Ten Predictions for Next Year

As promised, here are my predictions for 2012. So many things could go horribly wrong that it’s probably best that we simply try to live our lives to the fullest and not worry too much about the headlines.  Before I start listing away, let me wish you all a happy New Year. Whatever the news brings in 2012, may you and yours enjoy good health, happiness and inner peace.

Here they are:

*  After taking a strong lead in the primaries, Ron Paul will be bludgeoned into defeat by the news media and its Evil Masters. The Powers That Be have far too much to lose if Paul becomes President, and they will fight him openly and shamelessly with every resource at their command.

*  European borrowing rates will threaten to explode above 7%, pushing the PIIGS into bankruptcy (although it won’t be called that). The euro’s fall will be arrested at $1.08 nonetheless, buttressed by a Rube Goldberg “restructuring” plan that, fortunately for the global financial system, no one will be able to understand.

*  ‘Mother’ nature will continue to rampage with yet more earthquakes in places where earthquakes don’t usually happen.

*  Yields on U.S. Treasury Bonds will fall to 2% simply because there aren’t enough mattresses to hold the world’s money.

*  Despite its intrinsic worthlessness, the U.S. dollar will soar, pushing the Dollar Index above 90.

*  Toward the end of the year, deflation in the U.S. housing market will enter its climactic stage. Before the washout ends in late 2013, homes prices will have fallen 80% from their 2007 peaks.

*  Gold will stage a powerful rally after bottoming at $1445 in January, but the buying spree will fall well short of $2000. Silver will fare relatively worse, falling to $18.35 before finding traction and recovering into the low $30s.

*  Iran’s nuclear weapons program will be derailed, although not by economic or political sanctions.

*  Bird flu and/or Fukushima radiation could ultimately push all of the items on this list below-the-fold.  Except this one:

*  War will break out in the Middle East, and it will eventually be acknowledged as the start of a Third World War.