Sorry, but I’m putting aside my usual humility today. It’s time to take a bow. When it comes to Fearless Forecasts, last year was a home run.
Totally.
I said cocooning would soar and, boy, did it ever. With a vengeance. Cocooning was far more than the trendy thing to do. It was a life-saving necessity.
I said the stock market would go up. Or down. And guess what? It did both!
So listen up, readers. The Boy Oracle of Texas Hill Country is announcing what we can expect in 2021.
Former Californians will propose a saltwater pipeline for Texas. Now residents of Texas, they love the lack of income tax. They adore the housing prices. They love being able to exchange a shack without indoor plumbing in California for a McMansion in Texas. They are thrilled by the low gasoline prices. And they’re mesmerized by the abundance of massive, gas-guzzling vehicles.
And fear not, in due course they will come to love brisket more than sushi.
But they miss something: salt water.
This will happen because most of them didn’t move to Corpus Christi, where salt water is abundant. No, they moved to central Texas, better known for its long droughts and frequent shortage of even the blandest unsalted water.
So, the former Californians will do the only thing a reasonable person from California can do. They’ll propose a government-sponsored pipeline to bring the ocean to central Texas. Austin residents, usually liberal, will reject a proposal to change the name of our capital city to Berkeley.
By the end of the year, 40 percent of U.S. children will ask their parents: “What’s money?” This will happen because the use of actual cash will reach a new low. Coins have disappeared because the metal is more valuable than the denomination. And paper money, as you know, has a deadly cootie.
Others will ask what money is because they’ve never had any. Nor have their parents. They’ve just heard it’s something that exists in another neighborhood.
The Federal Reserve will announce a new mortgage. Some will call it the “Dead Ninja,” but most will call it the “Lazy 8 Never-Never.” Having reached the limits of conventional mortgages with low interest rates and 30-year terms, the Federal Reserve will exercise still more financial creativity.
The kicker on the new loans will be an entirely new concept: Principal repayment is due only upon death of the mortgagee! The mathematically inclined will understand that the “lazy 8” is a reference to the sign for infinity.
Financial planners will joke that the Federal Reserve has given homeowners a reason to live forever.
Print magazines will come back, subsidized by the Crandall. You’ve probably forgotten, but the “Crandall,” named after former American Airlines CEO Robert Crandall, is the alternate monetary unit once treasured by people who flew a lot. But those who hoarded their AAdvantage miles and other travel credits have no earthly use for them in the Age of Covid-19.
Desperate, they will search for ways to unload their Crandalls. Given little else of earthly use, they will subscribe to heaps of magazines and dream of travel.
A new 12-step program. A bipartisan group will create a 12-step program to avoid any reference to, or use of, anything related in any way whatsoever to former President Donald J. Trump. One daily meeting attendee will be quoted as saying, “I knew I needed something to overcome my co-dependence, my attention to his every word … …and now I have it.”
Others will be silent, but grateful.
Wall Street will seek another virus. Struck by what a great year 2020 was for stocks, bonds, deals and stunning IPOs, the largest Wall Street firms will start to dabble in virus modification. “Hey,” the CEO of one firm will be quoted, “you can never, ever, have too much of a good thing. This virus was worth trillions – do you hear me, trillions! — for the markets.”
In America, 2021 will be the Year of the Party Animal. 2021 will be a
Year of the Ox in China, a nice change from the preceding Year of the Rat. But in America we’re far less precise. Any animal will do, but it better be ready to party.
Related columns:
Scott Burns, “Fearless Forecasts, 2020,” 12/29/2019 https://scottburns.com/fearless-forecasts-2020/
Scott Burns, “Fearless Forecasts: The Electric Cars in Our Future,” 12/29/2018 https://scottburns.com/fearless-forecasts-the-electric-cars-in-our-future/
Still more Fearless Forecasts: https://scottburns.com/?s=Fearless+Forecasts
This information is distributed for education purposes, and it is not to be construed as an offer, solicitation, recommendation, or endorsement of any particular security, product, or service.
Photo:
(c)Scott Burns, 2021