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Jim Boyko's predictions for 2019.

 

Chair: President Donna

Anthem: Peter Masson

Grace: Barry Smith

Attendance: 14, 13 members and 1 guest (John Ramdeen, spouse and guest of Dhanni Ramdeen)

 

Announcements:

President Donna had several announcements:

- Peter Masson has started this year’s preparations for the Paul Harris Scholarships, but is looking for a volunteer from our club to assist.

- The Club’s Twitter and Facebook sites are looking even better than our website. Please visit, tweet and re-tweet, and add yourself as a follower in order to increase our social media presence.

- With respect to Membership, we have added 4 new members this year, with Jonathan Gibson to be inducted shortly, but we are looking to add another 3 new members, so keep inviting out prospective members.

- This year’s fundraising resulted in about $51 k in donations, an expected 15 k or so from the auction, and hopefully a further 10 k from our new Speaker Series.

 

Dave Seemungal announced that we have received a ‘thank you’ card from Operation Eyesight.

 

 

The Marbelous Draw was conducted by Dhanni and was won, and  lost, by Arthur R.

Sgt-at-Arms

Dave Seemungal levied fines and Happy Bucks:

 

Everyone was fined for their insincere ahhh’s when Arthur failed to pull out the mutant marble.

Barry was fined for his ‘religious speech’, which he unsuccessfully defended as being based upon one of the club’s standard Rotary invocations.

Happy Bucks were donated by:

- Basil for Helen Lobraico’s visitation and seeing Vince again, who remembered all of the Rotarians who attended.

- Barry for having both his children and grandchildren in Toronto for the holidays.

- Jim Boyko for learning more at the meeting that could be used in his presentation today.

- Peter Masson for his Mexico trip with 14 family members which was a great success.

- Dhanni for having John present at the meeting, her “better half”??

- Danny Cassidy for taking his 2 1/2 year old grandson, a future superstar, to his  soccer practice.

 

 

Our very own Jim Boyko presented his 2019 Predictions and Prognostications, but started with a Brief History of his New Year Predictions Talk.

Jim used to organize the Ukrainian Christmas program on the Rotary meeting date closest to January 6th. When this function was eventually phased out, it was replaced with Jim’s New Year Predictions Talk. Jim recently reviewed his file on this talk, and his oldest notes dated back to the year 2000. In those predictions, he discussed matters such as Y2K, Buffalo being in the Superbowl, and successfully predicted the following:

 

- Yeltsin had recently resigned as Russian leader, and Putin was described by Jim at the time as a “real ghost” who had been head of the KGB and “will never lose his colours”, that the West “should not put down its guard”, and that “Rule the World” would once again be Russia’s motto. 

- Jim had predicted that Mike Harris’ popularity would wane, and that Jean Chrétien would step down.

Jim next reviewed Last Year’s Predictions and advised what he got right in his 2018 predictions as follows:

- Leafs would make the first round of the playoffs only.

- Raptors would make the playoffs but go no further.

- Blue Jays would not make the playoffs.

- (Jim was wrong, however, in predicting that New England would win the Superbowl).

- In Canadian politics, Jim successfully predicted that John Tory would be elected, but was wrong when he predicted a minority government for Kathleen Wynne. 

- Jim successfully predicted that Canada would reach a deal on NAFTA, and that in the US the Democrats would end up controlling the House with the Republicans holding onto control of the Senate. He further predicted that there would be no wall and no North Korean conflict.

- Internationally, Jim successfully predicted that both Russia and China would continue to try to dominate the world, that the refugee crisis in Germany would be a big issue, that there would be a new centrist president in France, and that the U.K. pound would drop amidst low economic growth. 

- His economic predictions for the U.S. and Canada were that the US economy would continue to be strong, and the Canadian Dollar would stay low with unemployment stable and interest rates continuing to be low. 

- Jim’s 2018 stock picks did not do well. Dollarama crashed and even the bank stocks went down. 

Jim then moved on to his Predictions for 2019 which were as follows:

- In Sports: The Leafs will get into the 2nd or 3rd round of the playoffs, but will not win the Stanley Cup. No Canadian team will win the Cup. The Raptors may make it to the post season, but the Blue Jays won’t. New Orleans will win the Superbowl.

- In Canadian Politics: Doug Ford will interfere further in municipal politics, and will continue to create conflict, and his cabinet will prove to be “wimpy”. Kathleen Wynne will pack it in. In the federal election, there will be a Liberal minority government elected. 

- In International Politics: In U.S. politics the Mueller Investigation will result in charges with respect to some people close to Trump, but Trump himself will not be indicted or impeached. An agreement will be reached in the US-China trade war. There will be a compromise deal on the US border wall. China will continue to dominate the world. Angela Merkel will step down as Chancellor of  Germany. Eastern Europe will continue to refuse refugees. Uncertainty will continue to plague France. Theresa

May will not be able to get the Brexit legislation through parliament and a second referendum will take place. The Middle East will continue to be unstable.

- The Economic Outlook: Canada will continue with slow economic growth and there will be a slight increase in interest rates. Low oil prices will adversely affect the Canadian economy unless a solution is found to get oil to market, and oil prices are predicted to be in the $50 a barrel range. The Canadian Dollar will continue to trade against the U.S. Dollar at about 75 cents.  Unemployment will creep up. Locally, the housing market will continue to be depressed. Ontario will have limited economic growth. In the U.S. there will be uncertainty and interest rates will go flat. China’s economy will continue to slow, since they overgrew everything. In Russia, Putin will continue his goal to be #1 in the world. In the Eurozone, Italy is in deep financial trouble and this may adversely impact the E.U. as a whole unless a solution is found. 

- In Stocks: The North American stock market will be flat. Jim’s picks are still Northland Power, because of its dividends and stability, and the big banks. Other picks would be BCE, Rogers, Suncor and Enbridge.

- The Black Swans for 2019: Jim predicted the unpredictable, providing us with 3 Black Swans for 2019, being:

1. There will new earthquakes along the Pacific coast causing major damage;

2. Russia will exercise more influence in the world and will enter into the Ukraine with major consequences; and,

3. Apple Inc. will buy Tesla.

 

Gord Brown thanked Jim for his always interesting and entertaining presentation.  

 

The meeting was terminated:

1. November 9, 1993:

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