You no longer see those old guys on the street with the signs declaring ‘The end of the world is nigh’, but that might be because wars, hurricanes, and the threat to Social Security and pensions have made toting placards superfluous. In 2000 there was a sigh of relief from the superstitious that another cycle had gone by without Armageddon, but just a half-decade later there is a distinctly millennial whiff in the polluted air.
Just think alpha and omega, the beginning and end beloved of eschatologists everywhere. The hurricane system became Greek for all of us this year, as the Latin alphabet let the meteorologists down, and Tropical Storm Alpha ambled its windy way north, while Beta battered Nicaragua. The administration and some oil companies present the equivalent of the rear end of an ostrich with its head in the sand declaring that carbon dioxide and global warming are not hurrying the hurricanes along.
We have feisty politicians lining up Iran and Syria to take people’s minds off Iraq and, in Washington, half the White House seems to be pending indictment. Meanwhile, the best-selling fiction in the US is the Left behind series about the Rapture, when the saved will be, well, saved, and we unsaved will have to deal with the Antichrist. There is even a movie version coming.
Faced with all this apocalyptic evidence, we should, of course, be taking the long view. If the end of the world really is coming, we should learn to live with it. So what does the harvest offer for 2006 for the IR magazine equivalent of the Farmers’ almanac?
In my prophet and loss mode, I would certainly unload any real estate in the southern ‘red’ states, since whichever deity steers hurricanes seems to be sending them a strong message, and will almost certainly continue to do so, seeing as the SUV buyers in the region don’t seem to be getting it. The Sunbelt was rescued from pellagra and segregation by air-conditioning, but energy prices are rising and most air-conditioners don’t work underwater.
I would drop almost all US auto makers – not for the usual reasons of legacy health plans but for their unhealthy plans. Building bigger and greedier SUVs, while ignoring the long waiting list for Japanese-made hybrid vehicles, is anticipating the fate of the dinosaurs: big, stupid and extinct.
With the continuing casualty rate in overseas wars, and the anarchy that Hurricane Katrina caused, look out for companies making hybrid armored jeeps for city drivers, and remember that you can never go wrong with accessories. I see in my crystal ball that there will be a boom market in personal protection devices, such as body armor adapted from military to civilian use, perhaps with warrior queen breastplates to feminize them.
Watch out for similarly practical fashion accessories: purses with electric shock devices against bag snatchers; small GPS devices that show where you are when the wind and the rioters have destroyed all the street signs; and water purification tablets just in case you are stuck downtown during the floods.
On the positive side, as all those pseudo-Confucian business gurus point out, the Chinese ideogram for crisis is the same as the one for opportunity – making the end of the world the mother of all opportunities for entrepreneurial spirits. Happy new year, readers.
