Took couple of weeks off and was surprised to see that there were 21 views yesterday.  I figure that it must be that the people are waiting for my predictions for 2018, so here it goes!

First there are people who are predicting that we will go to war with North Korea.  I don't think that will happen.  Trump and Kim will continue to exchange insults but there will not be war.   Kim won't start it since he knows that will be suicidal.  There are people who will hold Trump back so the U.S. won't attack first.  North Korea will continue to make progress on the nuclear front.

The Mueller investigation will conclude at the end of the year.  I don't think he will find collusion.  But he will find somethings that are embarrassing to Trump such as tax irregularities and Russians have "dirt" on him.  GOP won't call for impeachment so there won't be any as they still control Congress.

The Democrats, however, will win back the House.  So they may call for impeachment in 2019.  But given that the Democrats have to defend 26 out of 34 seats in the senate and then win 2 from the Republicans, I think the GOP will keep the senate.

China will become more important in the world stage.  It is not that they are doing great but it is the trouble of other nations that make China more important.  The U.S., under Trump, will pull back from world leadership.  We will also lose prestige as a result of this president.  Populism and conservatism will make leaders like Merkel less powerful in Europe.  Oil price drop will make Saudi Arabia less powerful in the Middle East.  It also will make life more difficult for Iran and Russia.  South America is a big mess.  So China will keep rising by default.

Here are some obvious predictions:  The Wall will not be built with one peso from Mexico.  There will be fire and drought in the west, hurricanes and flood in the southeast, tornadoes in the Midwest.  Trump will continue to tweet from his bathroom at 3 am.  More sexual harassment by powerful men will come to light.  More mass shootings will occur.

With the tax cut, Wall Street is happy and so the market will continue to go up for at least first half of the year.  Then reality hits and there will be some pull back.  Will it end slightly positive for the year or a significant decline will depend on the result of the Mueller investigation.  Is it just personal dirt or financial improprieties that shake the confidence of regular people?  My guess that the market will be in the red at the end of the year.

Finally, sports predictions.  New England to win the Super Bowl.  The Warriors repeat in NBA.   Dodgers to win World Series.  Ohtani will hit about .260 with 20 home runs while DH about 85 games and pitch in 25 games with a 10-5 record and era of 3.20.  I give up on predicting the NHL since I think it is like throwing a dart blindly.  The U.S. will get the most medals in the Winter Olympic games.  I am 100% sure they will out medal Russia!  An athlete will win one of the two seasons of DWTS.

Happy new year, everybody!

It is time for my Annual Angry Asian Absolutely Accurate Assessment (AAAAAA) of Big Ten football bowl games: 

USC over Ohio State,
Penn State over Washington
Wisconsin over Miami
Michigan over South Carolina
Michigan State over Washington State
Northwestern over Kentucky
Iowa over Boston College
Arizona over Purdue

That makes a 6-2 prediction.  But I admit the only one that I am very confident about is Northwestern over Kentucky, assuming they are not playing basketball instead.  I think that both USC and Ohio State feel they were robbed of not getting into the playoffs.  But as much as I hate Alabama, I think neither team have a gripe.  Getting clobbered by Notre Dame and Iowa should mean elimination.  I think MSU have a gripe that Michigan getting a new year bowl instead of them  even though the Holiday bowl is a decent one.

Looks like Trump and the GOP finally won a legislative victory by passing the tax bill in both the Senate and the House.  So it looks like we will have a big tax cut for the rich and the corporations and a temporary small cut for all others.  The argument that Trump and the GOP put forth for these cuts are that it will spur economic growth and thus will not cause a deficit.  Most of the economists and the CBO disagree with this.   I am no economist but I am thinking when Bush did his tax cut, it didn't turn out so well, did it?  The idea that corporations will take the extra money they saved from taxes and hire more people is wishful thinking.  A survey of CEOs recently asked that question and an overwhelming majority of them did not say they will use the money to hire more workers.  I think one of the things they would use the money would be to research into more automation and eventually decrease the number of employees.  All the talk about outsourcing, I think automation will cause more people to lose jobs in the future.  For example, if all the trucks and tractors can be driven without drivers, how many jobs will be lost?

So why is Wall Street so happy with the tax cuts.  Well, most of the companies will use the money to buy back stocks.   In fact that has been going on already.  This has the effect of increasing the price of the stocks and line the pockets of the big investors and the executives who have stock options.  It also makes the company look good.  For example, if there are 1 million shares of the company on the market and the company earns 1 million dollars, the earning per share is 1 dollar.  But if 100,000 share are bought back, all of a sudden the earnings per share is now 10% higher!  Investors who research the company find that the earnings per share has improved, may then buy more shares and thus raise the price further.  So that is why Wall Streets like this tax cut.  This euphoria may go on for a year or a few years.  By then Trump maybe out of office for other reasons, and he can brag that while in office, the Dow was way up and then when he is out, it crashes!