12 ms·

What Is Going to Happen in 2019

115 points by vinnyglennon 8y ago

weinzierl 8y ago
> The eurozone is about to go through the most significant change in decades with some sort of departure of the UK from the EU (Brexit). It remains unclear exactly how this will happen, which in and of itself is creating a lot of uncertainty on the Continent. I don’t expect most businesses in Europe to do anything but play defense in 2019. Of all the things said in the post this stands out to me as the only overly pessimistic point. First of all: The UK always had a very special relationship to and within EU. Now this relationship is going to be different - but not earth-shakingly different. Yes, there is a lot of uncertainty right now, and I agree with Fred Wilson here that we can expect a messy Brexit, but I don't expect this state of affairs to drag on through the whole of 2019. At some point we will have clarity and this will hopefully be beneficial for the economy. The most important point though is that a messy Brexit is expected on both sides of the Channel preparations for it are already proceeding.
- AndrewDucker 8y ago
  We haven't even begun to negotiate a new trading agreement. The transition agreement is for two years, and I can't see the negotiations taking any less than that amount of time.
- monkeynotes 8y ago
  > I don't expect this state of affairs to drag on through the whole of 2019 Seriously?? The exit is so incredibly complex I can foresee the ramifications dragging into decades. The border problems alone are going to be a political quagmire, to view this sort of thing is a 12 month trifle is short-sighted to say the least. The exit will split the country in half, how on earth can you have 'clarity' when there is basically zero bi-partisan agreement politically and socially?
  - weinzierl 8y ago
    Fred Wilson was speaking about the Continent and my point of view is from the Continent too. I seriously believe that when we will have clarity about the general new relationship countries like France, Germany, Spain, Italy and even the stable smaller ones will execute their pre-planned scenarios and just move on. I don't feel qualified to give an opinion how all of this will pan out for the UK but I hope it will not be as dark as you described.
- martythemaniak 8y ago
  I think he overestimates the impact this will have on the Eurozone. I mean, Brexit is a B.F.D. for Britain, but the continent? I'd like someone to explain that to me in detail. Britain might start to kick out Europeans, but European countries are probably going to try and keep British retirees and professionals. A chunk of the financial industry is going to migrate out of London. European products would get far more expensive, sure, but are British people going to actually dump them? I mean, if you're used to good Italian olive oil, French cheese and German cars, it might take a few years to switch to canola oil, American cheese and Geely-ies.
dragonwriter 8y ago
> The eurozone is about to go through the most significant change in decades with some sort of departure of the UK from the EU (Brexit). The UK may be leaving the EU, but that's not a change to the Eurozone, which is a monetary union among a subset of EU members, of which the UK has never been a part.
- srge 8y ago
  There still could be impact on trade, especially if we have a no-deal brexit.
  - mcv 8y ago
    It will have impact on trade, but that's still more an issue for the EU as a whole rather than the Eurozone specifically. I consider it a typo; the author clearly meant the EU, but wrote Eurozone for some reason. I can't entirely blame them; the many European treaties are a complicated mess.
    - em500 8y ago
      Wikipedia has this handy overview: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Supranational_European_Bodies-en.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Supranational_European_Bo... Unfortunately as a citizen of one of the founding members of the EU, I don't even recognise half the flags in the diagram.
      - swarnie_ 8y ago
        Top right quarter of that image... I can name maybe two flags and that's only from European sports, the rest are actually a mystery. Give me the names and i'm sure i would know them, ask me to point them out on a blank map and we're straying back in to embarrassing territory again.
        Fordec 8y ago
        I assume you mean the BSEG section is included? Off the top of my head Russia, Ukraine, Greece, Moldova, Turkey, Georgia, Northern Macedonia, Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Serbia, Belarus, Romania and Bulgaria are all there anyway. I think I've still missed a handful but I'm pretty happy with my European flag knowledge apparently from that. Acknowledgement: I would like to thank the Eurovision Song Competition apparently for my education
stevespang 8y ago
Impeachment will never happen. If you study recent history, an impeachment attempt on Trump will go down just like it did on Clinton - - strictly along party lines. The Clinton vote was razor accurate along party lines when it happened. No majority means no impeachment.
- jsutton 8y ago
  The case against Clinton was flimsy and grasping at straws, whereas the case against Trump looks to be incredibly damning. I think that'll make a difference this time, though party lines have become even more ingrained...
  - SlowRobotAhead 8y ago
    Clinton lied under oath. That wasn’t flimsy, it was fact.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- ajross 8y ago
  That's assuming the republicans remain cohesive, which assumes a unified voter base. It played that way in the Clinton impeachment for sure. That hasn't always happened historically. Nixon looked solidly in power until all of a sudden he didn't (though of course he resigned before any votes were cast on impeachment). I agree I wouldn't put money on Trump being removed, but neither would I be shocked if it happened. Things are more complicated than a whip count.
- thomnottom 8y ago
  Clinton was impeached.
  - termie 8y ago
    ..by the Republican majority House of Representatives. It can be roughly equated to being charged with a crime. The Senate held a trial and voted for acquittal and therefore no action was taken. Two thirds of the Senate must vote to remove a President from office.
