Year-End Clearance

It's "Predictions for 2009" time 'round the 'net, and we start with the Frog Pond's ertswhile Steven D's pretty detailed list of what he thinks will go down in '09. Highlights:

* Unemployment (real unemployment, not the massaged numbers the media reports) will hit 20% or more in the USA this Spring.

* Corporate Bankruptcies will hit record numbers and will include many, many major retailers, and automobile related companies, including one or more of the Big 3 (Chrysler and GM especially).

* Automotive Lobbyists will scream loudly to change the bankruptcy code to make Chapter 11 (the reorganization provisions) more corporate friendly and less labor friendly. Expect those to pass easily.

* Individual bankruptcies and foreclosures will also increase spectacularly. Do not expect much relief for homeowners, individuals and small businesses, however. Senate Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats will see to that.

* Health Care Reform will pass, but it will be too little, and provide too many bones for Big Pharma and the Health Insurance companies to be of any real benefit to most Americans. Health Care costs will continue to rise for most people.

But the gobsmacker is that there's a couple of pretty disturbing social predictions that I see as plausible enough to explore further:

* Riots will break out this summer in one or more major American cities. The causes could be unemployment, food shortages, hot weather, racial animus, anger at police violence, or all of the above.

* The number of assassination threats against Obama will skyrocket. The FBI and Secret Service will break up more than one serious conspiracy. Other political figures will also see increased numbers of death threats with the risk that various politicians or other prominent leaders will be killed.

* Food shortages may occur later in the year, particularly of produce.

Considering this morning's StupidiNews story on a US Army War College professor gaming out scenarios where this sort of thing happens and the US military's role should include the effort "to rapidly determine the parameters defining the legitimate use of military force inside the United States", it's worth considering the effects of that.

Things are already pretty bad in a number of major American cities. Facing another year of draconian state and local budget cuts greatly affecting law enforcement, mass layoffs continuing across the country, and real unemployment approaching one in five if not one in four Americans, I happen to think there's a significant amount of merit to the prediction of shortages, unrest, and some sort of major incident occurring in a US city in 2009 or 2010.

I'll have my own predictions up in the next day.