only the symptom of what’s wrong with the country.

    • As an accomplished engineer, I’ve found that competing with H1-B visa holders was not worth the effort. My time is worth more than I could get financially for last couple of decades by committing to a full time job. Our country is full of qualified engineers who simply have no incentive to participate today.

      Of course, the age bias against older engineers has been evident for decades. This is quite illegal, yet virtually unenforceable in court. We really are attempting to fill the STEM gap, but only for those candidates that are members of privileged groups, such as women and specified minorities. I have absolute proof of this since I’m on various lists targeted to these people. In an honest world, we’d all be colorblind.

      Regarding cars – electric cars have made great progress, thought they still fall short of my mission profile. I may average only 25-50 miles a day, but that mileage is almost all on one or two days a week. Range is everything for some of us, and only recent model pure electrics come close. I have several cars that will give 40 mpg and two are in reserve – not yet even registered. People give me cars that have something broken and I fix some of them just for the pleasure of saving them from the junkyard. My problem with all modern cars is that they do far more than simple transportation. I want none of that. I intend to be the driver unless it’s a level V self-driver, and those don’t even exist yet. If I had one of those, I’d sleep while in transit. When I get an old Prius cheaply enough, I’ll play with it for fun, and it might even hit the road again, or more likely I’d use the drive train for something else.

      • NM Mike,
        I think you underestimate the salaries of the Indian and other Asian Engineers salary. They are by far the highest paid in the Silicon Valley. I know. They represent 80% of my teams business. Our average sale is now over $1.7 mIllion YTD as if this past weeks closings. So..when you say it wasn’t worth competing With them , was it intellectually or was it something else?

    • “Yes, T-rump has tried to make it harder for immigrants”

      I am sorry.. I have to disagree.. it’s not immigrants that hes trying to curtail…

      It’s a horde of people jumping the border illegally..

      No one cares if someone wants to come here get a job raise a family.. all of us at some point in our ancient history. Has family that immigrated here..
      But after ISIS openly told us they would send in warriors to fight us on our own ground and have them enter posed as refugees.
      You dont see them in saudi Arabia..
      I was visiting with someone from Sweden last night.. what they had to say about what’s happening there was sobering.

      I think anyone wishing to come here legally then let them.. but.. they should be paying the same taxes and not have access to any of our federal programs until they have their citizenship. I say they pay a non resident tax as well.. but do it legally..the border should be secure against invaders.
      Any company that hires an illegal immigrant then they should be severely fined.. if caught more than three times the company assets seized.. do it the same way you do someone that sells alcohol to minors.. the company and the ceo and bordmembers pay fines to..
      Simple and would stop it.. right now it’s also a way for people bringing in those for the pagan sect on human trafficking..and its happening..

      • “I was visiting with someone from Sweden last night.. what they had to say about what’s happening there was sobering.”

        Did you think I was just blathering on? I’ve been watching that crap since 2004. The no-go zones are a dystopian nightmare, but what I find most interesting is none of it had to be — the Swedes have brought it upon themselves by allowing gross parliamentary abuse by the Riksdag and a dearth of leadership by Gustaf who, even though he’s a figurehead, still wields tremendous influence on those rare occasions when he can borrow a backbone…

      • “Did you think I was just blathering on? ”

        NO.. I was just hoping it wasn’t as bad as you had mentioned.. unfortunately.. you were sugar coating the issues they are having….The way the young lady was telling me its excessively worse than you had mentioned..

      • The sad thing is: One of the many ways socialism rears its ugly head is in draconian control of information, and that control is obvious in the Swedish press.

        The best sources for uncensored and accurate Swedish news are (sadly) the UK dailies and Russia Today, but there really aren’t any actual good sources. It’s like news flow out of China. Good gets plastered everywhere, bad doesn’t exist, and tragic gets circulated wherever political hay can be made from it, as long as it’s not human-caused.

        Scanning the Swedish dailies, It occurred to me today that because my ancestry traces through both, I sometimes confuse the Swedish city of Malmö with the Norwegian city of Tromsø, even though the cities are…

        wait for it…

        “polar” opposites.

    • I’m simply shocked that G____ allowed your diatribe against the systematic replacement and exclusion of technical professional US citizens from the work force to be posted. These exclusionary policies of corporate brown shirt HR departments are not limited to technical professional employees, and have been going on for decades unchallenged. Globalism and fairness I’ve heard it jokingly called.

      The blame lies in corporate boardrooms and in HR departments. A lot of this started back in the Dick Cheney era, but no politician from any party has even acknowledged that something is desperately wrong with professional staffing in this country. The closest I’ve heard to an acknowledgement is the MAGA meme, but I will acknowledge that to date, the proceeds associated with that movement have mostly gone to political fund raisers, and not to the citizenry at large. John Williams’ Shadowstat site tells the real story on unemployment.

      Where is the proof you say? It certainly is not going to come from brown shirt corporate journalists. The enormous number of student loan defaults give a clue. We encourage our young adults to train for jobs which they are systematically denied due to their citizenship.The Shadowstats employment statistics give another clue. Where are those out-of-work professionals? Try looking at the gap between the real unemployment and government unemployment figures at Shadowstat. There is an army of heartland professionals living between those two curves.