sremani 8y ago
>> I believe that we will have a different President of the United States by the end of 2019. The catalyst for this change will be a devastating report issued by Robert Mueller that outlines a history of illegal activities by our President going back decades, including in his campaign for President. I will only give weight-age to Mr.Wilson's prediction on this if he discloses whom he cast his Vote in 2016 and its not Hillary Clinton. Also, if you have an annual tradition of forecasting the upcoming year, please also make it a tradition of evaluating your previous year's prediction. Edit: Here are his predictions for 2018. Some he got right, but on lot of stuff he played it both ways and honestly expressed his lack of clarity. https://avc.com/2018/01/what-is-going-to-happen-in-2018/ https://avc.com/2018/01/what-is-going-to-happen-in-2018/
- mywittyname 8y ago
  Democrats will control 54% of the next House. So his prediction is much more likely in 2019 than in any previous years. There's no reason to think this is based on politically-motivated wishful thinking.
  - jki275 8y ago
    That gives them the ability to functionally accomplish nothing, so it doesn't move the needle at all.
    - ianai 8y ago
      The majority in the house gains the chairman seats in all of the committees. We will see subpoena power used by democrats to investigate and ultimately inform the public on many things which the house republicans buried or ignored. Elections have consequences. My personal, political hope is that the democrats try to be productive with the republicans in Congress and the White House - but of course maximizing the results of their leverage on the process. Unfortunately, there’s not much room for optimism from how the republicans denied cooperation with the democrats during the last administration.
      - 8y ago
logicchains 8y ago
>China’s GDP has been slowing in recent years as it achieved relative parity with the US and the Eurozone: This is misleading; the relevant metric for measuring development is GDP per capita, which is only around $8,500 in China, compared to $59,000 for the US and and $33,000 for the EU (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...). The average person in China is much poorer than the average person in America or Europe; a significant portion are still subsistence farmers, the only reason absolute GDP is comparable with the US and Europe is that China's population is way bigger. One would only expect growth to slow when China's per-person GDP approaches that of a developed country, not it's total GDP.
- ed_balls 8y ago
  PPP per capita is a better metric, but far from ideal.
- xiaq 8y ago
  It depends on how much growth has been driven by international demand and how much by domestic demand. China has been heavily export-oriented in the past few decades.
- oconnor663 8y ago
  It's misleading if you're discussing individual standards of living, but it could be relevant if you're discussing trade wars or military power.
- ttflee 8y ago
  China's growth in the past 30 years largely depended on foreign direct investment and export. With current dispute on trade escalating to an all out trade war, the prospect in 2019 would be even more dimmer. If China invades Taiwan and further disrupts global supply chain, a such slower global growth could be expected.
- beat 8y ago
  "THE relevant statistic" (emphasis mine) is also misleading. Lots of different things measure development. It's not surprising that China is seeing some slowdown in growth, as they climb that curve. Jumping from $50 to $100 is easier than jumping from $5000 to $10,000. Or another way, a 10% growth rate at $1000 requires increasing revenue by $100. At $10,000, it means increasing by $1000. On top of that, China is an export-driven economy, and it's tangling with slowdowns among its customers (who aren't growing nearly as fast anyway), and a trade war with the US. edit: Rather than just measuring China vs "developed world", measure China vs China. The per capita GDP of China has increased a hundredfold in the past 50 years. To sustain that rate for another 50 years, per capita GDP would have to reach over $800,000 (in constant dollars). That seems... unlikely.
revskill 8y ago
A stable, extendable CRUD app is better than a hacky Deep Learning project, which only has fuzzy meaning in prediction and marketing.
keiferski 8y ago
This dramatically over-estimates the impact that a Trump impeachment would have - just like analysts in 2016 predicted that the economy would crash if Trump won. [1] In reality, the markets would likely respond to a Pence presidency with positivity. His reputation is far more "boring and dependable" than Trump's ever has been. 1. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/01/business/dealbook/what-happens-to-the-markets-if-donald-trump-wins.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/01/business/dealbook/what-ha...
- olivermarks 8y ago
  just like the Bush/Cheney relationship, it pays to watch Pence rather than Trump, who is arguably just a distraction.
fireattack 8y ago
Just FYI: lots of images in this article don't show on my end.
triviatise 8y ago
predictit has trump getting impeached by end of 2019 at 36 cents for yes. If mueller finds any "collusion" it is guaranteed impeachment. Old crimes possibly not. So predictit at least disagrees that mueller finds collusion. And as always if you are absolutely certain that mueller will find collusion, you can make some money. Put your money where your mouth is.
- khacking 8y ago
  Can you explain how it is guaranteed impeachment if Mueller finds collusion?
skywhopper 8y ago
VCs are going to talk up things that they’ve invested in, but his emphasis on crypto as meaningful in any way beyond a temporary buzzword and a sink for suckers’ money is pretty indicative of the amount of trust one should put in his predictions. Skimming his recent articles, including the look back at 2018, it’s clear he sees crypto as a hedge against political and economic instability, but the irony is that crypto’s primary use case is in _facilitating_ the destabilization of existing economic infrastructure. That’s its explicit goal! So it’s weird that someone so heavily invested in it thinks it’ll be a savior of society. But then again the author operates in a different economy than the rest of us... he’ll probably be just fine.
