International Law

Predictions for 2009

By Stan

1. The stock market will, for the first time in history, move into negative territory. Yes, companies will be paying you to hold their crappy shares.

2. Commercial leases will become so inexpensive that the guys selling lamb chuan(r) on the street will be able to move into storefront operations (without raising their prices).

3. Following the FBI, INS, and FDA, the Tennessee Valley Authority will open an office in Beijing.

4. I will finish writing my novel. The good one, not the crappy one about a superhero from Hunan who fights crime with his incredible guanxi.

5. By the end of the year, my employer will have more people on the payroll (globally) than General Motors.

6. Advances in biotech will allow Google to become a human flesh search engine before the year is out.

7. After running out of other ideas, Tencent and Shanda will collaborate on a new MMOG, the goal of which is to go on quests to discover as many embedded advertisements as possible.

8. Buoyed by successes against pirates on the high seas, China’s anti-piracy confidence will propel it to take a firm line against IP infringement. [I'm an optimist.]

9. Bernard Madoff, after miraculously avoiding jail time in the U.S., will be hired by a Chinese search engine to head up their ad sales department.

10. Thousands of terminated financial analysts and fund managers from New York and London will invade Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing, increasing the asshole quotient in these locales to intolerable levels.

Full post as published by China Hearsay on December 31, 2008 (boomark / email).