
What Is Going to Happen in 2019 - vinnyglennon
https://avc.com/2019/01/what-is-going-to-happen-in-2019/
======
paulpauper
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
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.

~~~
lesss365
Here's your chance

[https://www.predictit.org](https://www.predictit.org)

~~~
iak8god
Specifically, [https://www.predictit.org/markets/detail/3352/Will-Donald-
Tr...](https://www.predictit.org/markets/detail/3352/Will-Donald-Trump-be-
president-at-year-end-2019)

Currently about 73% yes

~~~
aidenn0
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-
Tr...](https://www.predictit.org/markets/detail/4319/Will-Donald-Trump-be-
impeached-by-year-end-2019)

~~~
iak8god
10% on gains, plus 5% on withdrawals:
[https://predictit.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/5...](https://predictit.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/5000516383-what-
are-your-fees-)

The volume may be too low to do much arbitrage.

------
logicchains
>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_(nomi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_\(nominal\)_per_capita)).
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.

~~~
beat
"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.

~~~
srcmap
Agree with your comments.

Adding few other points:

* China's new infrastructures are good and modern. (+)

* Education system is reasonable - produce large number of engineers, college educated young people. (+)

* Entrepreneurial spirits/activities are very high in a lot of cities. (+)

* The new roads system are mostly build/own with private money and adding non-trivial cost to the normal business when they need to transport goods. As compare to the highway system in the US. (-)

* The society is NOT govern by the rule of law. It is govern by the will of the Party and who ever is in power. As shown recently by the some famous actors, actress go fine massive amount because of tax issues. The new rules show up one day can cause the majority movie industry disappear in a few weeks. (-)

* The housing bubble is a big issue similar to what happen to Japan 20+ years ago. (-)

* The debt in private industries and local government are BIG issue. (-)

* The central government has recently created new much stricter rules about people (local/business ) taking the money out of China. It looks good on the surface for majority of population when present as rich people's issue. But imagine a bank allow for deposit but only allow for redraw of $100 per day. With that kind of policy, no business would trust a country enough to do new or continue investments.
    
    
      * The old reformer (DengXiaoPeng)'s believe:  It doesn't matter if it is a black cat or a white cat, if it can catch a mouse, it is a good cat.
    
    
      * The new believe:   Those black/write cats who turn into fat cats have served their purposes.    It is harvest time.....
     
    
      * Overall, it don't look good for China in near/long term.

~~~
logicchains
>As shown recently by the some famous actors, actress go fine massive amount
because of tax issues.

To be fair, she only got a fine and detention for a few months. US actor
Wesley Snipes was jailed for 3 years for tax evasion.

------
dragonwriter
> 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
There still could be impact on trade, especially if we have a no-deal brexit.

~~~
mcv
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
Wikipedia has this handy overview:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Supranational_European_Bo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Supranational_European_Bodies-
en.svg)

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_
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
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

~~~
swarnie_
That is the section yes along with CEFTA which i assume is whatever happened
after Yugosalavia broke up. I can only pull Greece, Russia and turkey from
that.

------
skywhopper
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.

~~~
ThomPete
While I agree there is a lot of BS in the crypto world I think we are dealing
with a classic case of overestimating in the short run and underestimating in
the long run.

Instead of starting with decentralization in your thinking and then trying to
find value through that, start instead with de-institutionalization. The
potential of crypto is not the individual currency but the network of
currencies.

Our parents/grandparents invented the internet but didn't find ways to turn it
into what it is today. Our generation invented the blockchain but it will be
our kids who will end up turning it into valuable infrastructure. They will
not be limited to understanding and applying it like we do but be able to
think about it from a "born blockchain" perspective.

We keep trying to think how we can use it for things we already have solutions
for which is of course not really going to do much. Instead we have to think
about things that we don't have solutions for and which can't be done easily.

CryptoKitties is one of the best examples of how this can be used and if you
think that is silly then you are right so are many other ideas that end up
turning into amazing businesses.

So I say, let a million cryptocurrencies bloom it's the network itself that's
the utility not the individual currency.

~~~
hannasanarion
>Our parents/grandparents invented the internet but didn't find ways to turn
it into what it is today.

Repeating this over and over again doesn't make it true. Google, Amazon, and
Ebay we're established in the first year of the eternal September, and
immediately started changing people's lives. We're 10 years after Bitcoin, and
still with nothing to show for it but money laundering and pump and dump
schemes.

~~~
ThomPete
It doesn't make it false either.

The blockchain is a protocol, not a company.

The TCP/IP protocol was decades old before it became useful to build companies
on top of exactly because it required A LOT of networked connectivity, people
to make various investments and critical mass from users.

Give it time.

~~~
hannasanarion
In the early days of TCPIP, you needed a university membership to get access,
and network-capable computers were even more rare. So you're saying that there
aren't enough networked computers for blockchain to be viable?

We're currently sitting at around 8 networked devices for every human being,
how many more do we need? 15? 20? What is holding blockchain back, since it is
definitely not university membership?

~~~
ThomPete
No.

I am saying that there aren't enough cryptocurrencies and thus the network is
not pervasive enough to become infrastructure plus it's still mostly academic
and you need to understand it conceptually to start making sense of it.

Most people don't even most of those who are involved in it.

------
joshuahedlund
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
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.

------
paulpauper
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.

------
lifeisstillgood
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"

------
weinzierl
> 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.

~~~
monkeynotes
> 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
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.

------
keiferski
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-
ha...](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/01/business/dealbook/what-happens-to-
the-markets-if-donald-trump-wins.html)

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

------
takanori
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.”

------
gaius
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.

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

------
triviatise
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.

------
paulrpotts
Ctrl-f "climate" Ctrl-f "carbon" Ctrl-f "green"

Nothing of interest. Ctrl-W.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
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
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.

------
chasing
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.

------
dkrich
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.

------
stevespang
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.

~~~
thomnottom
Clinton was impeached.

~~~
termie
..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.

~~~
thomnottom
Correct. But the OP was stating that impeachment would never happen and
pointing to what happened with Clinton. But impeachment is exactly what
happened with Clinton. And the prediction does not state that he will be
removed from office by the Senate, but that he will resign after impeachment
to avoid prosecution. This is an entirely reasonable prediction based upon
current and historical events.

------
pier25
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
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
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.

------
gfodor
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
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.

~~~
ryanbrunner
It's not unthinkable that a decent number of Republicans would flip, but a
precondition of that would probably need to be a plummeting approval rating
for Trump, which hasn't borne out so far - despite all the controversy, he
still seems to have a 35-40% floor.

One interesting thing about Trump is that he has some of the most stable
(albeit somewhat low) approval ratings of any president that there's reliable
data for. But he's gone from "historically unpopular" to "about as popular as
Reagan, Ford or Clinton" at this point in his presidency.

------
sremani
>> 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/)

~~~
notacoward
> 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.

That basically amounts to saying that you don't believe a Clinton voter can be
objective. That's evidence of bias on your part, not his.

~~~
sremani
That is my heuristic, is it sound? perhaps not. I have said "I will give
weightage" not you should not take his prediction seriously.

I am biased and flawed, and I agree with your assessment.

