Predictions...

billc

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Well, as Glen Beck said today, elections have consequences and people are going to start experiencing them fairly soon. Any predictions for the America of the immediate future...

--what happened in Bhengazi no longer matters or will be covered, even if it is investigated in the house. The men who lost their lives will be more quickly forgotten than they were before the election.

--the first to feel the effect of this election will be the hurricane survivors. The second the President's photo op was over his concern for them was over. Now, with the election done, he has no need to actually do anything to help them anymore. The press will either ignore the mounting problems, or they will simply report it as interesting stories, with no connection to the President, unlike Bush and katrina.

--recession after january or before as tax increases hit, then a slide into depression

--the energy boom states, the ones using frakking to get at oil and natural gas will dry up because the obama e.p.a. will now come after them.

--fuel costs are going to, as the President said, "skyrocket." That means less money in everyones pocket, and if you live in a cold state, next winter is going to be the first of many where fuel will be an issue

--increased unemployment as taxes increas, fuel costs increase, healthcare costs increase as more people loose their employee based healthcare.

--Russia, China and radical islam will become far more aggressive. Europe, especially the former soviet satellites, will begin to feel the heat as will Japan, South Korea, and the countries under the Chinese sphere of influence.

--as the U.S. slides into depression, the rest of the world will follow it.

For example, it begins...

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/11/07/Forward-Downward-Stocks-Crash-After-Obama-Win

The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost nearly 250 points in the first hour of trading on Wednesday morning, the day after President Barack Obama won re-election to a second term in office. News of poor economic forecasts in Europe also drove the steep decline; the European Union is now predicting that it will slide into recession.


European markets had actually greeted the Obama win with a brief rise, before economic reality set in. Growth is too slow in the U.S.--an anemic 2% at best, driven largely by third-quarter defense acquisitions--to take up the slack in the global economy. With the U.S. headed toward a fiscal cliff, and the balance of power in Washington essentially unchanged, with the president promising more tax hikes, markets see little reason for optimism.



--after obama appoints the new supreme court judges, religous freedoms, private property rights and gun rights will come under judicial attack. Forget getting rid of the patriot act, for all those who hated Bush for it, it will be increased and have judicial backing.

Let's see over the next four years how I do with these predictions, shall we?
 
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Bill Mattocks

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Well, as Glen Beck said today, elections have consequences and people are going to start experiencing them fairly soon. Any predictions for the America of the immediate future...

Due to the 'financial cliff' that we face by the end of the year, I suspect that taxes will go up drastically, either because of a last-minute agreement by Congress and the White House, or because they fail to reach an agreement and 'sequestration' kicks in, along with the expiration of the Bush tax cuts.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michele-nashhoff/lame-duck-congress_b_2084076.html

"Lame Duck" Congress Must Act to Prevent Sequestration
Posted: 11/06/2012 5:43 pm
The clock is ticking -- only 55 more days until sequestration takes effect on Jan. 2, 2013. For the uninformed, sequestration is the across-the-board 10 percent cut in discretionary spending in the budget, including the Department of Defense budget, that is mandated by the Budget Control Act of 2011. The mandatory entitlement spending of the federal budget, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, will continue to grow, along with the interest on the national debt.

If Congress is unable to reach a compromise on how to reduce our $16 trillion national debt, over $500 billion dollars in cuts to the defense budget over the next decade would be mandated to start Jan. 3, translating into a cut of about $55-60 billion for 2013.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...dfde6e-27b2-11e2-b2a0-ae18d6159439_story.html

Fresh from reelection, president finds himself on edge of ‘fiscal cliff’
...
The president, who won reelection late Tuesday, must now confront the “fiscal cliff,” nearly $500 billion in automatic tax hikes and spending cuts set to take effect in January that could throw the nation back into recession.
...
Obama has threatened to veto legislation to avert the cliff that extends the Bush tax rates for the wealthy. After a campaign focused heavily on that pledge, Democrats say the president is prepared to draw a firm line in the sand, even if it means letting one of the largest tax hikes in U.S. history take effect on Jan. 1.

I don't particularly care how the stock market is reacting today. Yesterday it rallied, today it is down. It reflects public sentiment, but not reality, unless the market nose-dives and does not recover.

My prediction?

