Happy New Year one and all. ‘Tis the last Tuesday of 2009 and for the first time ever, AWT is publishing our fearlessly feckless 20 predictions for 2010. It’s quite scary committing your thoughts to public record but if you have something to say, you may as well say it. The scope of these forecasts will be both personal and global, micro and macro. Some will be tongue-in-cheek, others are not. (I will decide at year end which is which!) If you’d like, we can reconvene at year end 2010 with the scorecard and put me to task. You ready? Lets get going.

• 2010 will be better than 2009 but only at the margin. We are nowhere close to being done with the jobs recession. Want a better economy? Raise confidence. It is a simple equation but a complicated task.
• Learning about the sex life of our politicians, celebrities and sports figures will explode into a major industry. Why? “Enquiring” minds want to know and…it sells.
• Guantanamo Bay will not close in 2010 especially if we are led to believe that prisoners released from there were involved with the terrorist plot on NWA Flight 253.
• Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Nancy Bachman, Joe Lieberman, Deval Patrick and Sarah Palin will continue to suck. A further prediction, this is the year that Sarah Palin’s tank runs dry and everyone begins to see her for the fraud that she is.
• There will be further schisms between the North and the South, the red and the blue. If we are not careful, we could see the end of another “empire” in future years.
• 2010 will take us another step closer to a cure for cancer and the Kanzius Machine will play a part in its cure.
• Magazines will rise again (428 closings in 2009!) and on-demand television will flourish. Apple’s new tablet computer will drive this but it will mostly be because people will continue to want home entertainment as a way to save money.
• MTV will come to its senses and cancel Jersey Shore. Oh wait, MTV comes to its senses?? I may have to rethink this one.
• The stock market will lose value in 2010 but companies who grow their market share in a bad economy will flourish.
• We will not hear from Octomom, Balloon Boy and Levi Johnson ever again. I wish that the same fate could be conferred on Glenn Beck, Charlie Sheen and Bernie Madoff.
• Personally, I will end this retirement experiment and find gainful employment looking around corners which I do better than most, this prediction stuff notwithstanding.
• Iron Man 2 will be as bad as Oceans 12. Maybe worse.
• Joseph Gordon-Levitt will become a household name.
• President Obama will enjoy a surge in popularity that his administration will squander.
• The New Orleans Saints will win the Super Bowl. They deserve it. They have played impeccably on both sides of the ball and the city sure could use the boost.
• Tiger Woods will play in the 2010 Masters. It’s what he lives for (well, that…and you know). AND he will not get divorced.
• Interest in Twitter will fade like a Tim Wakefield knuckle ball. It’s a one dimensional technology that is crying the emperor has no clothes. Don’t waste anymore of your time with it.
• The album will die – even online. Artists will release songs more often and on the internet. Free music will be the order of the day since there is no money to be made on music sales to the consumer. It will take awhile but you will see it begin to happen in 2010.
• I am taking Spain in the 2010 World Cup. They play with precision, heart and discipline. If the Italian squad learned discipline, they would be my pick. But alas
• Eliot Spitzer will rise again. He may have messed up but he’s done a lot of things right since then and you just can’t hold down someone who is as intelligent and ambitious as him.  The same fate does not await Mark Sanford.

And there you have it…20 fearless predictions/forecasts for your final AWT of 2009. Thank you for visiting and offering your opinions. It’s best when there is a dialogue. I wish you great things in 2010, good health and good cheer, prosperity and hope. It is a new decade that we get to write the blueprint for. Lets make it amazing! All the best.

Aye Wonder.

And so should you!

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