Friday, December 29, 2017
Predictions for 2018
Easy Predictions
P1: The “Russian collusion” witch hunt will fall apart, replaced by scandals over the Obama-DNC-deep state-Hilliary conspiracies. Not only were there conspiracies against Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders and all other challengers, there were conspiracies by Hilliary Clinton to maximize power and wealth for the Clinton Foundation, conspiracies to protect her, various Middle Eastern skullduggeries to ensure passage of the terrible Iranian nuclear sellout, conspiracies by the IRS against conservative political groups, the “Fast and Furious” conspiracy, illegal interference with the campaign in Israel in the runup to Netanyahu’s re-election, etc. ad nauseum. The political class, including Republicans, would prefer to ignore all this abuse of power, since paying attention is likely to result in the curtailment of power, but we predict they’ll fail.
P2: The DNC “Russian hacking” will prove to have been an inside job, perpetrated by the Awan family. Debbie Wasserman Schultz’ IT experts, Imran Awan and the Awan family business, stole emails, reports, data, everything from House Democratic Caucus members. Their criminal activity included much else; we think this helps explain why the DNC refused to give the FBI access to their hacked servers. Of course, DNC collusion with Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele is another reason. I’m sure there’s plenty more dirt as well. But we predict the Awans will be implicated in the leaks.
P3: U.S. economy continues to grow at rates faster than during Obama years. Predicting the economy is always dangerous, because of the vulnerability to things such as interest rate swings, which are potentially volatile. But we predict stability in interest rates. Hence we predict that, comparing December 2018 with December 2017, (i) the unemployment rate will be lower, (ii) the labor force participation rate will be higher (this makes prediction (i) harder to achieve…and actually meaningful), and (iii) at least one month in 2018 will have a higher rate of growth than any month in 2017. That’s three objective criteria, to make up for the lack of such in P1 and P2.
P4: Republican Party retains control of both houses of Congress. One might wonder why I don’t class this as a “High Risk” prediction, or even why we predict it. On the surface, those doubts seem warranted, particularly because the GOP Congressional leadership behaves like an opposition party, and seems to strongly prefer being in a minority – as a minority, they get to complain and act like know-it-alls, yet never have to make tough decisions or bear responsibility. However, there is one thing working against them – the Democrats. Today the Democrat Party seems to be little more than the party of New Left identity politics, that is, of victimhood, demands for handouts, socialism, and hatred of anyone – including moderate Democrats -- voicing a differing opinion. This is not a winning platform, and it also renders proponents incompetent. For example, for most months of 2017, the RNC has beaten the DNC 2 to 1 in fundraising. Dem leaders are at each others’ throats over Donna Brazile’s revelations, Hilliary’s continued inane excuses, and, as in P1, P2, and P3, the bad news for them will continue. They’ll lose.
P5: Record new firearm sales for United States in 2018. If I'm not mistaken, 2017 was second highest year for sales, demonstrating the degree to which the Democrat Party is in tune with a large number of Americans... which is to say, not at all, since Dems regard us citizens who are merely exercising our rights both as enemies and as problems to be solved. We expect the trend to accelerate in 2018, as Dems and the left spin further into craziness... which only increases demand for tools of liberty and self-defense.
High Risk Predictions
P6: Palestinians will grudgingly begin steps toward peaceful negotiations, OR Iran will go to hot war with its neighbors, but not both. All sorts of people have condemned the fact that President Trump kept yet another of his campaign promises, and is recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. They assure us that now the Palestinians will never negotiate, that this means endless and accelerating violence, and that it’s an enormous blunder. They are wrong, and know nothing about negotiating. The position of progressives, foreign policy “experts,” and the political class in general is that when confronted by an enemy, one should appease them, in order to win them over. If that fails, appease some more. If that fails, redouble the effort. Keep going – one must win them over. And whatever else one does, do nothing to offend or irritate. It’s hard to understand why anyone falls for this sort of “strategy,” but fall for it they do. (N.B. They don't apply this strategy to domestic political opponents such as classical liberals and constitutional conservatives, with whom compromise in unthinkable; it's reserved for genuine enemies.) President Trump’s approach makes far more sense. Come negotiate with us in good faith, or don’t – but don’t expect us to acquiesce to your demands in the face of your intransigence. Contrary to what “experts” say, the Palestinians are going to begin to understand this and grudgingly make at least small steps towards negotiations…and accepting Israel. The one thing that could upset this is if Iran goes to hot war against Israel, or Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, or all of the above – in which case Hezbollah and Hamas will also be at war, reinvigorating Palestinian fantasies of a “final solution.”
P7: No war with North Korea. This one really seems high risk to me, but the Unforeseen Contingencies forecasting team and the Unforeseen Contingencies Korea Desk both assure me it’s the way to bet. P.R. China is not an honest player in curbing DPRK, but the Chinese will still apply pressure to Pyongyang to keep it from going too far. And the absence of appeasement from President Trump’s foreign policy toolkit is at least as important.
Wild Card Prediction
PWildCard: Extra-terrestrial life discovered! As usual, the wild card prediction from Unforeseen Contingencies is that evidence of extra-terrestrial life will discovered and publicly announced. One of these years we’ll get this one right, and when we do our fame will be assured. “We told you so!”
And so…
That’s seven predictions, plus the wild card (rather upbeat predictions at that). Perhaps before the end of the year we’ll round this out to an even ten with three more, and perhaps not. But regardless, Happy New Year to all our readers (UC Subscription Department asks “we have readers?”) and may 2018 be a very good year for liberty, prosperity, and happiness!