- ianai 8y ago
  One of my Econ classes posed a question “why would basing a currency on gold be bad” (some hint like that). Essentially, any currency with a finite supply and that can never increase will restrain economic growth.
  - kuhhk 8y ago
    Yup. The word you’re trying to remember is a ‘deflationary’ currency. It encourages hoarding of the currency, rather than spending it.
    - ianai 8y ago
      I prefer to describe the mechanism than use a singular term in aide of explanation. You’re totally correct.
  - ethbro 8y ago
    In the case of gold, there's also exploration, colonization, and foreign resource exploitation. There's probably an argument that one of the main drivers of European colonization was pursuit of a de facto increase in currency supply.
- seibelj 8y ago
  There are many kooky economic experiments in crypto right now that are not only 1) Not failing miserably, but 2) Are growing steadily. Decentralized financial products like MakerDAO and Compound Finance are very interesting. Augur is a prediction marketplace that was pilloried for having some 30 users per day when it launched, but now has around $2 million in open interest. It is very early days, and it is quite complicated to build new products and businesses given that the tooling is poor, the crypto networks are slow, and many mainstream technologists take endless pleasure in shitting on crypto and cheering when prices fall, but progress continues. I think cryptocurrencies and smart contracts have earned a seat at the table for disruptive technologies of the 21st century, along with cloud computing, AI / ML / big data, and smart phones.
lifeisstillgood 8y ago
My takeaway from this is most people are going to have a fearful 2019 my other takeaway - Be greedy when others are fearful, fearful when others are greedy"
paulpauper 8y ago
People said this exact same thing about trump in 2017 except with the impeachment date being 2018 instead of 2019. I would be willing to take the opposite side of that bet. The odds of impeachment are slim based on the rarity of past occurrences, and House democrats have expressed reservations about impeachment. Even if impeached, that does not mean he will leave office. China;s GDP has been slowing for over a decade. This is expected given how fast it was growing in the early and mid 2000's.
- gadders 8y ago
  I came here to say exactly the same thing. I'd be happy to stick money down on Trump still being in power by the end of 2019. And probably by the end of 2024 as well. I think it's an example of a Silicon Valley filter bubble.
  - devy 8y ago
    Technically, Fred Wilson is based in New York though.
  - lesss365 8y ago
    Here's your chance https://www.predictit.org https://www.predictit.org
    - iak8god 8y ago
      Specifically, https://www.predictit.org/markets/detail/3352/Will-Donald-Trump-be-president-at-year-end-2019 https://www.predictit.org/markets/detail/3352/Will-Donald-Tr... Currently about 73% yes
      - aidenn0 8y ago
        What's the overhead of trading on predictit because the impeachment[1] "yes" of 37% is way too close to the currently 30% "no" of him being in office; I think the odds of him ending the year as president if impeached is at least 50%, so there should be some way to arbitrage this. [edit] I suppose there is the chance of him pulling a Nixon and resigning before impeachment, as well as the chance of him dying. I consider both of those to be less likely; he is to confrontational to back down from just the threat of impeachment of a house with an opposition majority; if anything being impeached by a partisan vote would be fodder for his conservative base. 1: https://www.predictit.org/markets/detail/4319/Will-Donald-Trump-be-impeached-by-year-end-2019 https://www.predictit.org/markets/detail/4319/Will-Donald-Tr...
paulpauper 8y ago
My prediction is a lot of people's predictions for 2019 will be wrong. Look how many people were wrong about crypto currency in 2018. Or about the stock market.
chasing 8y ago
Trump will not resign the Presidency. And Congress certainly won’t remove him. 2019 and 2020 will see the country better learning to work around a President who acts on whims instead of information.
gfodor 8y ago
Guessing the direction of interest rates and speculation about supposed crimes the president did (for which at this point there has been no evidence of) is a pretty poor foundation to build predictions upon since there's a good chance rates stay flat in 2019 and Mueller comes up empty. In that scenario, the stock market still has downward pressure because of the insane valuations, but the storm clouds outlined here fade away for the most part. One 2019 prediction I have is a resurgence of interest in VR with the release of Oculus Quest. A lot of people have been quietly building for 5 years waiting for this. On politics I'll go out on a limb here and say that the FBI/DOJ will conclude a number of (under reported, multi-year) investigations and bring indictments for a large number of well-known politicians of both parties.
- beat 8y ago
  Actually, there's a lot of evidence for "supposed crimes of the president". Some of his closest advisors (Cohen, Flynn, Manafort) have been convicted of felonies. All of them have cooperated to some degree with Mueller. The fact that Mueller asked for no prison for Flynn says a great deal about how valuable Flynn's testimony has been. Who else would Flynn be testifying against that's so important to Mueller that he'd pay for it with a no-prison plea bargain? Don't let political bias blind to you the evidence. That said, I'm not at all convinced this will lead to impeachment, although it may lead to resignation. The House isn't going to impeach without a reasonable chance of success in the Senate, and I don't see twenty of McConnell's Republicans voting to destroy Trump, no matter what he did or what he's charged with doing.
  - gfodor 8y ago
