How about our semi-official predictions for 2009...

DScarborough · Joined: 02 Jun 2004 Posts: 123 Location: Austin, Texas

who will start?

Guest · Posted: Fri Dec 19, 2008 07:02 pm Post subject:

Who can say for sure?

Craig Jarvis · Posted: Fri Dec 19, 2008 08:50 pm Post subject:

Bankruptcies.

Insider (Ret) · Posted: Fri Dec 19, 2008 08:52 pm Post subject:

Dang, that's like predicting snow in your hometown, Craig. How about specifics here. Which bankruptcy?

Craig Jarvis · Posted: Fri Dec 19, 2008 08:58 pm Post subject:

That I don't know, but judging from the amount of snow on the ground up here, I'd say a lot of them.

David Traver · Posted: Sat Dec 20, 2008 01:22 am Post subject:

Okay, here we go:

Michelle Obama will announce by the end of 2009 that she is with child. Twins! Surprise! The Lincoln bedroom strikes again!

Sara Palin will be indicted for something, I know not what. Anything will do.

Ford will come out with an all plastic and aluminum car that is as cool as an iPhone, does 0-60 in less than 4.3 seconds, costs under $25,000, runs on electricity, and has a range of 65 miles.

Chevy will come out with a 1956 Chevy, with the original "Super Turbo Fire" V-8 engine duct-taped to a catalytic converter, which gets 6 mpg and that nobody will buy.

Toyota will come out with a car that runs on compressed air, has a range of 200 miles, and sounds like a small corporate jet. It rocks.

Chrysler will go out of business on October 17, 2009 at 1:00 p.m. EST. Nobody will notice.

Ms. B. Spears will have another comeback in the Spring, go down the toilet again, and mount another comeback in December. Nobody will care.

Rush Limbaugh will convert to Islam. (I would certainly do him some good!)

Rachel Maddow will get an Emmy and a Peabody.

Former President Bush will be arrested on an International warrant when he transfers flights in Germany. He will be confused.

The Republican Party will disband its national organization with spin-offs into the New-Whig and Neo Bull Moose parties.

Miniskirts will make a big comeback. All of the remaining grunge teens and 20s will shift to 1968 mod.

Google will buy Apple and unlock all of the Apple devices and make all of Apple software open source.

Somebody will clone a Mammoth (cute, in a few years all the big zoos will have a few. They smell like toothpaste! No, wait, that's koalas.)

A huge chunk will fall from Cumbre Vieja volcano in the Canary Islands on August 4 at 3:57 GMT and the tsunami will really mess up the east coast of the United States.

President Obama will accidentally use the "S" and "F" words in front of an open microphone when he spills coffee on himself, causing a big ruckus. He will also be photographed smoking a cigarette in front of his kids while wearing a hat, no kidding, a hat. How dare he be human?

Jay Leno's new show will tank.

The new Commissioner of Social Security will be Hillary Swank (or somebody who looks just like her.) She will be more liberal than Jesus, if such a thing is actually possible. (may peace be upon him!)

Free universal wi-fi will begin on all of the white space in the electromagnetic spectrum freed up by the shift to all digital television. Sprint declares bankruptcy.

A Black Swan will rock the electrical distribution industry in North America.

Olan Barnes · Joined: 17 May 2004 Posts: 1910 Location: Michigan

Dave - you have too much time on your hands. The snow must be getting to you? :wink:

David Traver · Posted: Sat Dec 20, 2008 04:45 am Post subject:

Just something to do while watching the toddlers play trains in the loving room during a blizzard. (The town still hasn't plowed our road!)

So, what are your predictions? Will we sell Alaska back to Russia in 2009?

Olan Barnes · Joined: 17 May 2004 Posts: 1910 Location: Michigan

No predictions - had to use the snow blower today and it was not as much fun as it used to be. Had to get ready for house guests coming in from Ohio and the Michigan gusts. Nice to have my toddler grandchildren here for an early Christmas and the family. We do it all over again without the hamloaf then. I am too much in the Christmas spirit to have negative predictions and I feel we just need to shake off all this funk for the start of the new year. I was beset with infections last Christmas so this Christmas is a bonus so I have to double up on it. BTW we need to keep both our 49 and 50th state right where they are but I would predict a new governor for Illinois and a senator too - neither are real predictions however.

David Traver · Posted: Sat Dec 20, 2008 01:26 pm Post subject:

We hire a lawn service to come with a plow to do our drive down to the road and up to the horse barn. Nellie and Maria love the noise and the yellow rotating service light on the cab. It makes a blizzard watching fun as the girls point while repeatedly saying nunu nunu!

Nunu is the vacuum cleaner on Teletybbies. Any self-propelled or loud device is to them a nunu or a whoowhoo. As I'm sure you must be aware, a whoowhoo is a train. Little wooden trains with little wooden tracks are all the rage around here. I love my babies!!

