Predictions 2017....

[Tim Liston]

This time of year I like reading other people’s predictions for upcoming year, especially from some of my favorite bloggers. So I thought I’d post a handful here. Go ahead and post yours too. Let’s get some action down here in the hinterlands of the Deck….

That said, I just read Doug Kass’ 2017 predictions and they’re more interesting than mine (most others are). I’ve been reading Doug’s stuff for years, so I’ll post this link (click here) to his 15+ predictions for 2017. Among them….

…Sears announces bankruptcy very early in 2017. (Certainly plausible. Brick and mortar department stores are blue in the lips and Sears/Kmart is the worst of the bunch, and has been struggling for years even under the Auto Zone guy.)
…Donald Trump’s security people convince him to stop tweeting. (Who knows….)
…No more Fed rate increases despite Fed assertions otherwise. (This one is a “lock” IMO. Look to Japan.)
…Fracking goes global. (Other countries are even less concerned about environmental damage than we are in the U.S. That “tragedy of the commons” thing….)

Now I’m gonna add a few of my own….

…By EOY 2017, it becomes apparent that Uber is no juggernaut. In my opinion, Uber is little more than an app. It has established no enduring competitive advantage and even if they did there’s no “winner-take-all” opportunity in ride-sharing. Plus the automakers, among others, are undoubtedly not standing still. And Uber is blowing through billions of dollars of investors’ money. Every Uber ride you take is paid for about 2/3 by you and 1/3 by its investors. That can’t go on forever and 2017 is the year economic reality catches up. Their owners/founders will still be quite rich, but they overplayed their hand in their approach to going public. Oops….

…Greater Cleveland finally gets a Menards. Ground is actually broken. They’ll pick one of the two sites they have earmarked, hopefully Avon. Hooray! If you’ve never been to a Menards you don’t’ know what you’re missing. The one in Sandusky is about the only store I ever set foot in anywhere. That and Costco.

…Locally, First Federal of Lakewood becomes FFL Bank in 2017, renouncing “Lakewood.” It worked for PNC (FKA Pittsburgh National Corp.) and it will work for First Fed Lakewood.

…One of the biggest science events of 2017 will be a total solar eclipse. On August 21, a diagonal swath of the U.S. from Oregon to Kansas to South Carolina will go dark. (OK I’m pretty sure of this one. Put the date in your calendar. Better yet, arrange a summer-ending vacation to that area. Join some friends. It will be fun to see. I might join my daughter in Colorado.)

…The Northwestern Wildcats will win the Big 10 conference football championship next fall, but they won’t advance to the BCS. (Yea I know…. Longshot…. Homer….)

I’ve been bookmarking others’ predictions and I’ll come back here from time-to-time over the next week or two. Some of the others are more socio-cultural and maybe of more interest. And I know you’re breathlessly awaiting my stock market prediction! In the meantime post your thought-provoking 2017 predictions below. Let’s rock the Global Discussion. Jim said we could moderate our own threads down here….

[mjkuhns]

No predictions at the moment, but…

…By EOY 2017, it becomes apparent that Uber is no juggernaut. In my opinion, Uber is little more than an app.

My own pet theory about Uber is that it was, in some sense, planned as another Netflix, i.e. a placeholder service to preemptively capture the market for a technology regarded as inevitable. Netflix shipped discs in the mail while waiting for internet video streaming to ripen; Uber, I presume, has been paying drivers in the expectation that computer-driven vehicles will shortly wipe those costly payments off the books, and turn the company mega-profitable. Which might be a sound strategy, but perhaps Uber's predictions of how quickly it would pay off were overoptimistic.

…Greater Cleveland finally gets a Menards. Ground is actually broken. They’ll pick one of the two sites they have earmarked, hopefully Avon. Hooray! If you’ve never been to a Menards you don’t’ know what you’re missing.

I have not been to a Menard's for years, but the chain certainly has a loyal following. I have one or two relatives back in Iowa (where the stores have been a presence for decades) who are almost daily visitors.