Tea Leaves 2007

What the new year will bring

Ronald Bailey | December 29, 2006

(Page 2 of 3)

So swishing the tea leaves around in the cup, what do they tell me will happen in 2007?

POLITICS

Ok, the first one is not for 2007, but for 2008. I predict that Barack Hussein Obama will be the presidential nominee for the Democratic Party. This will become clearer throughout 2007. Why? The Jack Kennedy phenomenon. He is attractive. And he has no record, which means that voters can project whatever hopes and dreams they have onto him.

Stem cell legislation will pass again. This time it may be attached to a bill that President Bush wants (say some Defense appropriation) so he may actually hold his nose and sign it.

The Democratic Congress will expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program to cover poor adults, bringing the proportion of health care financed by government perilously close to 50 percent. Bush will sign it. We fall further down the slippery slope to universal (that is socialized) health insurance.

A higher federal minimum wage will pass even though it applies to only about 2.5 percent of workers.

SCIENCE

OK, this year the FDA will approve the use of stem cells derived from human embryos to treat crushed spinal cords.

Researchers will create a stem cell line from cloned human embryos for the first time.

I think I will stick with my prediction that a cloned human baby will be born before 2010, although time is running out and the science is not progressing as fast as I had thought. For example, there are still no primates cloned from adult cells yet (somatic cell nuclear transfer).

No one will become ill as a result of eating foods made from ingredients derived currently available biotech crops or cloned animals.

ECONOMICS

The price of a barrel of oil will fall below $50.

As a result, ethanol mania will cool.

One euro will cost $1.50. (It's $1.31 now.)