If no one wants to guess, that's fine--but I'm interested to read them if anyone is willing to have a go!

But there has to be a first, so here's mine (oh woe!):

Financial - This whole situation is completely broken.  There are debts that are never going to be paid off.  Someone is going to end up losing out--so far they say it will be future generations, but I don't see govts. having the nouse to work out a system so that works.  It's going to come grinding to a halt sometime next summer--if it can limp on that far.  In the meantime, Jerome (and people like him) will have had a ChrisCook-like illumination and will suddenly be selling futures in production, risk up front in the manufacture, payment as value comes on line--what other choices will there be?  The financial system has no way out because it can't bear to just lose all the assets held by the rich...or whatever...if food isn't getting through because credit notes aren't available, suddenly a huge company is going to leap on the Chris model, bypass the whole thing, maybe your cooperative can be part of such a thing--suddenly markets will be there, maybe supermarkets coming to you and saying, "Okay, we'll buy it all, we'll pay as we sell, we'll pay you in..."--okay, euros, because currencies will still exist,

(you see how bad I am at this?! ;)

Manufacturing (okay, call it Production):

Obama will make a start and immediately get held up by Congress or the Senate or somesuch, but maybe some states will just get on with it (or there'll be a boom in those who are already starting); there'll be informal trade links between states...I'm sure there are already, but there's going to be a positive domino effect as best practice spreads...sorta what we read here from some US posters, where they're already up to University size, community size, all this being helped (technology-wise) by those PhDs that Obama is putting in charge of, what is it--energy?  The ocean?--they're wedded to best practice, not The Democrats, so boom!  But then along come lawyers, special interests.  But hold on...they aren't so many now...if the banking system croaks in June the rats'll be fleeing, by December--the rise of all kinds of strange political animals....

Obama being wise, grabs on, "Now is not the time to be fighting wars against people we don't know for reasons we don't understand!" some piece of roman rhetoric...

heh!  You see how bad I am at all this?  My lord, just how wrong can a person be?

China: crazy amounts of construction of all kinds.  Huge smog cloud hovering over the land, getting thicker.  What'll happen?  Ikernov nussink---my guesses are worse than silence!

Issa Yuletime where I is, the year's winding down, all the bugs are hopping around, the pound drops 20% against the euro in a week, or was it a month or a day, oil goes from $150 to $40 in a month or was it a week?  Crazy oscillations--no chance of making a prediction!  But...I'm sure everyone has some ideas fermenting...I'd like to read 'em if anyone wants to post 'em.

I'm sure they'll be better than mine--let's say I set a low bar.  (So's we can keep drinking all the way down.)

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.