The future

Today it's now April 1 of 2009, the day I predict the bottom of the economy can be experienced. I have other predictions for the future. If my predictions are true I will become famous and get a book contract. If my predictions turn out to be false, I can always say it all was an April Fool's Joke.

One year from today, ie. April 1, 2010:

The Dow Jones will be over 9,000.

The Standard and Poors Index will be over 1,000.

NASDAQ will be around 2000 and people will like Microsoft Windows 7.

The unemployment rate will be 6.5.

Obama will be unpopopular as a president. Fighting in both Iraq and Afghanistan will be heavy and things will not look well on the warfront. Hillary will have a mini scandal involving finance.

Housing and gasoline will be up 15% for the year.

Ugly Betty will be cancelled, but a movie will be planned.

Governor Steve Lonegan of New Jersey will be unpopular with Jim Gearhardt for betraying the taxpayers of New Jersey. Former Governor Corzine will announce his engagement to Carla Katz.

April Fools!

April Fools Day one year later

Reuters Factbox for today.


My predictions from a year ago.

Unemployment rate is 9.8% not 6.5%. That was my major mistake. And no wedding for Governor Corzine. Oh well. Happy Holy Thursday. Enjoy your novenas.

The predictions

Starting to look at how I did on my predictions. Of course it isn't April Fools Day but I can see that my predilections were sort of right. The market is up and we have a Republican governor in New Jersey. Looks like I was overly optimistic on the employment numbers. The rich get richer and the poor have babies.

When things will turn around

All the prognosticators are in a dizzy. The economy is not behaving the way it's supposed to. However, most economists assume the market will eventually go up again. Unemployment will eventually go down, it will leave a few corpses, but it will go down.

Perhaps this is optimistic but one day things will start to get better. I'm going to make a prediction, based on the date of the trials of the Templar's. I predict the market will reach its trough on April Fools Day. After that it will start to go up. Same with housing. As one of my Texas relatives said once, “One thing they can’t make more of is land. So I’m going to get me some of it.”

This may seem unscientific but I have made my prediction and I'm sticking to it. We have nothing to lose but our jobs and our life savings.

Tax season

It's tax season again. I didn't do too bad this year. All that extra pension money and health care money I had to kick in this year seems to have rewarded me with a better tax bill. This year Amazon took out sales tax so I didn't have to pay that on my state form. Even Turbo Tax upgraded me to Premium (they no longer accept 1099 - B forms on Deluxe) and it doesn't look like they charged me for the honor. I should be getting a nice refund which I can use to fix my dripping shower.

Like driving, doing taxes is one of those things most of us learn from the old man. My first year to pay taxes he gave me the forms and we went through them line by line. He said always do them in pencil first. Then a few days later transfer them to pen. When you are finished always put it away for a week then come back to it. Like wine, tax forms apparently have to age a little. When the time comes, go over the forms again and send them in March.

My father, an accountant, used to get tax receipts from his brother. He didn't like doing his brother's forms. He always suspected he was cheating but my uncle was probably just disorganized.

They always say "do as I say not as I do". My father always had to drive down to the post office at 10 PM on the night of the fifteenth of April and have the guy postmark his letter so he wouldn't be late. The next day he could celebrate the end of tax season and his birthday.

As a librarian I also have many memories of tax time. The IRS is no longer giving public libraries instruction books. You would think they could find another way to save money.

Editor's note: A cute blog on the demise of Radio Shack is in my Sixties blog. If I took advertising this would be my first sponsor.

Windows XP

I remember working in a public library on the  Y2K project. It was a really big deal. The head of technical services insisted on disconnecting all the computers from power sources in case there was a power surge. The theory was that at midnight, New century's eve, fires might break out, destroying all the library's computers. It was a scary time. I think he would have turned off the hot water heater if the door to the maintenance room wasn't locked.

Now we are in a somewhat similar situation. Many of us, due to complacency, poverty, or just procrastination,  still have XP on at least one of our computers. Yet we all have been told that on April 8 Microsoft will no longer support Windows XP. It has not risen to the level yet of people unplugging their desktops in case their computers catch fire on that day. Still, it is worrisome. Oh My, what are we going to do?

Microsoft wants us all to buy Windows 8. Unfortunately that costs over a hundred dollars and older computers oftentimes don't have enough juice to run the thing. One suggestion I have heard is using Ubunto and switching to Linux. That may work but some of us are afraid of Linux. What happens if we can't get email on the thing? Linux. Oh My!!!

One thing I heard is that if you use Google Chrome as a search engine and ITunes to listen to audio you may be okay for a while. That seems the easiest, if not the safest solution. Sort of like taking aspirin to ward off a heart attack.

Editor's note: I have installed Ubuntu on an old notebook of mine. Seems to work, but it's a liitle klutzy. I like the way it gives you jungle drums instead of beeping at you if you do something wrong.