Hot '5 Or Stinko Cinco?

Good and bad predictions for the new year

Ronald Bailey | December 30, 2004

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Climate computer models will project that man-made global warming is more certain and worse than ever. Evidence for this claim will remain scarce.

There will be no further commitments to cut carbon dioxide emissions after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012 at the United Nations Climate Change talks in Turkey next October.

Unfortunately, the number of people who are undernourished worldwide is likely to increase in 2005. For part of the reason see WTO prediction below.

Economics

The European Union will stymie trade talks at the next World Trade Organization ministerial meeting in Hong Kong next December. The farmers from the 10 new EU member states have just got on the munificent EU ag subsidy gravy train and they won't want to be put off. The U.S. won't object too strenuously because red state farmers have just harvested one of their biggest bumper crops of subsidies ever. Rich country subsidies are a crime against poor farmers in the developing world, not to mention a taxpayer ripoff at home.

Culture

Michael Moore will join Fat Actress Kirstie Alley as a Jenny Craig weight loss spokesperson. Just kidding. However, without the passions aroused by the election, his new "documentary" attacking the pharmaceutical industry will largely be relegated to the art house circuit. No more Palmes d'Or at Cannes.

Crime

The recent drop in the U.S. crime rate will level off—with violent crime already at the lowest level ever recorded.

After Martha Stewart gets out of jail, she will be a bigger celebrity criminal than O.J. Simpson (oh, he wasn't convicted was he?) for the next year. See you on Good Morning America, Martha. And it's too late to buy her company's stock. It's already rebounded in anticipation of her release. Can't say that same thing about Enron or WorldCom stock.

The Federal government will continue to lose the "War on Drugs," causing great and unnecessary damage at home and abroad. Thanks to the drug war, America will remain Numero Uno in confining its citizens to prison: 2,166,260 and counting. But there is a bright side—the high prison population explains a good bit of our plummeting crime rates.

Sports

The Red Sox will not win the 2005 World Series. (That is the ball game that's played with a stick, right?)

Happy New Year! (That's a wish, not a prediction.)