The year 2015 was not a particularly good one. It was dominated by news of terrorist attacks, crazy people with guns, fear of immigrants and refugees from war-torn Syria, protests and riots, villainization of the police and political mudslinging. The sports scene was also a bummer: the Saints couldn’t keep opposing teams out of their end zone; the unbeaten McNeese Cowboys lost in the first round of the playoffs; and LSU, once ranked No. 2 in the nation, mysteriously imploded midway through the season. Even the stock market was down for the first time since 2009.
One bright spot was the sharply lower gasoline prices at the pump. But even this had a dark side for thousands of workers who lost their jobs in Louisiana’s oil patch.
What will 2016 bring? If I were a politician I would tell you, as Obama did, that if you just elect me the oceans will stop rising, radical Islamists will decide they love us, clean energy will replace fossil fuels and all the coal miners and oil field workers will find jobs making solar panels and wind turbines …
Or as Trump tells us, if we elect him, America will be great again and we will have so many victories we will get tired of winning …
Or as Bernie Sanders promises, if we elect him, college will be free and the middle class will thrive because he will tax the wealthy to pay for everything.
But in the real world, there is no magic political wand to make all these bright promises come true.
On the economic front, the Fed recently increased its lending rate to banks by a quarter percent and is expected to increase it another quarter percent next year. Higher bond rates and a recovery in the bond market are likely to put a damper on the stocks because investors consider stocks and bonds to be substitutes for one another. Thus, I expect to see continued lackluster performance for Wall Street in 2016, along with a return of inflation and modest job growth.
As for the presidential race, Trump and Sanders both poll in the low-to-mid thirties. But while Sanders is presumed to have no chance against Hillary Clinton, Trump boasts of his poll numbers among a field of a dozen Republican contenders.
If the Republican field is whittled down to two or three candidates, Trump may find he is no longer in the lead. On the other hand, if the field does not narrow, we are likely to see no clear leader going into the Republican convention in July.
Either way, I don’t expect Trump to be the eventual Republican nominee. The next question is whether Trump or Sanders — or both — might make an independent run for president. Whatever way it turns out, the presidential election will dominate the news in 2016, and could go down as one of the wildest presidential campaigns in U.S. political history.
Louisiana will also have a lively political year, as the state votes for a new senator to replace David Vitter. It looks like New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu will be the main Democrat in the race, facing four Republican contenders: Congressman Charles Boustany, Congressman John Fleming, Col. Rob Maness and State Treasurer John Kennedy. [Editor’s note: On Dec. 5, Landrieu stated he would not run for the Senate seat. As of press time, there had been no change in this position.] The race will likely go to a runoff, with Landrieu facing one of the Republicans, but I’m not sure which one.
Boustany, who is our Congressman, and Fleming, are both vacating their congressional seats to run for the Senate, so we should see lots of activity in those races.
In foreign affairs, President Obama will continue to try to shift the focus from terrorism and the Middle East to global warming, which he considers the greatest threat facing America and the world. But I don’t think events will permit this.
The ISIS threat is massively overblown by the media; it reminds me of the panic and fear generated by the Ebola virus in 2014. ISIS grabs media attention with its terrorist attacks and videos of horrific executions. But “The Islamic State” rules just seven to eight million people; it has no navy or air force; and just 20,000 fighters. As soon as a major military power gets serious about stomping out the terrorist regime, their game is over.
The big question is who is going to crush them and occupy the territory ISIS now controls? Will it be Russia; Syria and Shiite Muslim Iran; or the U.S., Europe and the Sunni Muslim Gulf States? This confrontation is serious and it is likely to take shape during 2016.
Another big issue that could take shape during the 2016 presidential campaign is the technology gap between the U.S. and our potential adversaries, such as Russia, China, Iran and even North Korea. The governments of these countries have developed a sophisticated cyberwarfare capability — hacking our computers, penetrating our electrical grid, shutting down the Internet — while the bureaucratic bumblers in Washington can’t even get the Obamacare websites to work.
Protecting our cyber infrastructure will require cooperation between government and our major technology firms that is apparently non-existent or lacking today.
On the weather front, the equatorial waters in the Pacific Ocean are warming up, bringing on another El Niño that will affect weather around the globe. According to meteorologists, this is likely to produce warmer, drier winters up north and significantly wetter winters along the gulf coast. The good news for Louisiana is it will also reduce the risk of hurricanes next season. But it could have negative economic consequences in South America, reducing agriculture production and causing major storms in the Pacific.
The year 2016 could well be a very important turning point in our history, not only because the presidential election could change the direction of the country, but because many global issues appear to be coming to a head, and, like it or not, the U.S. is going to have to take a stand.
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