My predictions for 2023

 Here were my predictions on conditions at the end of 2022 as made on New Year's Eve, 12 months ago:

Dow Jones         37650

S and P               5178

NASDAQ           17258

Unemployed        3.8%

Microsoft            365

Oil                       80

CPI                      3.9%    

The actual end of year as of today.

Dow Jones            33148         

S and P                  3839

NASDAQ            10466.5

Unemployed         3.7%

Microsoft              239.82

Texas Crude Oil    80.51

CPI                         6.1%

Like most of the world, I was caught with my pants down with regards to    predictions on inflation and the major declines in the market.

My prediction for December 31, 2023:

Dow Jones           36000

S and P                4500

NASDAQ           10800

Unemployed         5%

Microsoft             300

Texas Crude Oil    90

CPI                       5%

Historically, bad years in the market are usually followed by decent years. We will have a mild recession, but things will get better in the fall. Prices for hardware will go down but food prices will not diminish, only stop rising. The Eagles will be in the Super Bowl in January of 2023 but lose. They will not do as well in the fall. 

Boxing Day

Today we get to experience what it is like to live in Great Britain and to experience Boxing Day. This is the holiday which follows Christmas and is a legal holiday. This only occurs when Christmas is on a Sunday. The government isn't really open on Sundays anyway, so they have to close the post office, libraries, garbage disposal, town hall, etc. on the following Monday. Because of the bad weather on Friday and Saturday, Monday would normally be the day when we could get on with our lives but things are at a standstill in many areas because Monday is a legal holiday, ie. an English Boxing Day. 

I know I'm being a Scrooge but I'd like to throw out my Christmas refuse but the cans are all filled. I'd like to get the mail. I'd like to borrow a library book. Humbug. 

At least most of the stores are open. I went to my favorite supermercado and was able to use the self check out. It went smoothly. No message "unknown item in the baggage area". Don't repeat this but I think supermarket clerks quietly disable the scale for purchased items when they are short staffed. You didn't hear it from me. 

 

Those Frances Ha years

Recently I noticed that Hulu was featuring that hipster classic, Frances Ha. It's fun to watch it again now that it is no longer the newest thing. Surprisingly to me, it turned out not to be a dated retread of hipster Brooklyn in the 0-0s but a depiction of a period in our lives that many of us (not including engineering majors) went through in that period between college and our adult lives. 

Many of us nostalgically remember that fun time when we went home from college without a job, any money, a significant other, or a practical career. This was the time when we were home all day, if not at an occasional stint as a Kelly girl. That period when we smoked dope while driving in the afternoon and having occasional sex on the back porch. 

During this period, I drove to California and back, saw the Rocky Horror Picture Show at midnight, walked around Greenwich Village, and bought books and records. I still have my old Fugs records. At night I slept in my old room, the radio now playing Bob Fass instead of Cousin Brucie. 

Of course, Greta Gerwig had a less certain residence than mine, depending on friend relationships to determine her lodging rather than sleeping in her old bedroom. She has fun strutting the streets, but I am uncertain of her balletic skills that she is banking on.

She does get to go to neat parties, she is in the city and not in Hackensack. She has nice conversations, but drinks too much and overindulges. She takes a trip to Paris she can't afford and is told not to rely on  the bank of Mom and Dad. 

Eventually I drove out west to find my fortune and became a member of the workaday, car driving, tax paying masses. This last step on the road to adulthood is harder for the young today. It's not enough to find one's identity anymore what with high rents and student debt and all. 

Thanksgiving shopping

One of the aggravations of November is shopping before Thanksgiving. Especially if you are not planning to serve an extended family on Turkey Day, the unexpected crowds in the supermarket can be a bit daunting. 

Walking through the store I spotted an older lady looking at pies. I wanted to shout to her, "Your children don't want a pie from ShopRite, they want a homemade pie!"  Seeing the freezers filled with turkeys I thought "Thank goodness I don't have to buy one of those things." 

The cashiers were all encumbered with long lines of shoppers with full carts. I decided to take my chances on the self-check-out line. I inserted my bag in the slots and filled it up with groceries and toothpaste. The secret is you have to make sure the scale underneath the bag registers all of your stuff or they will think you are stealing something. I literally had to juggle items on the top of the bag to make sure they all registered. I thought I was finished.

Then I was faced with a moral dilemma. I had neglected to pay for a bag of cooked salmon. It was hidden underneath the slot on the cart. I purchased the item, even though I could have gotten away with quietly putting it in my shopping bag. I figured I just shaved off time on my future stay in Purgatory. 

Later that night I was reading Slate and there was an article on Thanksgiving shopping. It talked about stores and their Thanksgiving give aways. That reminded me to check my receipt from the store. I looked at it and saw that jumping jippiders I won a turkey! The salmon had put me over the top!

Since I had a Thanksgiving invitation, I called my hostess and she told me she didn't need another turkey but could use a ham. Hence the ham I am about to bake. According to the Internet, it will require 3 and half hours and cloves. I'm sorry but I'm not going back to the store to buy cloves.    

King may fire ladies in waiting

Looking through the news I see many horrific stories but the one that has upset me the most is the news that King Charles III, in a cost cutting measure, is thinking of making the ladies in waiting redundant. I have always looked at the job of being a lady in waiting as the one job I would most like to have, if only I was a posh English woman. How much fun it must be to kibbitz with the queen, advise on table settings, walk the horses at Balmoral and do other tasks. So much more fascinating than laboring along in a civil service job. Tempora mutantur. 

Why he won't be indicted

 

There has been a lot of speculation on what would happen if you-know-who is indicted. I suspect that is one of the reasons our Attorney General has appointed a special prosecutor to handle the case. There is a desire, a sensible desire, to keep our airports running, our interstates functioning, our state houses open and landmarks like Rockefeller Center making money off of tourists. A special prosecutor can delay things until he is somebody else's headache. 

You-know who is indicted. Thousands of white men in 18 wheelers converge and close the Capitol. Our interstates are closed as trucks block the entranceways and converge around the perimeters of our major airports. Armed male senior citizens men shoot down tourists at random in Times Square and Christmas markets nationwide. 

Its easier to let one guy get away with something than to cause chaos. To get along, you go along. 

Editor's note: William S. Burroughs describes this sort of thing in Naked Lunch. 

I voted!

One of the weird things I like to do that most people don't do is vote in stockholder elections. Today I was given the opportunity to vote my shares in the upcoming Microsoft election. I feel so powerful, influencing the makeup of a major worldwide corporation, even if I have an infinitesimal amount of shares. I like the sticking it to the man feeling of voting against the management recommendations. I voted to take the climate and staff diversity into consideration by the board, even though they were against it. The sixties still live on.