    I was referring to specific evidence that implies crimes were committed by Trump. So far, no such evidence has been revealed. Pointing to felony guilty pleas for unrelated crimes (except, perhaps, the Cohen campaign finance violation which gave him 6 months of his several year sentence and which arguably may have not been upheld in court) is just guilt-by-association and does not constitute evidence of an unseen crime. I'm perfectly happy to be proven wrong once the report comes out, and I hope that the results are plain as day in either direction, but if you think there has been any objective evidence uncovered by the press or leaked of a real crime being committed then you should also check your political bias. It may exist but it hasn't been made public.
joshuahedlund 8y ago
Same author's predictions from 2018: https://avc.com/2018/01/what-is-going-to-happen-in-2018/ https://avc.com/2018/01/what-is-going-to-happen-in-2018/
- SlowRobotAhead 8y ago
  Written just vague enough on almost all the points to seem credible without actually saying anything. Guy above gets it right, this 2019 post is SV Tech Bubble at its finest.
paulrpotts 8y ago
Ctrl-f "climate" Ctrl-f "carbon" Ctrl-f "green" Nothing of interest. Ctrl-W.
- AnimalMuppet 8y ago
  The only thing that could be of interest is the climate? That seems rather narrow-minded. Also, this is a list of predictions. It is therefore predicting that there will be not much action on the climate in 2019. That seems... plausible.
  - paulrpotts 8y ago
    Yes, I agree that there is likely to be not much action. I'm interested in the political predictions as well, although I really don't find the arguments about what is going to come out of the Mueller investigation to be very compelling; I just don't think either R's or D's have enough political will to stop going along to get along. It's not that I don't think President 45 has committed many, many white-collar crimes; I just don't think anyone is going to hold him accountable, and I don't believe Mueller will actually indict the president.
gaius 8y ago
You have to wonder how much someone who doesn’t understand the difference between the EU and the Eurozone can confidently make predictions about either.
takanori 8y ago
So many people and content sites put out menaingless predictions that there is no consequence of being wrong on. Unless the author has sufficient skin in the game, for example they take a short position on the S&P to back up the predicted drop we as readers should not put much credence in “prediction listicles.”
pier25 8y ago
As a European I hope Trump will be impeached or he will renounce. It's the only way the US will regain any trust from other countries. For the average citizen Trump is the only image of the US they get on the news which is not very flattering.
- cor87nowmg 8y ago
  I hope it's proved that Trump didn't do anything substantially wrong. Then - instead of the world having to have overcome some terrible problem - I would only have to overcome the shame of having made a mistake. And I've been mistaken many times.
  - pier25 8y ago
    I recommend everyone to watch the documentary "Active Measures". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WnYi3T78Ag https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WnYi3T78Ag Trump has been having business with the Russian mafia for decades.
LegendaryLegend 8y ago
To the author: thank you for having the courage to write your predictions, and ignore the haters that are more often than not incapable of doing the same, since it's a lot easier to critique than to create.
dkrich 8y ago
There is very little evidence that markets care much at all about what happens in Washington. If Trump resigns or doesn't it is very unlikely to have a lasting effect on equity prices. There's lots of evidence to back this up. When JFK was assassinated for example, equity prices rose in the weeks after. This does not suggest that the equity markets didn't like JFK necessarily, but rather that equity markets were primed to move higher and even extreme uncertainty around the presidency wasn't enough to alter their course. Prices are going to go where they are going to go. It makes some people happy to imagine markets disliking Trump, but the truth is they don't really care who is president, they only care about whether earnings are going to go up or down in the future, and the president just doesn't have much control over that save for tax rates which have already been accounted for in this administration. The Fed is far more likely to impact equity markets, but I think far too many (Wilson included) are too focused on the trend in rates without any consideration at all for the relative level of rates historically. It is true that a rising trend in rates is usually bearish for stocks, BUT it's very important to understand the trend in a broader context. Rates are still extremely low in a historical context and if the Fed pauses in 2019 and employment and consumer spending remain strong, stocks aren't likely to drop much more simply because 3% is not a satisfactory return for most people unless you are nearing retirement. So where else are you going to park your money? Probably stocks. Also, a company like Apple isn't going to be drastically effected by marginally higher rates when they were already close to zero. Sure, their cost of capital might go up by a quarter a percent. Is that really going to move the needle on their earnings significantly? Other companies that aren't profitable and heavily reliant on debt probably will be hurt, though. Here's what I believe is happening: the Fed did a very poor job of communicating its position and intent in late 2018 (probably because they themselves didn't know what they were going to do) and spooked the markets by saying they were going to hike several times in 2019. They then walked this back but the markets are still a bit uneasy. Sentiment always follows price, and now that prices have fallen and volatility has spiked, what are the pundits doing? Predicting price declines and higher volatility! Well, that's already happened so if you are selling stocks now and paying up for VIX calls, you're probably late to the party. In early 2018, most pundits were saying to buy stocks.

