Time for recklessly insightful 2018 predictions, insightful because I’ve been consistently correct on this kind of stuff, reckless because I don’t play in the Wall Street casino.
1. GREAT DEPRESSION, PART DEUX will hit in the third quarter of next year, too late to help Democrats. Paying attention to publicly available information, I called the 2007-08 meltdown well over two years ahead. (See BarbanoMedia.com/)
I also correctly warned of a Republican presidential victory as far back as February of 2016 with 17 candidates still in play. (Barbwire Feb. 16, 2016) The cycles of history also foreshadow a non-Republican victory in 2020.
2. THE STANDARD DEPRESSION ANTIBIOTICS WON’T WORK WELL, IF AT ALL. They’ve been over-prescribed and the disease has built up immunity.
“By March 2009, the Treasury and Federal Reserve had committed $12.8 TRILLION – almost as much as the entire US (annual) gross national product – to save the economy,” according to Andrew Cockburn in “Wall Street’s War on the Volcker Rule,” (Harper’s Magazine, Jan. 2018) He notes that the same big bank gambling that crashed the economy 10 years ago has grown to $700 TRILLION. The economies of the entire world totaled just $74.15 trillion in 2015.
Herbert Hoover, call your office.
3. NEVADA HAS SEEN THIS BEFORE. With the last recession at full roar, one-term Republican Gov. Jim the Dim offered (drum roll, please) budget cuts, making bad situations worse.
As always, this stingiest of states first abuse the physically and mentally disabled, sending them to either graveyards or jails. School children, who can’t vote, take the next hit.
4. NEVADA’S NEXT GOVERNOR MUST NOT BE ANOTHER JIM THE DIM. The projected 2018 GOP frontrunner is accidental Attorney General Adam Laxalt whose tenure has been, er…undistinguished.
Clark County Commissioner Steve Sisolak is considered the Donkey Party frontrunner. His record of corporate welfare cronyism does not portend a people-first mindset.
His primary opponent, fellow Commissioner Christina Giunchigliani, has deeper qualifications than both Laxalt and Sisolak combined.
She’ll have rough sledding because…
5. THE NEVADA DEMOCRATIC PARTY WILL COMMIT SUICIDE. AGAIN. It started with a majority of Democratic lawmakers caving to the gambling-industrial complex in this year’s session. (I’ll soon publish a dossier on unreported skulduggery for Barbwire Confidential subscribers.)
6. NEVADA’S CORPORATE WELFARE QUEENS WILL FALTER. Gomorrah South has made the dumbest of investments with the Oakland Raiders, buying into a shrinking market with millions of parents refusing to let their children play the brain-damaging sport.
In these parts, Tesla will lose charge. The company is sporadically profitable at best, requiring big borrowing. The bankruptcies of General Motors and Chrysler 10 years ago should give investors pause.
7. EDUCATION: As recession morphs into depression, the Washoe County School District will find that the sales tax increase passed to fund borrowing for new schools will fall substantially below projections. WCSD Superintendent Traci Davis will migrate to greener and more lucrative pastures.
8. PRO SPORTS, PART ONE. Giunchigliani will become Nevada’s first woman governor. The U.S. Senate race will go to recount. In the three most famous (1964, 1974 and 1998), the winner on election night prevailed. Edge: Republican incumbent Heller.
9. PRO SPORTS, PART DEUX. UNR football will go 5-7 while UNLV will go 4-8, generating calls for firing coach Tony Sanchez, who will be hired by his brother, Kenny, who got Tony’s job with Bishop Gorman’s professional high school team. However, if the suspended Kenny gets fired due to his domestic battery arrest, Tony will hire him at UNLV if they beat UNR next year and bring back the Fremont Cannon. Nonetheless, Gorman will again eat everyone alive and try to modify rules so that it can play “exhibitions” or “practice games” against lower level college teams. UNLV perhaps?
10. CLINGING TO THE LEDGE. The Nevada Senate will go GOP. Because Great Depression2 won’t hit by the second quarter, Republicans will cling to power until 2020 becomes an instant replay of 1932.
If you have investments, increase your percentage of gold and silver.
IN MEMORIAM. On Dec. 27, 2005, 144 months ago, Betty Joyce Luffman Donlevy Barbano died in Reno.
Be well. Raise hell. Esté bien. Haga infierno.
Andrew Barbano is a 49-year Nevadan and editor of NevadaLabor.com/ E-mail <barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us> Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Tribune since 1988.
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