Reading the tea leaves for 2019

While many predict economic trouble in the new year and others see silver linings, perhaps it is best to just wait and see

It's that time of the year when global business analysts and other psychics present their predictions for the coming year.

London-headquartered consultancy Control Risks got off to an early start with its annual five-point list of the top challenges facing world businesses in 2019.

The clear winner is the US-China confrontation over trade. Next came the conflicting policies in the United States, Europe and China over how to regulate the transfer of data that CR's analysts say amounts to a standoff. "Brace for the challenge of collecting, storing and transferring data within and between these three domains against a backdrop of inconsistent enforcement and escalating cyber security threats," they warned their clients.

Trailing in third, fourth and fifth place are American political gridlock, extreme weather disruption and the rising barriers against multinational business in an increasingly nationalist world.

It's not a pretty picture but it does somehow reflect the spirit of the age. However, before you resolve that you would be safer not to get out of bed for the whole of 2019, remember that business consultancies are paid to be pessimistic. They tend to present worst-case scenarios to help their clients cope with the downside.

Western market analysts are also predicting a pretty gloomy year for investors: lower stock prices, a weaker dollar, lower rates of growth, even a recession.

"If businesses pull back a little next year and hiring slows down, consumers will start to feel it," according to Stephen Gallagher, chief US economist at Societe Generale. "And then it's a vicious cycle: Business pull back and consumers pull back until the economy falls into a recession."

Other professional seers are more chipper. They include those in the tech sector who predict that advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning will start to transform transport, productivity, healthcare and even home entertainment in the coming year.

And then there are the assorted fortune-tellers and psychics who claim to have a mystic inside track on what the future holds.

One "psychic healer" in Nashville, Tennessee foresees a difficult year for US President Donald Trump. "The president will be looking at a family or health issue in July and that may serve as a wake up call," Suzie Kerr Wright told Nashville's NewsChannel 5.

Some predictions can be remarkably parochial. Ms. Kerr Wright's colleague Kiki Dombrowski foresees a slowdown in Nashville construction in 2019.

Meanwhile, the blind Bulgarian seer Baba Vanga has predicted 2019 will see a tsunami that will wipe out parts of Asia, while Russia will suffer both a giant meteorite strike and an assassination attempt on President Vladimir Putin. In the US, Trump will suffer a mysterious illness.

Baba Vanga died in 1996 - it is not clear if she foresaw that - but left behind a set of predictions for the guidance of the next generation.

The doyen of dead seers remains Nostradamus, the French physician whose largely obscure predictions for the distant future have rarely been out of print since they were first published in the 16th century.

Britain's raucous and doom-loving Daily Express recently carried the chilling headline: "Nostradamus 2019 predictions: World War 3, climate change and asteroid disaster - SHOCK".

For the record, the same newspaper almost a year ago proclaimed: "Nostradamus 2018 predictions: World War III and disaster".

Whether it is Nostradamus, market analysts or risk consultants, it is good to bear in mind that we tend to remember the predictions that somehow turned out to be halfway correct and completely forget the ones that were totally wrong.

The world is certainly facing many uncertainties right now. But they are precisely that - uncertainties. As in all previous years, no one quite knows how things will work out. It might be best to adopt the Italian philosophy of "che sara sara" - what will be will be. Happy New Year!

The author is a senior media consultant for China Daily. Contact the writer at editor@mail.chinadailyuk.com

(China Daily European Weekly 12/21/2018 page11)