115 points by vinnyglennon 8y ago

> The eurozone is about to go through the most significant change in decades with some sort of departure of the UK from the EU (Brexit). It remains unclear exactly how this will happen, which in and of itself is creating a lot of uncertainty on the Continent. I don’t expect most businesses in Europe to do anything but play defense in 2019. Of all the things said in the post this stands out to me as the only overly pessimistic point. First of all: The UK always had a very special relationship to and within EU. Now this relationship is going to be different - but not earth-shakingly different. Yes, there is a lot of uncertainty right now, and I agree with Fred Wilson here that we can expect a messy Brexit, but I don't expect this state of affairs to drag on through the whole of 2019. At some point we will have clarity and this will hopefully be beneficial for the economy. The most important point though is that a messy Brexit is expected on both sides of the Channel preparations for it are already proceeding.

AndrewDucker 8y ago
We haven't even begun to negotiate a new trading agreement. The transition agreement is for two years, and I can't see the negotiations taking any less than that amount of time.
monkeynotes 8y ago
> I don't expect this state of affairs to drag on through the whole of 2019 Seriously?? The exit is so incredibly complex I can foresee the ramifications dragging into decades. The border problems alone are going to be a political quagmire, to view this sort of thing is a 12 month trifle is short-sighted to say the least. The exit will split the country in half, how on earth can you have 'clarity' when there is basically zero bi-partisan agreement politically and socially?
- weinzierl 8y ago
  Fred Wilson was speaking about the Continent and my point of view is from the Continent too. I seriously believe that when we will have clarity about the general new relationship countries like France, Germany, Spain, Italy and even the stable smaller ones will execute their pre-planned scenarios and just move on. I don't feel qualified to give an opinion how all of this will pan out for the UK but I hope it will not be as dark as you described.
martythemaniak 8y ago
I think he overestimates the impact this will have on the Eurozone. I mean, Brexit is a B.F.D. for Britain, but the continent? I'd like someone to explain that to me in detail. Britain might start to kick out Europeans, but European countries are probably going to try and keep British retirees and professionals. A chunk of the financial industry is going to migrate out of London. European products would get far more expensive, sure, but are British people going to actually dump them? I mean, if you're used to good Italian olive oil, French cheese and German cars, it might take a few years to switch to canola oil, American cheese and Geely-ies.

dragonwriter 8y ago

> The eurozone is about to go through the most significant change in decades with some sort of departure of the UK from the EU (Brexit). The UK may be leaving the EU, but that's not a change to the Eurozone, which is a monetary union among a subset of EU members, of which the UK has never been a part.

srge 8y ago
There still could be impact on trade, especially if we have a no-deal brexit.
- mcv 8y ago
  It will have impact on trade, but that's still more an issue for the EU as a whole rather than the Eurozone specifically. I consider it a typo; the author clearly meant the EU, but wrote Eurozone for some reason. I can't entirely blame them; the many European treaties are a complicated mess.
  - em500 8y ago
    Wikipedia has this handy overview: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Supranational_European_Bodies-en.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Supranational_European_Bo... Unfortunately as a citizen of one of the founding members of the EU, I don't even recognise half the flags in the diagram.
    - swarnie_ 8y ago
      Top right quarter of that image... I can name maybe two flags and that's only from European sports, the rest are actually a mystery. Give me the names and i'm sure i would know them, ask me to point them out on a blank map and we're straying back in to embarrassing territory again.
      - Fordec 8y ago
        I assume you mean the BSEG section is included? Off the top of my head Russia, Ukraine, Greece, Moldova, Turkey, Georgia, Northern Macedonia, Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Serbia, Belarus, Romania and Bulgaria are all there anyway. I think I've still missed a handful but I'm pretty happy with my European flag knowledge apparently from that. Acknowledgement: I would like to thank the Eurovision Song Competition apparently for my education

stevespang 8y ago

Impeachment will never happen. If you study recent history, an impeachment attempt on Trump will go down just like it did on Clinton - - strictly along party lines. The Clinton vote was razor accurate along party lines when it happened. No majority means no impeachment.

jsutton 8y ago
The case against Clinton was flimsy and grasping at straws, whereas the case against Trump looks to be incredibly damning. I think that'll make a difference this time, though party lines have become even more ingrained...
- SlowRobotAhead 8y ago
  Clinton lied under oath. That wasn’t flimsy, it was fact.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
ajross 8y ago
That's assuming the republicans remain cohesive, which assumes a unified voter base. It played that way in the Clinton impeachment for sure. That hasn't always happened historically. Nixon looked solidly in power until all of a sudden he didn't (though of course he resigned before any votes were cast on impeachment). I agree I wouldn't put money on Trump being removed, but neither would I be shocked if it happened. Things are more complicated than a whip count.
thomnottom 8y ago
Clinton was impeached.
- termie 8y ago
  ..by the Republican majority House of Representatives. It can be roughly equated to being charged with a crime. The Senate held a trial and voted for acquittal and therefore no action was taken. Two thirds of the Senate must vote to remove a President from office.

