Serving the High Plains

Taking shot at new year predictions

Happy New Year!

The fact that today begins year 2020 makes one think in visionary terms.

With that in mind, I will venture some predictions.

The first: By the time next year rolls around, I will have forgotten these predictions as will my readers. My prediction record is terrible, anyway.

For Quay County and New Mexico:

n State coffers are swimming in oil and natural gas tax revenues. That means Tucumcari will get its capital outlay wish from the New Mexico Legislature’s 2020 session for repairs to east-side sewer infrastructure that could save its wastewater treatment plant.

The county could land funding for construction on Quay Road 63 and Quay Road 62.9, and some renovation at the Quay County Detention Center.

• I am less optimistic about expanded road improvements, workforce investments, and infrastructure spending from enhanced state department funds. I think the state’s neglect of rural counties is likely to continue, and the lion’s share will end up in the Rio Grande corridor (Farmington, Santa Fe, Albuquerque and Las Cruces), as usual. That being said, Tucumcari MainStreet recently received a $600,000 grant from the state’s MainStreet organization to help with Second Street improvements. A hopeful sign?

• Teacher shortages will be eased, because teachers will get raises across the board ...

• I will feel a little more secure because the state Legislature will stop taxing Social Security benefits, joining the majority of U.S. states.

• I will have the opportunity to spend some of that new cash to attain lethargic stupefaction as the state Legislature legalizes recreational marijuana. I won’t use it, though, because at my age, I need all the presence of mind I can keep.

For the nation:

• President Donald Trump will stay in office until Jan. 20, 2021. This impeachment will fail. He owns the U.S. Senate, the jury.

• I see Joe Biden narrowly defeating Trump to become our 46th president. I see Republican inroads in the House and maybe a weakening of the Republican majority in the Senate, just because anti-incumbency hits all sides when voters rebel. More bipartisanship? Maybe.

• I see the bursting of the current stock-market bubble and hope it is not a collapse. Like the housing bubble of the 2000s, the stock-market bubble depends on parlor tricks with money, like stock buybacks, not real economic expansion that grows incomes across the board and, with it, markets.

• At the same time, however, continued economic improvement could bring real expansion in opportunities for good jobs and enhancements in quality of life all around.

• A resurgence of brick-and-mortar stores will begin as people once again seek to hold and examine merchandise before purchasing. Maybe buying all things online will turn out to be the passing fad, but online buying is here to stay...

For the world:

• We will have Brexit. It will mean higher prices in England for the time being. Put off that visit.

• Russia’s Vladimir Putin will see serious challenges to his authority as Russians get fed up with his self-puffery at the expense of their jobs and lifestyles.

Steve Hansen writes about our life and times from his perspective of a semi-retired Tucumcari journalist. Contact him at:

[email protected]

 
 
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