Predictions For 1995
1995 Predictions - New Zealand
- NZ is on a roll. With 7% real economic growth in 1995, and good strategic stance, NZ is moving into a period of sound prosperity.
- With it's economy on a long-term rise, New Zealand will be seen as the rising star of the South Pacific.
- Our initiative, inventiveness and resourcefulness, and our emphasis on quality, will improve our earnings from a wider range of export products and markets, in 1995.
- Across a very wide spectrum of endeavour, over 70 significant export initiatives will gather momentum in 1995. For a country of NZ's size, this will be a quite extraordinary achievement.
- Manufactured exports (assisted by our low labour costs) will be our leading earner in 1995.
- NZ will consolidate its position as a valued member of the powerful East Asian trading zone.
- The essentially Labour mantle of Jim Anderton will revert to the Labour Party, and the Alliance will weaken rapidly, and will fragment.
- Under MMP, a strongly resurgent Labour will continue as the second largest party in Parliament, and will hold the balance of power.
- Under MMP, Labour's practical centrist policies will keep the country on a stable and progressive course ... without the extremes of the right or left.
- Labour's Michael Cullen will come to the fore, as an effective political leader, in 1995.
- With buoyant revenues, the Government will show a substantial 1995/1996 budget surplus.
- Health services, and social services generally, will improve under the MMP regime.
- In 1995, it will be safer to invest within New Zealand than outside of New Zealand.
- With the NZ$ set to rise, more overseas investment money will be attracted here. By end 1995, the NZ$ will exchange at over 67¢US.
- With a healthy budget, sound balance of payments, and a rising NZ$, substantial reductions of overseas debt will be achieved.
- With new discoveries, the oil and gas industry will provide a strong underpinning of energy for our economy.
- During 1995, the numbers of officially unemployed will fall to 6.5% of the work force.
- During 1995, credit and velocity of monetary circulation will increase, and headline inflation will reach 4% p.a. There will be further increases of interest rates.
- With better job security and growing confidence in the future, people will buy more on credit.
- Average salaries and wages will increase by over 5% during 1995.
- Power prices, interest, rents, building costs and maintenance will rise ... along with increased prices for a number of foodstuffs.
- With buoyant demand and attractive prices (due to the rising NZ$), motor vehicle, TV and home-appliance sales will increase substantially.
- Business confidence will rise to high levels.
- Takeovers will bid up some share prices, and profits will be made from related share dealings.
- Real estate prices will advance generally, and there will be a strong surge in house construction.
- With general prosperity and increasing standards of living, most New Zealanders will fare well in 1995 ... but one fifth will struggle financially.
- Widening differences in regional affluence and employment, will cause increasing concern.
- Lower tropical air-pressures (due to volcanism) will keep El Niño operating and will allow cold southern fronts to move further north. We will experience unusually low winter temperatures.
- NZ will become colder in 1995. High-country snowfalls and icing will increase, and glaciers will advance. A good skiing season is predicted.
- With El Niño operating, some eastern areas will be short of rain, particularly in the North Island.
- Erosion and landslides will accompany heavy rains and flooding, of river plains and valleys, in the South Island and parts of the North Island.
- Many growers will be at risk, as weather will be changeable and unpredictable ... with unseasonal frosts and hail, and variable rainfall.
- Strong overseas demand will result in increased prices for our dairy products. Export volumes and prices of logs and wood products will increase.
- Wool prices will increase, due to reduced clips and inventory levels, and to colder winters.
- As the world's fish-catch decreases, our fisheries resources will become more valuable. Although fisheries management will be questioned, the industry will flourish with increasing export prices.
- Tourism receipts will increase by over 15% in 1995, with Asian tourists as the dominant factor.
- 1995 conditions indicate that it will be wise to opt for a flexible financial position, rather than a locked-in one.
- 3 to 6 month bank deposit investments will provide attractive low-risk returns.
- The South Island hydro lakes will be at good levels.
- Private enterprise monopolies, of retail grids, will increase power prices.
- Creative accounting, involving major asset revaluations to justify large price increases (by SOEs and private monopolies), will be seen as outright fleecing of the public ... and will cause increasing resentment.