sremani 8y ago

>> I believe that we will have a different President of the United States by the end of 2019. The catalyst for this change will be a devastating report issued by Robert Mueller that outlines a history of illegal activities by our President going back decades, including in his campaign for President. I will only give weight-age to Mr.Wilson's prediction on this if he discloses whom he cast his Vote in 2016 and its not Hillary Clinton. Also, if you have an annual tradition of forecasting the upcoming year, please also make it a tradition of evaluating your previous year's prediction. Edit: Here are his predictions for 2018. Some he got right, but on lot of stuff he played it both ways and honestly expressed his lack of clarity. https://avc.com/2018/01/what-is-going-to-happen-in-2018/ https://avc.com/2018/01/what-is-going-to-happen-in-2018/

mywittyname 8y ago
Democrats will control 54% of the next House. So his prediction is much more likely in 2019 than in any previous years. There's no reason to think this is based on politically-motivated wishful thinking.
- jki275 8y ago
  That gives them the ability to functionally accomplish nothing, so it doesn't move the needle at all.
  - ianai 8y ago
    The majority in the house gains the chairman seats in all of the committees. We will see subpoena power used by democrats to investigate and ultimately inform the public on many things which the house republicans buried or ignored. Elections have consequences. My personal, political hope is that the democrats try to be productive with the republicans in Congress and the White House - but of course maximizing the results of their leverage on the process. Unfortunately, there’s not much room for optimism from how the republicans denied cooperation with the democrats during the last administration.
    - 8y ago

logicchains 8y ago

>China’s GDP has been slowing in recent years as it achieved relative parity with the US and the Eurozone: This is misleading; the relevant metric for measuring development is GDP per capita, which is only around $8,500 in China, compared to $59,000 for the US and and $33,000 for the EU (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...). The average person in China is much poorer than the average person in America or Europe; a significant portion are still subsistence farmers, the only reason absolute GDP is comparable with the US and Europe is that China's population is way bigger. One would only expect growth to slow when China's per-person GDP approaches that of a developed country, not it's total GDP.

ed_balls 8y ago
PPP per capita is a better metric, but far from ideal.
xiaq 8y ago
It depends on how much growth has been driven by international demand and how much by domestic demand. China has been heavily export-oriented in the past few decades.
oconnor663 8y ago
It's misleading if you're discussing individual standards of living, but it could be relevant if you're discussing trade wars or military power.
ttflee 8y ago
China's growth in the past 30 years largely depended on foreign direct investment and export. With current dispute on trade escalating to an all out trade war, the prospect in 2019 would be even more dimmer. If China invades Taiwan and further disrupts global supply chain, a such slower global growth could be expected.
beat 8y ago
"THE relevant statistic" (emphasis mine) is also misleading. Lots of different things measure development. It's not surprising that China is seeing some slowdown in growth, as they climb that curve. Jumping from $50 to $100 is easier than jumping from $5000 to $10,000. Or another way, a 10% growth rate at $1000 requires increasing revenue by $100. At $10,000, it means increasing by $1000. On top of that, China is an export-driven economy, and it's tangling with slowdowns among its customers (who aren't growing nearly as fast anyway), and a trade war with the US. edit: Rather than just measuring China vs "developed world", measure China vs China. The per capita GDP of China has increased a hundredfold in the past 50 years. To sustain that rate for another 50 years, per capita GDP would have to reach over $800,000 (in constant dollars). That seems... unlikely.

revskill 8y ago

A stable, extendable CRUD app is better than a hacky Deep Learning project, which only has fuzzy meaning in prediction and marketing.

keiferski 8y ago

This dramatically over-estimates the impact that a Trump impeachment would have - just like analysts in 2016 predicted that the economy would crash if Trump won. [1] In reality, the markets would likely respond to a Pence presidency with positivity. His reputation is far more "boring and dependable" than Trump's ever has been. 1. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/01/business/dealbook/what-happens-to-the-markets-if-donald-trump-wins.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/01/business/dealbook/what-ha...

olivermarks 8y ago
just like the Bush/Cheney relationship, it pays to watch Pence rather than Trump, who is arguably just a distraction.

fireattack 8y ago

Just FYI: lots of images in this article don't show on my end.

triviatise 8y ago

predictit has trump getting impeached by end of 2019 at 36 cents for yes. If mueller finds any "collusion" it is guaranteed impeachment. Old crimes possibly not. So predictit at least disagrees that mueller finds collusion. And as always if you are absolutely certain that mueller will find collusion, you can make some money. Put your money where your mouth is.

khacking 8y ago
Can you explain how it is guaranteed impeachment if Mueller finds collusion?

skywhopper 8y ago

VCs are going to talk up things that they’ve invested in, but his emphasis on crypto as meaningful in any way beyond a temporary buzzword and a sink for suckers’ money is pretty indicative of the amount of trust one should put in his predictions. Skimming his recent articles, including the look back at 2018, it’s clear he sees crypto as a hedge against political and economic instability, but the irony is that crypto’s primary use case is in _facilitating_ the destabilization of existing economic infrastructure. That’s its explicit goal! So it’s weird that someone so heavily invested in it thinks it’ll be a savior of society. But then again the author operates in a different economy than the rest of us... he’ll probably be just fine.

