Predictions for 2003

Lew Rockwell asks some of the smartest people: What does the New Year hold?

William L Anderson: While I would like to give an optimistic forecast for the coming year, I fear that between the Alan Greenspan’s Federal Reserve and George W. Bush’s war machine, the prospects for real recovery are dim. I predict that Congress will pass another bogus “stimulus” package while adding to the real burdens of the economy by (1) soaking up available credit by running huge budget deficits and (2) not permitting the needed liquidation that must occur if the economy is to recover.

On the war front, while I believe the United States will achieve a semi-victory in war over Iraq, there will be the usual loose ends, as the “nation building” teams trying to rebuild Iraq will run into trouble. However, the USA may force Iraq to pay for its “rebuilding” by turning on the oil spigots there and driving down the world price of oil. Bush will sadly find that there are no easy “solutions” to putting the evil genie back in the bottle once it has been let out.

William L Anderson, Ph.D., teaches economics at Frostburg State University in Maryland, and is an adjunct scholar of the Ludwig von Mises Institute.

Peter Brimelow: The Iraq War will break out on February 4.

I know this for a fact because that’s the date of my book bashing the teacher union and the economics of government schools is published. In the past, my books’ pub dates have proved reliable indicators, as we say in the stock market – 1987 Crash on the day my Canadian book was published in the US; Oklahoma City bombing on the day my immigration book came out.

The one thing that puzzles me is how they’re going to keep this going long enough to re-elect W. (Does it have some other purpose?) Except for the fact that I have no plans to write another book, I would have said that, at the last minute, the Iraq attack would be delayed. As it is, I presume they will have to go after Saudi Arabia or Syria or, oh, somebody. In which case, we should be hearing a lot about a new terrorist country by the end of 2003.

Reimposing imperial rule throughout the Middle East will eventually lead to Algerian-type guerilla war/Intifada directed at the occupiers. It may take time, and in the interim there will be a lot of gloating. In fact, there will be gloating whatever happens.

Peter Brimelow , author of Alien Nation and other books, is a columnist for CBS Market Watch, and editor of VDARE.com.

Richard Cummings: Bush will attack Iraq. Bush will attack Iran. Bush will attack North Korea. Bush will attack Brazil. Bush will attack Zimbabwe. Bush will attack Ukraine. Bush will attack Bolivia. Bush will attack Latvia. Bush will attack Angorra. Bush will attack San Marino. Bush will attack Burkina Faso. Bush will attack Sri Lanka. Bush will attack Bangladesh. Howard Dean will announce for president. John Kerry will announce for president. John Edwards will announce for president. Joseph Lieberman will announce for president. Hillary Clinton will announce for president. Chuck Schumer will announce for president. Richard Gephardt will announce for president. Nancy Pilosi will announce for president. Wilber Mills will announce for president. Harold Stassen will announce for president. Marion Barry will announce for president. Rev. Al Sharpton will announce for president. Bush will attack Trinidad. Evan Bayh will announce.... Bush will attack.... etc. etc.

Richard Cummings taught international law at the Haile Selassie I University and before that, was Attorney-Advisor with the Office of General Counsel of the Near East South Asia region of USA.I.D, where he was responsible for the legal work pertaining to the aid program in Israel, Jordan, Pakistan and Afghanistan. He is the author of a new novel, The Immortalists, as well as The Pied Piper – Allard K. Lowenstein and the Liberal Dream, and the comedy, Soccer Moms From Hell. He holds a Ph.D. in Social and Political Sciences from Cambridge University and is a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers

Karen De Coster: US politicos will find yet another foreign adversary, beyond Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, to be their new poster child for helping to justify their warmaking activities – perhaps some guy in Pakistan or India that George W. never heard of before.

The Caesars of the US Empire will find yet another foreign land where American-style “democracy” desperately needs to take a foothold in order to keep intact the growth of the military-industrial complex, complete with its modern aspirations of peacekeeping, feeding the entire third world, and propping up third-world despots in gold-laden palaces.

Britany Spears will cease to matter, and Americans will once again discover that singing well is important for a singer.

The war on Iraq will get a snappy, Orwellian name – something to the tune of “Operation Democratic Development” or “It’s for the Children.”

Karen De Coster, CPA, is a paleolibertarian freelance writer, graduate student in Austrian Economics, and a business professional from Michigan. Her first book is currently in the works.