      Trump did not cause the problem, nor has he provided a effective solution to date. But if you think the other presidential candidates will provide real professional jobs other than make-work party hack social worker jobs, then you are delusional. It is time to begin pressing Trump and the rest to cut out loopholes in immigration policy which allow companies to import unlimited numbers of professional workers. Real disincentives for companies which ship jobs offshore must be considered as well. The idea that policies which exclude US citizens from jobs for which they are qualified is going to be the status quo from now on is hateful and grounds for grass roots political action.

  3. Couple Things George, The China Belt and Road Initative is similar to what Japan was trying to do before WWII broke out, when they were invading island nations for oil and rubber as well as other resources. However, China is on the rise and will dominate the next 200 years if the cycles are right. So, this is not a good war to get involved in, we could well lose.

    And regards Bitcoin yep bad gamble. However regarding Swiss Bank privacy. Swiss banking privacy only really extended to the six private Swiss banks. The other banks rode the coattails of the private banks reputation for privacy. They never had it in reality. That is why the US was able to get the results they did.

    Happy Holidays to you and yours, Roger in Tucson

  4. In the Prices and Values section, you wrote: “And we wonder why people are confused? Most have no sense of what portion of themselves belongs to which class of citizen. The intellectually “higher-ups” of virtual worlds or the “low-life” types out in the fields.”

    I suggest you look up ( Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 U.S. 2 Dall. 419 419 (1793) ) and read the full decision and the viewpoints of the justices, which differed, but very clearly defined “Citizenship” and those whom hold power at that time and who did not. It is one of the most important S.Ct. cases ever handed down, even though they answered the wrong question. And don’t what the right question was, been 30 years since I really studied this case, I simply do not remember. ;-)

  5. George, if you have not already considered it, an increase in your solar panels of one to two hundred percent and purchase of a 13 plate 48 volt forklift battery for storage would make sense as a hard times investment. Just thinking. BJ.

  6. George. Thank you very much for sharing your views, your skill with words is very much appreciated. I hope you continue to write for many years, your at the top of my list every morning.

    I consider myself a pessimistic optimist. You must be optimistic if your in business for yourself. As a real estate appraiser with 50 years of professional private practice, an still active, I thought I had seen just about everything. Well, I was recently suprised! While researching the market for data I discovered the following:

    https://www.dailyrepublic.com/all-dr-news/solano-news/solano-county/thomson-calls-for-meeting-on-flannery-land-buys/

    No one knows who or why. They are still assembling per an agent I interviewed. It is reported they want up to 50,000 acres. Personally, this one makes my lower posterior orifice pucker

    Happy winter solstice 2019 to you and Elaine.

    • Not to pucker the point further but ag land?> What did I say? 2020 year to grow food and now a group of “families” is doing an intergenerational holding of several HUNDRED MILLION worth? Yee gads!

      • George, I would agree with you about ag land if not for the fact a lot of the land is only good for sheep, no row crops or permanent plantings. Water an issue. Lots of wind turbines.

        Per the agent I interviewed (who has done deals for the buyer) the buyer is in many cases paying the sellers commission, if listed. Agents have been going door-to-door to property owners to offer deals.

        Also, per the agent, in many cases if there are wind turbines on the property the buyer is allowing the seller to keep the remaining term of the lease income. WTF. Money laundering?

    • …Reminds me – I was at Wright-Patterson a couple days ago. They have tank traps discretely placed in ditches, adjacent to all roads into the complex, but where they could be craned and dropped into the highways leading to base approaches within minutes. I’ve been to WPAFB a number of times, and don’t recall seeing these along Hwy444 or RT4 before.

  7. “Piercings, tats, and pink hair just make you “different like everyone else.””

    Thank you. I’ve been using this point with da kiddies for years…

  9. “Besides, if there’s a Weimar workout in there somewhere, who’s to say that Social Security will provide anywhere near enough calories?”

    It won’t, not even close, nor will pensions.

    COL or inflation-indexed periodic payments adjust annually. A good, old-fashioned hyperinflationary spiral like the Germans suffered in 1922+, will “spot re-index” several times a day, and the re-index is never downward…

  10. My two predictions. (I am notoriously poor at predictions, I warn you.)

    1) A Big General Strike is brewing. Listen to the truckers and the farmers. GovDome has not made their lives easy. There’s a LOT of very deep resentment bubbling. A big outrageous crystalizing event would do the trick. These things are difficult in the extreme to end or roll back. (How much food do they grow in the big cities? Could get Real Ugly, Real Fast.)

    2) Air travel below 700 miles is rapidly becoming non-viable when one considers the entire door-to-door cycle. Longer-term, look for an explosion and renewal of trains. Center city to center city fast enough, roomy, and humane. It’ll take a Richard Branson genius to start with selected high-density specific city-to-city all Business Class (or better) service. The genius will make it affordable, comfortable, safe, and trendy. Some problems to solve, such as gravel in a “bulk unit drag” has higher priority than passenger service for one example. Money, as always, talks; and priority can be purchased. It’s got to be Classy, like the halcyon days of the trains with names and cachet. Somebody WILL do this — and make some Serious Green.

    Done right, it simply makes too much sense.

  11. Here are some 2020 alternative predictions from a source that has made me money in the past:

    Telsa stock: $1,000
    Bitcoin: $ 50,000
    Canabis: At least a double using MJ

    Let the party begin.

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