ianai 8y ago
One of my Econ classes posed a question “why would basing a currency on gold be bad” (some hint like that). Essentially, any currency with a finite supply and that can never increase will restrain economic growth.
- kuhhk 8y ago
  Yup. The word you’re trying to remember is a ‘deflationary’ currency. It encourages hoarding of the currency, rather than spending it.
  - ianai 8y ago
    I prefer to describe the mechanism than use a singular term in aide of explanation. You’re totally correct.
- ethbro 8y ago
  In the case of gold, there's also exploration, colonization, and foreign resource exploitation. There's probably an argument that one of the main drivers of European colonization was pursuit of a de facto increase in currency supply.
seibelj 8y ago
There are many kooky economic experiments in crypto right now that are not only 1) Not failing miserably, but 2) Are growing steadily. Decentralized financial products like MakerDAO and Compound Finance are very interesting. Augur is a prediction marketplace that was pilloried for having some 30 users per day when it launched, but now has around $2 million in open interest. It is very early days, and it is quite complicated to build new products and businesses given that the tooling is poor, the crypto networks are slow, and many mainstream technologists take endless pleasure in shitting on crypto and cheering when prices fall, but progress continues. I think cryptocurrencies and smart contracts have earned a seat at the table for disruptive technologies of the 21st century, along with cloud computing, AI / ML / big data, and smart phones.

lifeisstillgood 8y ago

My takeaway from this is most people are going to have a fearful 2019 my other takeaway - Be greedy when others are fearful, fearful when others are greedy"

paulpauper 8y ago

People said this exact same thing about trump in 2017 except with the impeachment date being 2018 instead of 2019. I would be willing to take the opposite side of that bet. The odds of impeachment are slim based on the rarity of past occurrences, and House democrats have expressed reservations about impeachment. Even if impeached, that does not mean he will leave office. China;s GDP has been slowing for over a decade. This is expected given how fast it was growing in the early and mid 2000's.

gadders 8y ago
I came here to say exactly the same thing. I'd be happy to stick money down on Trump still being in power by the end of 2019. And probably by the end of 2024 as well. I think it's an example of a Silicon Valley filter bubble.
- devy 8y ago
  Technically, Fred Wilson is based in New York though.
- lesss365 8y ago
  Here's your chance https://www.predictit.org https://www.predictit.org
  - iak8god 8y ago
    Specifically, https://www.predictit.org/markets/detail/3352/Will-Donald-Trump-be-president-at-year-end-2019 https://www.predictit.org/markets/detail/3352/Will-Donald-Tr... Currently about 73% yes
    - aidenn0 8y ago
      What's the overhead of trading on predictit because the impeachment[1] "yes" of 37% is way too close to the currently 30% "no" of him being in office; I think the odds of him ending the year as president if impeached is at least 50%, so there should be some way to arbitrage this. [edit] I suppose there is the chance of him pulling a Nixon and resigning before impeachment, as well as the chance of him dying. I consider both of those to be less likely; he is to confrontational to back down from just the threat of impeachment of a house with an opposition majority; if anything being impeached by a partisan vote would be fodder for his conservative base. 1: https://www.predictit.org/markets/detail/4319/Will-Donald-Trump-be-impeached-by-year-end-2019 https://www.predictit.org/markets/detail/4319/Will-Donald-Tr...

paulpauper 8y ago

My prediction is a lot of people's predictions for 2019 will be wrong. Look how many people were wrong about crypto currency in 2018. Or about the stock market.

chasing 8y ago

Trump will not resign the Presidency. And Congress certainly won’t remove him. 2019 and 2020 will see the country better learning to work around a President who acts on whims instead of information.

gfodor 8y ago

Guessing the direction of interest rates and speculation about supposed crimes the president did (for which at this point there has been no evidence of) is a pretty poor foundation to build predictions upon since there's a good chance rates stay flat in 2019 and Mueller comes up empty. In that scenario, the stock market still has downward pressure because of the insane valuations, but the storm clouds outlined here fade away for the most part. One 2019 prediction I have is a resurgence of interest in VR with the release of Oculus Quest. A lot of people have been quietly building for 5 years waiting for this. On politics I'll go out on a limb here and say that the FBI/DOJ will conclude a number of (under reported, multi-year) investigations and bring indictments for a large number of well-known politicians of both parties.

