Well, it’s that time of year, when fools, blowhards, and certifiable nutcases try to predict what’s coming up in 2019.  I’m not sure what category I fall into (you choose), but, for what it’s worth, here’s my top ten 2019 predictions:

Alabama will take home yet another national championship.  Once they get past a high-flying game against Oklahoma, they’ll maul Clemson in the CFP Championship game, further cementing Nick Saban’s legendary status as the greatest college football coach of all time.  Bank on it.

The stock market won’t recover.  We were well into the longest bull run in history until the mini -crash at the end of the year, but it was all fueled by easy money.  Real rates actually went negative over the past few years, but Powell is the closest thing to a hard money Fed chief since “Tall Paul” Volcker broke the back of inflation in the 80’s.  The market’s in for a hard landing.  Get out now.

You or someone you know will be a passenger in a driverless car.  Not only that, the car may have no steering wheel or pedals.  I’ll go one step further: many of you that live in cities will never buy another car again.  Car ownership will become a thing of the past, replaced by driverless ride-sharing cars and ride-sharing apps.

The wall won’t get built.  Or rather, most of it won’t.  The so-called “shut down” of the federal government (which really isn’t a shut down but more like a paid vacation for federal do-nothing employees) will cause Republicans to panic when the Democrats once again outmaneuver them and successfully blame them for it, causing an emergency compromise which will be only a tiny amount of what is truly needed. The wall they build won’t do much more than force aspiring welfare recipients to drive a few miles out of the way. 

The weather- it likely won’t be a tough year for hurricanes, but it could prove difficult for global warming advocates and environmental whackos.  While most models call for just 5 named hurricanes next year, Al Gore’s head must be exploding, because many scientists now say they have gazed at their crystal balls and see global cooling in our future…perhaps even a new ice age!  The only thing the two opposing viewpoints seem to agree on is that we need to spend way more money to study the issue and/or enact laws that make your life miserable.

Gold will come back this year with a vengeance.  My price target is $1700 by year end.  2019 represents a perfect storm for the Midas metal: stock market worries, trade disputes, wars and rumors of wars, and supply shortages create the kind of investor angst that can drive a buying frenzy.  History says we’re at that point in the cycle.  Buy the shiny stuff while it’s still cheap and legal to do so.  Better yet, if you have a strong stomach, buy the miners.  If you have Superman nerves of steel and think the craps table at Vegas is too cautious, buy some cryptocurrencies just for fun and hang on.  It’ll be a wild ride.

The fossilized, unethical, and cancerous eugenicist Ruth Bader Ginsburg will be forced out to pasture, providing Trump with yet another opportunity to stack the Supreme Court with conservatives.  Expect him to pick Amy Coney Barrett, who is not only ideologically alined with the President but also has adopted Haitian kids, which makes for good optics and a shield against the inevitable charges of racism and/or sexism (or some kind of -ism) that all conservatives hear all the time ad nauseam.

Brexit will go off without a hitch, proving the naysayers wrong and ushering in a new era of EU dissolution.  In fact, you can expect the Yellow Jacket movement to gain momentum, because Europeans have had enough cultural enrichment to last a lifetime.  I’d wait until Paris stops burning to take that European vacation, though, unless you’re an aspiring war correspondent.

Trump will roll back his promise to bring our boys home from Syria.  Sure, he has it right: they do need to come home…along with all the rest of our troops involved in useless wars on the other side of the world.  But the frenzied anguish of the media and the Israeli-Firsters, who were sent into paroxysms of rage because one of our 7 current wars might come to an end, will finally take its toll on the Donald.  He will backtrack on his promise by leaving behind just enough troops as a tripwire to make sure that we never leave.  To paraphrase Orwell: “If you want a Neocon vision of the Middle East, imagine an Israeli boot stamping on an Arab face.  Forever.”

And, last but not least…

The world won’t end (probably-though there’s a small chance of an asteroid hit or a Supervolcano eruption).  It will some day, but not in the way you think, and nobody can predict it.  It’s best, though, to live your life as if it were all going to end tomorrow.

In other easily predictable news, Kim Kardashian will still be trashy, (((Rachel Madcow))) will still be talking non-stop about “Russian collusion”, Neocons will still feel like we have “global threats” that require us to kill people on the other side of the world, and Christmas will, once again, come too early next year.  

Happy New Year!