I suggest getting a teenager to run your nunu. It's more fun to be a part of the audience. By the way, the bear your lovely wife made for Maria is still getting serious play time. She is on the couch now lined up wit seven other dollies. Aside from trains, the girls are all about dollies.

Sandy Fambrough · Joined: 30 Jan 2005 Posts: 249 Location: Dallas TX

So I guess you don't want to know about the weather we are having - 50's/60's in the mornings and warming up to the 70's during the day. Nice now but miserable in 6 months.

But seriously - I hope everyone has a safe and happy Christmas or whichever holiday you celebrate. I am looking forward to spending a few days with my family, including my newest niece who was born earlier this month.

David Traver · Posted: Sun Dec 21, 2008 11:04 pm Post subject:

Hmmm. I had to put the horses in today. The wind chill was -55 F. The snow plow nu nu never came and our drive is impassable due to the drifts. They should be here late tonight after the wind dies down. Then I'll try to get down to the barn again to feed the horses some more hay and fill the buckets with water.

Are you jealous, don't you wish you had pretty snow for Christmas?

Phil Robinson · Joined: 12 May 2004 Posts: 798 Location: MA

I have no ides why the government under either this present administration or the next one would feed money to a bunch of venture capitalists who invested in a failing company in hope that they would make a financial killing by pushing it to profitability and sell it to the public. Instead that are going down the tubes and want the government (meaning us) to help them get their cash back. My guess is that the llc partners have little if any of their own money in that company.

David Traver · Posted: Mon Dec 22, 2008 02:14 pm Post subject:

I think the perception that the "bailout" is rescuing the scuzzy, satanic, greedy, sinister, (etc) investment bankers is somewhat mistaken. There are no more investment bankers. They are gone, unemployed, screwed, and hopefully, homeless.

The trick was to unlock the frozen base of the international equity market, so people like you and me could get loans and our credit cards would not disappear into nothingness.

For example, my friend Yvonne has a very good credit number, she has never missed a payment or been late, and she has used credit to purchase cars, horse trailers, and such. Two weeks ago she needed a new (used) truck and wanted to borrow $16,000. She could not. No banks in central Wisconsin have any money to loan. Nobody could buy that truck and it is still sitting in the lot. The loan market is shut down. Houses can't sell because nobody can get a loan to buy one. So, housing starts are near zero. The multiplier effect of this is devastating, as unemployment numbers increase people have nothing to spend, no way to get credit, and everything stops. Even the vile investment bankers are stuck with their $3.5 million Manhattan apartments because nobody can get a loan to buy them. Those apartments have lost a great deal of their value.

The "bailout" has likely stopped this from taking us into another great depression. Why? It is the opposite of what the Republican administration in the Herbert Hoover era tried to do. They did nothing to unlock the credit markets and the rest is history.

An alternative of "giving" every adult U.S. citizen five or six million dollars would not work because it would devalue the currency. Propping up the existing banks by extending loans to them was the fastest way to do this, and time was of the essence.

So, this is one time that the Republicans got it right. Better late than never. For more details see http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/horsey/viewbydate.asp?ID=1878

Craig Jarvis · Posted: Mon Dec 22, 2008 04:35 pm Post subject:

Alright I'll give some specific predictions.

1) The Hadron Super collider becomes fully operational. Instead of destroying the world, something even more terrible occurs. It proves that the universe was actually created in seven days by an omniscient, though surprisingly ironic, divine being. Secular governments in Europe engage in a huge coverup.

2) Another Clinton is appointed to a cabinet post: George Clinton is appointed Secretary of Funk. He is confirmed unanimously by the Senate but Washington insiders try to undermine him by deying him a security clearance when he tries to bring Da Funk to the CIA.

3) Unsure of what to do in the face of the financial crisis, conservatives resurrect Adam Smith to ask his advise. He tells them that the wealth of nations is as dependant on good governance as it is on the free market. Not knowing what to do with this, they resurrect Jesus to ask him what he would do. He tells them to piss off.

4) George Bush returns to Texas and in the sweltering heat of next summer thinks to himself, "Gee, sure seems hotter here than when we left eight years ago, wonder what's up with that?"

5) I finally get my record contract, quit my day job, and am never seen on CONNECT again. Sorry everyone.

DScarborough · Joined: 02 Jun 2004 Posts: 123 Location: Austin, Texas

I predict that 2009 will be a tumultuous year as the country works to recover from the Bush Administration. We will all be amazed at how the Republicans will try to reinvent the Bush years from the new well-funded Conservative think-tank at Southern Methodist University.

At the Social Security Administration the Obama Administration will bring Susan Daniels back to life and she will attempt to resurrect yet again the Ticket to Nowhere by blaming its failure on the Bush Administration and relaunching the program for a third time.

Neither of these attempts to bend the truth will work.