I predict that after a couple years of kicking the can down the road by Congress with reference to the budget, Congress will fail to come to an agreement to halt the expiration of the Bush tax cuts or the automatic sequestration defense spending cuts. This will cause monstrous outrage with the first paychecks people get after January 1, 2013, and as a result, the Obama Administration will be able to drive a new set of tax cuts through Congress in record time, which will keep taxes at the Bush tax cut levels for the poor and middle class, and raise them hugely on everyone in the upper class. The GOP will not dare to oppose the new law. They may get some concessions in the form of cuts to entitlement spending; maybe.

I have another prediction, but it doesn't have anything to do with the economy, per se. I predict that in the next four years, the GOP is going to reverse itself with regard to immigration. They lost a lot of votes from the non-Cuban Hispanic population this time around, and they know it. Might have cost them a lot of elections. The GOP is going to Hablo Espanol or else.
 

Sukerkin

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As far as political predictions go, I reckon this is as good an analogy as any when it comes to accuracy (and comedy value):

[yt]dKvuFiShc7k[/yt]
 

Master Dan

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Hey Bob here it comes the overeaction and doomsday predicted by Glen Beck? fosil fuels need to pay the actual costs that means damage to environment and people included. let it go up in price it will create jobs in other renewable sources solar wind and neclear and we need a smart grid with storage to save peak generating times of sun and wind then bring back out when sun and wind are not there.
 

WC_lun

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My prediction is that the people predicting doom in time will proven to be wrong and thier reputations as prognestigators will be so badly damaged that no one will listen to them ever again. That is if the world doesn't end in December ;)
 

Flying Crane

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Oh, GLEN BECK! That's funny!!!

c'mon everyone, Romney was just run as a space filler because the Republicans knew they needed to put a warm body up for the position for the sake of image, even tho they knew they had NOBODY who was a credible candidate. Nobody was stupid enough to believe Romney might actually win.
 

Bill Mattocks

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Nobody was stupid enough to believe Romney might actually win.

Given the amount of money that was spent by both major parties (I am hearing somewhere north of 3 billion dollars), I suspect that they were not joking around and indeed believed they could win.

However, I think the odds were stacked against Romney. He is not an ultra-conservative, he is a moderate, but he had to move hard to the right to win the Tea Party's love, and then his moderate record was held against him. They did the best they could with what they had after the GOP nominations, but in the end, he was a poor choice if they wanted to not have such an uphill battle.
 

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My prediction is that in 4 years, be times better or worse, we will still be here. We will still have problems. Congress and the President may or may not have learned how to govern and lead. If Europe slides into recession, and we don't recover well, look for another world war to be looming, probably with China and Japan on one side, maybe with Russia, maybe not. Tactical nukes will probably begin being used as both sides take serious losses, but reason may persist.

Clear and locked down enough? :uhyeah:

Who can really say what will happen? Hopefully things will get better.
 

K-man

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Well guys, in Australia it's all good. The sky hasn't fallen and there's a faint light to the East that's a good indication that the sun will rise once again.


Let's have some reality checks. Under Obama your economy has just gone sideways while the EU has gone down and is in recession. Under Democrat presidents your sharemarket on average has returns 50% higher than under Republican presidents. It's not all doom and gloom. Our sharemarket jumped substantially on expectation of an Obama victory.


Maybe, just maybe, your House of Representatives will have to do what is paid to do and work for the good of the people instead of trying to unseat your democratically elected president.

With a divided Congress, bipartisanship will be needed to address America’s enormous fiscal challenges. Such bipartisanship has been all but missing in the last two years.


But the coming of a new Congress with a newly re-elected president does offer at least the chance for a rekindled spirit of compromise and a sincere effort to bridge ideological gulfs. Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas called for a post-election period of “reflection and re-calibration”, adding that work remains to be done.

The biggest problem for America is curbing greed down the big end of town. That is what caused the GFC and nothing has been done to bring to justice the men who were responsible. :asian:
 

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Most of the republicans have pledged to Grover Norquist that they would never raise taxes. however, most are smart enough to know that taxes need to go up. My understanding is that the general consensus is that allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire doesn't count, so expect the GOP to offer only token resistance to extending the tax cuts.
 

Bill Mattocks

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Most of the republicans have pledged to Grover Norquist that they would never raise taxes. however, most are smart enough to know that taxes need to go up. My understanding is that the general consensus is that allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire doesn't count, so expect the GOP to offer only token resistance to extending the tax cuts.

