A few predictions for 2011

New year's predictions are often amusing. (Sometimes they can be even more amusing at the end of the year when you look back and see just how wrong you were.) In the past I have avoided making new year's prognostications. But it's a rainy day and I am bored, so why not give it a whirl.

Here goes...

Religion:

• The press, especially the Catholic press, will continue to report that a meeting is imminent between the Pope and the Patriarch of Moscow.
• No such meeting will occur in 2011 nor will one be announced.
• The slow motion train wreck that is the Anglican Communion will continue to unfold. There will be much huffing and puffing from the more conservative provinces but none will break communion with Canterbury.
• A significant block of the so called Anglo-Catholic wing will swim the Tiber. Those who don't will either migrate to the so called Continuum or accept their status as dhimmi within the ultra liberal CofE - TEO - ACC. Very few will even consider Orthodoxy.
• The SSPX will not reconcile with Rome.
• (This one is going out on a limb.) The Ecumenical Patriarch will announce the date for the long anticipated Great and Holy Pan-Orthodox Synod.
  

Politics:

• There will be a series of fierce battles over spending in Congress with some cuts being made. But they will not be enough to seriously impact the growing national debt.
• The Republicans will attempt and fail to repeal the health care reform bill.
  
• They will succeed in passing some modifications to it.
• No significant new taxes will be passed.
• Sarah Palin's super-star status has probably peaked. She will remain an important figure but her popularity will start to wane somewhat as Republicans gear up for the 2012 presidential election and consider who is best suited to run against Obama.
• No significant social reform legislation will pass in 2011.
  
• In Great Britain the coalition government will hit some bumps but it will hold together through 2011.

Foreign Affairs:

• Most US military forces will finally leave Iraq.
• Most US military forces will not leave Afghanistan.
• North Korea will launch another armed provocation against South Korea. This time S. Korea will respond with force and there will be a nasty but short fight that will not lead to a full scale war.
• Israel and the Palestinians will still be dancing around the peace table at years end.
• China will continue to flex its economic muscles in the Western Pacific as it attempts to assert geopolitical hegemony.
  

Economics:

• Unemployment will remain high through 2011.
• The stock market will continue to rise, but more slowly than the last two years. Upward movement will be driven by money printing and will be more pronounced in foreign stocks as the dollar depreciates.
• The dollar will continue its death by a thousand cuts. The only major currency likely to do worse is the Euro.
  
• The 30 year party in the bond market is over. This is going to be a bad year for bonds, possibly a very bad year. Interest rates will rise across the curve with municipal bonds taking the biggest hit as the true extent of state and municipal debt starts to become clear.
• The sovereign debt crisis will get worse in 2011, possibly endangering the survival of the Euro.
• Greece will default on its debt.
• This one will be interesting to look back on at the end of the year. Predicting inflation is easy when the Federal Reserve is printing money like it's going out of style. Timing is a different matter. For what it's worth I think the effects of all the inflation being created by the FED, which have thus far been confined mainly to commodities and the financial markets, will begin to show up in the CPI. I expect official inflation (currently below 1%) to at least double by the year's end (still low by historical standards). However this is just the beginning of a multi year inflationary cycle born out of staggering sovereign debt and money printing. My gut says the real blow up will come in 2012.
• Gold and silver will both continue to do well. Gold will end the year somewhere between $1600-1700 oz.
• A double dip in the housing market is likely.

Sports:

• The Yankees (gag) will win the AL Pennant and the Giants will return to the World Series for the National League. It will be the Giants over the Yankees in six games.
  
• If the previous prediction comes off I will be offered a six figure contract by ESPN which I will decline because it would interfere with my blogging.
  

Culture:

• The King's Speech will win the Oscar for best picture.
• I will finally finish reading Tolstoy's War and Peace (yea right).