- New Zealanders will respond magnificently to calls for aid from overseas.
- Our sports people will come up with some outstanding performances.
- In New Zealand, over-exposure to solar ultra-violet rays will be harmful, from early December to late February.
- Earth expansion, resulting in movements at the NZ junction of the Pacific and Australian plates, will cause a number of quakes ... but they will not be life-threatening.
- Some unusually strong winds will cause damage to a number of exposed locations.
- The public will feel strongly that the Government should sharpen up its selection and supervision of top executives in the Civil Service and the SOEs ... and that they cannot escape this responsibility by delegating it. opinion polls will be increasingly important, as public feeling changes on a number of major issues.
- Sir Roger Douglas will parade his ACT colours ... but most of us will not march to them.
- Violence, youth-crime and arson will continue at high levels.
- With reluctance and nostalgia, more New Zealanders will recognise that leadership should no longer be hereditary and public support for a republic will increase.
- Brisker relations with Australia will put paid to any ideas of political union.
- With growing confidence in ourselves, we will copy other cultures less in 1995.
1995 Predictions - General
- 1995 will be a year of extraordinary natural events ... with volcanic eruptions, large earthquakes, weather extremes, cold winters, floods, droughts, fires, hurricanes and crop failures.
- There will be overall cooling in 1995, as the volcanism effect will dominate over the greenhouse effect. Talk of global warming will be misleading.
- Volcanism (and its associated El Niño) will continue to bring major changes of weather, and general cooling, to the middle latitudes.
- In 1995, poorer harvests in many countries will result in shortages and increased world prices of many foodstuffs.
- International migrations will create political instability in countries of destination. The flow from Mexico to USA will be particularly destabilising.
- Oil prices will continue at low levels.
- Violence, terrorism, crime and drug-abuse will continue at high levels.
- Civil wars, in over 30 countries, will have direct adverse effects on over one billion people.
- With increasing civil chaos, over half of the world's population will suffer from ineffective or corrupt law enforcement in 1995.
- There was Nazism, and Communism ... and now the arch enemy is organised crime. In 1995, it will be like a many-headed Hydra.
- As truth becomes more debatable, the interpretive role of journalists will become more important ... and the news media will have an enhanced leadership function.
- Weakened immune systems (due to exposure to harmful ultraviolet solar radiation) will be linked to increases in a wide range of diseases.
- USA will be seen to have lost the plot in 1995, as
- Congress rejects Clinton's leadership.
- Congress argues over foreign policy.
- The voters vs. politicians rift continues.
- Foreign aid is reduced.
- US/UN relations falter.
- US influence in Europe wanes.
- Internal problems increase.
- Clinton will become an embarrassment to the United States.
- Curtailment of spending, by the republican Congress, will slow US economic growth.
- With reduced US support, the standing and power of the United Nations will decline sharply in 1995.
- World share-markets will be nervous and 'hair-trigger' reactive.
- Interest rates will increase generally. Long-term risks will increase faster than long-term interest rates.
- Many economies will come under pressure during the year, and currency speculation will be rife.
- In self-protection, many countries will condition their acceptance of GATT and free trade.
- In Europe, urgent national priorities and the horrendous costs of Brussels/Strasbourg bureaucracy, will cause Europeans to do a lot of rethinking about federation.
- Europe will retreat from unrealistic visions, of a super-state and single currency, to a more realistic free-trade union of independent nation-states.
- There will be large eruptions and quakes around the Pacific rim, and possibly Hawaii. Large quakes are also expected in Europe, North-West Africa, the Middle East, Turkey, south of the Urals, Central Asia, China, Myanmar, and Indonesia.
- Insurance company collapses and payout defaults will be more frequent in 1995.
- With natural disasters and political problems, Japan will have a very testing year.
- In the easing of world suffering, non-government organisations (such as the Red Cross and Medecins Sans Frontieres) will be more than twice as effective (on a benefit-per-$ basis) as the UN.
- Globally, air travel safety will decrease and the number of fatal air crashes will increase.
- Examples of compassion and reconciliation will give rise to a strong surge of hope in 1995. Amid conflict and suffering, the human spirit will be a strong, bright flame.