Taxes must go up, government spending must go down. These two things must happen in order to keep from bankrupting the country. And they must be done as carefully as possible to avoid destroying a fragile and sagging economic recovery.

Petty partisan bickering by EITHER major party dooms us. Yes, precious entitlement spending is going to get whacked. Less money for all kinds of government freebies and fewer do-nothing government 'employer of last resort' employees. Higher taxes for everyone, at every level. The party has ended and it is time to pay the piper.

I frankly do not want to hear one peep out of either side with regard to the bloodletting that must occur now. Both sides bellied up to the trough, and all of us must share the pain now. No sacred cows, no special interest that gets left alone. Not even the poor. Not even the middle class. Everybody pays this time.
 

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Taxes must go down and spending must go down. Any other course will bankrupt the people who make up the country.
 

Steve

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Taxes must go up, government spending must go down. These two things must happen in order to keep from bankrupting the country. And they must be done as carefully as possible to avoid destroying a fragile and sagging economic recovery.

Petty partisan bickering by EITHER major party dooms us. Yes, precious entitlement spending is going to get whacked. Less money for all kinds of government freebies and fewer do-nothing government 'employer of last resort' employees. Higher taxes for everyone, at every level. The party has ended and it is time to pay the piper.

I frankly do not want to hear one peep out of either side with regard to the bloodletting that must occur now. Both sides bellied up to the trough, and all of us must share the pain now. No sacred cows, no special interest that gets left alone. Not even the poor. Not even the middle class. Everybody pays this time.
You quoted me as though you were responding to me, but then didn't really address at all what I said. The thread is about predictions. I predict that there will be no more than token GOP opposition to allowing the tax cuts to expire, because most of our lawmakers know that revenue has to go up, save for perhaps the staunchest tea party candidates. It's a way for them to save face, keep their pledge to Grover Norquist and ALSO increase tax revenue for the Fed.

You can want whatever you like, but you're living in a dream world if you think that there will be anything approaching a bloodletting (alarmist language aside). Taxes will go up. Spending will go down. But it won't be anything approaching "a bloodletting."

It reads like that was fun for you to post, but it's completely unrealistic. And before you respond with dire consequences, please spare me.
 

Master Dan

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Oh, GLEN BECK! That's funny!!!

c'mon everyone, Romney was just run as a space filler because the Republicans knew they needed to put a warm body up for the position for the sake of image, even tho they knew they had NOBODY who was a credible candidate. Nobody was stupid enough to believe Romney might actually win.

Except him and 50% of the popular vote?? he did not even have a concession speach last night he had to write one? Thank God the right person won but we still have a totally polarized country with no comprimise between the sides at this time. it is still tribal and one side will have to win and the other loose inorder to go forward
 

Bill Mattocks

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You quoted me as though you were responding to me, but then didn't really address at all what I said. The thread is about predictions. I predict that there will be no more than token GOP opposition to allowing the tax cuts to expire, because most of our lawmakers know that revenue has to go up, save for perhaps the staunchest tea party candidates. It's a way for them to save face, keep their pledge to Grover Norquist and ALSO increase tax revenue for the Fed.

You can want whatever you like, but you're living in a dream world if you think that there will be anything approaching a bloodletting (alarmist language aside). Taxes will go up. Spending will go down. But it won't be anything approaching "a bloodletting."

It reads like that was fun for you to post, but it's completely unrealistic. And before you respond with dire consequences, please spare me.

I happen to agree with you. I did say "...they must be done as carefully as possible to avoid destroying a fragile and sagging economic recovery..." I used the term 'bloodletting' appropriately; I did not say wholesale slaughter. Bloodletting was done back in the day to 'cure' patients by draining a little blood out of them, hence the term.

I believe this is the part where you say "F* you, Bill." Go on, you can do it.

:)
 

Sukerkin

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:chuckles: Don't make me fetch the fire-hoses, gentlemen :D.
 

Sukerkin

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ROFL! Tho' I do now have a somewhat scary image in my mind :).
 
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billc

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Spending will go down.

:lfao::lfao: What world are you living on...obama was given a blank check with this election and he just made copies of it and passed it around to his buddies. We are going over the cliff, that was all part of the plan, raising taxes and raising spending is the last step before the plunge. I hope you guys enjoy it...you voted for it...
 

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