David Gordon: The efforts by George Bush to involve the United States in war with Iraq will meet with strong resistance in Congress. A few Congressmen, led by Ron Paul, will recall that the Constitution gives Congress, not the president, the power to declare war.

They will not be put off by assurances from their “leaders” that Bush has deigned to consult them.

David Gordon is author of LRC’s Books on Liberty, a senior fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, and editor of The Mises Review.

Paul Gottfried: Fox News will hire Netanyahu to work for it as a foreign “conservative” correspondent. David Frum and/or Jonah Goldberg will receive a top-level public relations job at the White House. The Bush administration will move even closer to endorsing racial quotas in an effort to reach out. President Bush will issue next year a Kwanzaa greeting even more obsequious than the one his office just produced. Republicans will proclaim this a compassionate, conservative document. The US regime will invade Iraq and after overthrowing the government will set up a viceregency pending the end of the world. In the coming year Bill Buckley will look even more decrepit and sound even more like Jonah Goldberg.

Paul Gottfried is professor of history at Elizabethtown College and author of, most recently, the highly recommended Multiculturalism and the Politics of Guilt.

Ryan McMaken: The United States will become increasingly irrelevant in East Asia as South Korea and Japan become aware that the United States is either unwilling or unable to deal with the new regional realities of emerging China and nuclear North Korea. South Korea’s Roh, and Japan’s Koizumi will become increasingly dependent on anti-American rhetoric as the global depression persists in Asia. Kim Jong Il will continue to be far more dangerous and unpredictable than Saddam Hussein could ever be.

Ryan McMaken is editor of the Western Mercury.

Joseph R Stromberg: The Feds will announce further red, orange, fuscia, and paisley “emergencies.”

Whatever draconian measures the Feds propose to meet these “emergencies,” Charles Hammer-of-the-Krauts will write that even more should be done because, after all, the government is sovereign and has every right to cut off our legs, if in its wisdom, only this will meet the threat, whatever it is.

Jonah Goldberg will once more display the depths of his ignorance of the history of the right wing movement in America. Paul Gottfried will respond and Goldberg will dismiss him as a crank.

Freerepublic.com will collapse under the sheer weight of the stupidity generated there daily. It will be reborn as Fascists-R-Us.com.

Michael Ledeen will call for Trotskyist Permanent Revolution everywhere. As a reward, he will be named head of the US-UK Occupation Regierung in Mesopotamia. His new slogan will be “Umsiedlung der Palestiner.”

The various “wars” will go well during 2003. The bad news will come in, in 2004.

Joseph R Stromberg is holder of the JoAnn B Rothbard Chair in History at the Ludwig von Mises Institute and a columnist for LewRockwell.com and Antiwar.com

Paul Craig Roberts: In 2003 the story will be confirmed that the US invasion of Iraq was a secret Israeli plan designed to involve the US long-term in the Arab-Israeli conflict, cynically sold to the Bush White House by neoconservatives as a reelection strategy.

Dr Roberts is John M Olin Fellow at the Institute for Political Economy and Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is a former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal and a former assistant secretary of the US Treasury. He is the co-author of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.

Bob Wallace: The world will not end, so Jesus will not be returning anytime soon.

Osama bin Laden will continue to stay dead, although more doctored audio tapes with some guy who sounds like him might show up.

George Bush will still make verbal gaffes.

Bob Wallace , a former newspaper reporter and editor, and an incurable lover of puns from St. Louis, is now traveling the country.

Jude Wanniski: Where 2002 was a year of wars being threatened, the new year will be a year of peaceful, diplomatic resolutions to the major trouble spots in the world, most especially Iraq and North Korea. Baghdad’s willingness to cooperate with the United Nations in every regard has made it impossible for the War Party in Washington to insist on war to oust Saddam Hussein. A year from now Saddam will still be in power, having been cleared by the inspection team, which would make it impossible for the President to pull the trigger. North Korea has been trying to get our attention, as it wishes to rejoin the family of nations and prosper to the level of South Korea. Here again, Secretary of State Colin Powell is amassing points on the way to a Nobel Peace Prize. As these black clouds dissipate, Wall Street will respond positively.

Jude Wanniski is the author of The Way the World Works, and proprietor of Polyconomics.com

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