• Tweet
• Email
• Sharebar

• Tweet
• Email

By: Erik Hare

Who am I to make predictions for the coming year?  Just some guy you’ve never heard of.  But it seems only reasonable for me to go on record so that I can be laughed at later.  Or proved to be prescient.  Either way, it’s a big crapshoot. 

So here is what I have to say will happen in 2008:

1)  The economy will be the big news.  What we have here is  “Stagflation”, which is the same condition that produced the  “malaise” of the late 1970s.  Inflation will come from the ever-falling dollar, which will drop to around $1.60 to the Euro before stabilizing.  The lack of growth will come from the ongoing credit crunch, fueled by falling home prices and general collapse of the whole credit industry.  Gasoline will bounce around like a yo-yo, responding to world events and a general jitteriness.

2)  Many celebrities, and I mean many, will get into trouble with the law.  I can’t stress this one enough.

3)  The Presidential election will be very boring.  I think Hillary will win, but I really don’t care all that much.  No matter who becomes the Democratic nominee, they will be obliged to run on a platform of  “I won’t mess this one up.”  They won’t say or do anything more interesting than Bill Clinton did in 1996.  The Republican nominee?  Bob Dole, or someone just like him in the end; it won’t matter much.  See prediction #1 as to why.

4)  The major breakthroughs necessary to produce the flying car that we have been promised by generations of prognosticators will once again fail to materialize.  Those bastards!

5)  The next big breakthrough in personal electronic devices will be in voice recognition technology, and it probably will come in 2008.  Small devices will not need keyboards anymore, but will start to gain dramatically in functionality through voice control.  2008 may also be the year that flexible, roll-up screens are used to give pocket sized devices the big displays they need to gradually turn into universal devices that replace newspapers, books, and a lot of other things.

6)  The last name  “Spears” will be used in a monologue on late night talk shows more than 2,467 times, shattering the old record held by “Madonna”.

7)  Movies will continue to rely heavily on computer animation, which is both cheap and flexible. 8 of the top 10 grossing movies of 2007 relied heavily on CGI or other animation, and that should continue next year.  What will be new is the need to “one-up” the last outrageous fairy-tale send up or other movie that took full advantage of the lack of live actors.

8)  Nickelodeon will produce a kids’ cartoon about someone who has to cope with a world full of stupid creatures.  No, seriously, they will.  Hilarity will ensue.

9)  Books will become increasingly dark and depressing.  The publishing industry is all about introspection right now, meaning that their own narrow take on reality is going to collapse in on itself in this post-Harry-Potter world.  If I have my memoir published in 2008, I won’t help this depressing trend one damned bit (not that it’ll happen, anyways).  Despite the best efforts of Oprah and many teachers, the literary world will appear even less relevant than it did in 2007.

10) I think this is the year that Brazil, the country, will finally be seen as a major economic powerhouse and the growth economy that will get people excited. They have been building up their infrastructure for years and are ready to take off.  The weak dollar, which they have a loose peg to, will make them appear very cheap to European economies.  Brazil will remain cheaper than the US and more reliable than other developing nations, meaning they get the lion’s share of the inflow from the new currency regime.

Those are my predictions for 2008.  Check back in a year if you want to make fun of me for them!

Erik, I am going to hold you to this.  Jack and I want to wish you and Cristy all the best for 2008, you are indeed good neighbors and freinds.