Double Blind

It is once again time to make some predictions for what will happen in 2010. My crystal ball has always been very cloudy on these sorts of issues, mainly because I like sticking my neck out and making very narrow-ranged predictions is a good way of guaranteeing they will fail. Some of my predictions will be recycled from 2009.

For the scorekeepers, here were the predictions I made for 2009, and the results of them.

I will rank each prediction with my perceived risk factor, with an index of: (e) = easy, (m) = medium, and (h) = high.

Politics
1. (e) Stephen Harper will be Prime Minister on December 31, 2010.
2. (m) Canadians will vote in a general federal election between July 1 to December 31, 2010.
3. (e) The Green Party will still have zero elected seats (floor crossers excluded) in the Canadian House of Commons in December 2010.
4. (m) Election or no election, Justin Trudeau will mobilize for the Liberal party leadership in such a way that becomes “obvious” that he is interested in the position. His primary competitor, Bob Rae, will be doing the same (and already is; this prediction is that it will be “obvious”).
5. (m) Barack Obama’s approval rating will be 40% or less sometime in the first half of 2010. In the second half of 2010 his approval rating will not make new lows compared to the first half of 2010.
6. (m) In the United Kingdom 2010 election, the Conservative Party will get a majority government, but there will be a surprisingly high result of non-Labour and non-Conservative candidates that have credible chances of winning seats in Parliament. Right now there are 99 seats held by non-Labour and non-Conservative members, and this will increase in the upcoming election.

Vancouver 2010 Olympics
7. (m) After the closing ceremonies, the Vancouver 2010 Olympics are considered by the media to be “successful”, but not the groundbreaking exhibition that Expo 86 was for the Vancouver region; news trickles over the subsequent months post-Olympics about scandals concerning payouts, contracts, and guarantees to be claimed and picked up on the tab of the BC taxpayer. Benefits that were pitched with respect to BC tourism, minus the influx of media, IOC big-wigs and athletes’ families, will turn out to be much less than touted.
8. (m) Despite fears that the Sea-to-Sky highway will be jammed, due to stringent controls, nothing of significance will occur here other than some weather-related (snow/ice on the road) crashes. Finding a place to park in Whistler, Squamish and Pemberton will be a nightmare.
9. (m) The roads leading to the Arthur Laing Bridge and Cambie Street north of 49th Avenue will be gummed up with more traffic, but other than this, it shouldn’t be any different in Vancouver. The Lion’s Gate Bridge will also have more traffic volume, but since traffic on the bridge is already a disaster people won’t notice the difference.
10. (e) No terrorist incidents at the Vancouver 2010 Olympics.
11. (e) Main and East Hastings of 2009 will look like the Main and East Hastings of February 2010. Oppenheimer Park will still be the preferred place to hang out for the day if you’re homeless. I will make it a point to walk around the area east of Gastown to verify this!
12. (e) Unfortunately, I must predict the Canadian men’s hockey team will not win the gold medal.
13. (m) The Canadian women’s hockey team will win the gold medal.
14. (e) Canada will win more than 7 gold medals (which was their gold count in 2006), and more than 24 total.
15. (m) Gordon Campbell will not step down in 2010, nor will he make an announcement or even a hint as such.

Economics / Geopolitical
16. (m) Median condominium (apartment) sale prices in the Greater Vancouver area will peak in 2010 in the month of March or April and be less in November 2010 than in March 2010, using the statistics at REBGV.
17. (h) The BC government will increase the threshold of the first-time homebuyers’ exemption to the Property Transfer Tax from $425,000 to $500,000 during its 2010 budget.
18. (m) Economic growth in China will continue to be “insanely high”, which we will define as 6% or higher.
19. (m) The US dollar will end the year stronger than the Euro.
20. (m) The US government will not get any “geopolitical concession” from a foreign country. I know this prediction is vague, but the essence of this prediction is that the US is perceived to be weak-kneed and will not use its military other than in politically correct contexts (e.g. sending troops to Afghanistan).
21. (m) The S&P 500′s high for the year will be reached in April-May 2010.
22. (m) As measured by corporate earnings via income tax collections, 2010 will be a much, much better year than 2009.
23. (m) GST collections will also be up from 2009 levels in 2010.
24. (m) The $45.3 billion dollar deficit for the 2010-2011 fiscal year, as projected in September 2009, will be considered to be a high estimate (i.e. for the March 2010 budget, the estimated deficit will be less than $45.3 billion).
25. (m) Spot oil (light crude) will end 2010 between CAD$70-90/barrel. However, it will hit CAD$120 at some point in the year.
26. (h) Spot gold will slip below CAD$950/Oz at some point in 2010.
27. (m) The Bank of Canada target overnight rate will end the year at 1.25% (more likely) or 1.5% (less likely, but possible).
28. (e) The US Federal Reserve’s interest rate for 2010 year-end will be 0.5% or less.
29. (m) The market rate for a five-year fixed rate mortgage will be between 4.75% to 5.50% in December 2010.

Culture
30. (m) The Vancouver Canucks will not make the playoffs.
31. (m) Facebook will file form S-1 with the SEC (first step in going public).
32. (e) Twitter will not file form S-1.
33. (e) Google will still dominate Bing in the search engine space.
34. (m) By the end of 2010, you will be able to find a cell phone plan in Canada that will have 200 minutes, unlimited evening and weekends, caller ID and voicemail for $25/mo (before sales tax). Competition in the mobile data market will have “obviously intensified”.
35. (h) Global warming (climate change) will no longer be the primary environmental focus by year’s end.
36. (h) There will be a “better public awareness” of consequences to automobiles (e.g. automobile fuel pump failures, lessened fuel efficiency) due to the government-mandated mixing of increased levels of ethanol and biofuels in conventional gasoline.
37. (h) Tiger Woods will win at least one major golf championship (this is one of: The Masters, US Open, British Open, PGA Championship).
38. (m) Microsoft Windows XP usage will still have an above 50% penetration rate, according to W3School’s statistical survey and other comparable sources (e.g. via Wikipedia). Windows Vista will be less than 15%.
39. (h) The phrase “Social Networking” will have peaked in 2009, according to Google Trends (picture here).

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