beat 8y ago
Actually, there's a lot of evidence for "supposed crimes of the president". Some of his closest advisors (Cohen, Flynn, Manafort) have been convicted of felonies. All of them have cooperated to some degree with Mueller. The fact that Mueller asked for no prison for Flynn says a great deal about how valuable Flynn's testimony has been. Who else would Flynn be testifying against that's so important to Mueller that he'd pay for it with a no-prison plea bargain? Don't let political bias blind to you the evidence. That said, I'm not at all convinced this will lead to impeachment, although it may lead to resignation. The House isn't going to impeach without a reasonable chance of success in the Senate, and I don't see twenty of McConnell's Republicans voting to destroy Trump, no matter what he did or what he's charged with doing.
- gfodor 8y ago
  I was referring to specific evidence that implies crimes were committed by Trump. So far, no such evidence has been revealed. Pointing to felony guilty pleas for unrelated crimes (except, perhaps, the Cohen campaign finance violation which gave him 6 months of his several year sentence and which arguably may have not been upheld in court) is just guilt-by-association and does not constitute evidence of an unseen crime. I'm perfectly happy to be proven wrong once the report comes out, and I hope that the results are plain as day in either direction, but if you think there has been any objective evidence uncovered by the press or leaked of a real crime being committed then you should also check your political bias. It may exist but it hasn't been made public.

joshuahedlund 8y ago

Same author's predictions from 2018: https://avc.com/2018/01/what-is-going-to-happen-in-2018/ https://avc.com/2018/01/what-is-going-to-happen-in-2018/

SlowRobotAhead 8y ago
Written just vague enough on almost all the points to seem credible without actually saying anything. Guy above gets it right, this 2019 post is SV Tech Bubble at its finest.

paulrpotts 8y ago

Ctrl-f "climate" Ctrl-f "carbon" Ctrl-f "green" Nothing of interest. Ctrl-W.

AnimalMuppet 8y ago
The only thing that could be of interest is the climate? That seems rather narrow-minded. Also, this is a list of predictions. It is therefore predicting that there will be not much action on the climate in 2019. That seems... plausible.
- paulrpotts 8y ago
  Yes, I agree that there is likely to be not much action. I'm interested in the political predictions as well, although I really don't find the arguments about what is going to come out of the Mueller investigation to be very compelling; I just don't think either R's or D's have enough political will to stop going along to get along. It's not that I don't think President 45 has committed many, many white-collar crimes; I just don't think anyone is going to hold him accountable, and I don't believe Mueller will actually indict the president.

gaius 8y ago

You have to wonder how much someone who doesn’t understand the difference between the EU and the Eurozone can confidently make predictions about either.

takanori 8y ago

So many people and content sites put out menaingless predictions that there is no consequence of being wrong on. Unless the author has sufficient skin in the game, for example they take a short position on the S&P to back up the predicted drop we as readers should not put much credence in “prediction listicles.”

pier25 8y ago

As a European I hope Trump will be impeached or he will renounce. It's the only way the US will regain any trust from other countries. For the average citizen Trump is the only image of the US they get on the news which is not very flattering.

cor87nowmg 8y ago
I hope it's proved that Trump didn't do anything substantially wrong. Then - instead of the world having to have overcome some terrible problem - I would only have to overcome the shame of having made a mistake. And I've been mistaken many times.
- pier25 8y ago
  I recommend everyone to watch the documentary "Active Measures". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WnYi3T78Ag https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WnYi3T78Ag Trump has been having business with the Russian mafia for decades.

LegendaryLegend 8y ago

To the author: thank you for having the courage to write your predictions, and ignore the haters that are more often than not incapable of doing the same, since it's a lot easier to critique than to create.

dkrich 8y ago

There is very little evidence that markets care much at all about what happens in Washington. If Trump resigns or doesn't it is very unlikely to have a lasting effect on equity prices. There's lots of evidence to back this up. When JFK was assassinated for example, equity prices rose in the weeks after. This does not suggest that the equity markets didn't like JFK necessarily, but rather that equity markets were primed to move higher and even extreme uncertainty around the presidency wasn't enough to alter their course. Prices are going to go where they are going to go. It makes some people happy to imagine markets disliking Trump, but the truth is they don't really care who is president, they only care about whether earnings are going to go up or down in the future, and the president just doesn't have much control over that save for tax rates which have already been accounted for in this administration. The Fed is far more likely to impact equity markets, but I think far too many (Wilson included) are too focused on the trend in rates without any consideration at all for the relative level of rates historically. It is true that a rising trend in rates is usually bearish for stocks, BUT it's very important to understand the trend in a broader context. Rates are still extremely low in a historical context and if the Fed pauses in 2019 and employment and consumer spending remain strong, stocks aren't likely to drop much more simply because 3% is not a satisfactory return for most people unless you are nearing retirement. So where else are you going to park your money? Probably stocks. Also, a company like Apple isn't going to be drastically effected by marginally higher rates when they were already close to zero. Sure, their cost of capital might go up by a quarter a percent. Is that really going to move the needle on their earnings significantly? Other companies that aren't profitable and heavily reliant on debt probably will be hurt, though. Here's what I believe is happening: the Fed did a very poor job of communicating its position and intent in late 2018 (probably because they themselves didn't know what they were going to do) and spooked the markets by saying they were going to hike several times in 2019. They then walked this back but the markets are still a bit uneasy. Sentiment always follows price, and now that prices have fallen and volatility has spiked, what are the pundits doing? Predicting price declines and higher volatility! Well, that's already happened so if you are selling stocks now and paying up for VIX calls, you're probably late to the party. In early 2018, most pundits were saying to buy stocks.