UK and sterling
I am
surprised how sparse my forecasts were for the UK over this period. I suppose
it was my first country and I had yet to get into the swing of matters. However
I did manage to state that the signs were of continuing difficulty and I did
not expect a return to a booming economy – given that most professional economists in 2008 would
have predicted a return to continuous growth by now this can be considered a
success for me.
I also
predicted calm on the UK currency front from spring onwards which has been the
case since the Euro issue became less prominent.
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UK market
In this case
my comments for late 2011 on indicated disillusionment with the market which
has certainly been true. I highlighted November 2011 which was indeed one of
the bigger down months. I expected
early 2012 to look a bit better but on balance, given competing aspects, I went
for fluctuations throughout mid 2012 which was true and that the latter part of
the year would show nothing new. In fact the last days of December have been
positive with the FTSE100 passing 6000. I didn’t identify that particular spurt
but I doubted any real long term positive trend.
I still do.
Although there is a vogue for suggesting that equities will be back in fashion the
problem is the fundamentals of equities have been destroyed over the previous
decades by a combination of structural negatives and also positives which are
still negatives for future growth. Of, these more in the 2013 forecasts.
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Euro
Destabilising
was the word I associated with the Euro for much of 2011. Hmmm. Might I have
been right on this too. I was however, hard pressed to explain the outcome of some
of the very difficult astrological activity I could see for 2011-12- I wondered
if the Euro would go for a peg in 2012 or if something else would shift things.
I did however point out that it was all because of the Euro partners. Obviously
the Euro story has been well publicised and as have the combined impact of
Angela Merkel’s work and Dragi’s 2012 ECB pronouncement.
While I
might have done better than I did at identifying these trends- I get marks for
seeing the instability when I was writing in 2008. And it is important to note
that I did not predict a breakup, unlike so many other people did in 2010-12
under a much shorter timeframe.
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Ireland
I didn’t
expect things to look up for Ireland in the second half of 2011, or in 2012
with a lot of petty disruptions in the last part of 2012. There were certainly
a number of protests and sit-ins. My comment regarding the year ending
particularly inflamed – while Eire only continued its on-going themes, we
cannot ignore the renewal of violence in NI which might be a different country
but is connected through the economic strengths and weakness in the whole
island. 80%
France
I didn’t
predict much new for France in 2011, just continued emphasis on the same themes
without been too impacted by the external economic events. I did foresee a
change in 2012 with a move into a more recessionary picture and sure enough
France posted zero growth in Q1 2012 and a small contraction in Q2.As expected
though the situation was not deep and indeed Q3 showed a minor recovery as I
suggested. But my forecast for the end of 2012 was for a deteriorating picture and
professional economists are now predicting the same position
Amazing
aren’t they these economists – took them only 4 years more to make my
prediction, pretty much after the event. Sorry boys and girls but you need to
revise your models and ensure you include a few stars.
90%My prediction for Germany was not for recessionary conditions in 2011, but I did foresee a lot of power issues. Obviously the conflict about the action to take over the Euro zone bailouts or not was the concrete outcome of these themes
In the
latter part of 2011 I forecast a split between the elements of the country that
were doing well and those that weren’t. Obviously what happened was the next
big step in the Euro so called crisis (of words mainly), which dragged Germany
in. So the two themes really were the internal positives conflicting with the
external demands. Difficult to predict just how it would all play out without
working with all the charts simultaneously – something I don’t have the
resources to do – but of course the big banks, consultancies and academic
institutions have no such excuse for not identifying this in 2008!
I struggled
for similar reasons with the dichotomy evident in the aspects when I prepared
my early 2012 forecasts. But I did notice the increase in Germany’s power
during this time.
I expected
the Germany economy to be negatively affected from around May though, and
indeed it has shown some output declines since. I also thought that there may
be elements trying to undermine the leadership by the autumn. Sure enough The
New York Times states
By the
spring of 2012, however, as a wide range of European countries sank into a
double-dip recession, a rising chorus of voices
challenged her approach, and a number of her allies in other countries were
weakened or forced from office. Resentment of Germany became widespread.
I didn’t see
a clear way out of this until the end of 2012 when there was a set of sudden
positive aspects. Sure enough in December Merkel was re-elected as
leader of her party with huge support. I look forward to doing the next lot of
predictions for this country.
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Italy
I suggested
that Italy wouldn’t be doing too badly in July-Sept 2011 and that it could be
in the position of receiving external funding but under strict conditions.
While not exactly true (Greece and Spain have been grabbing the actual money)
it is pretty much true in principle. What is extra-ordinary is the fact that I
noted ‘The Moon crosses the ascendant axis in November [2011] suggesting things
have reached a turning point. Readers will know that the Italy chart have
consistently shown Berlusconi’s scandals and now it predicted exactly the change
of leadership to Mario Monti. I like
this chart!
I had 2012
as a surprisingly positive year for the country. I didn’t understand it when I
wrote it but that is the nature of astrology – you have to go with what it says
and not with your own biases.
I did
mention continued restructuring of was a pretty dead economy overall, so what I
was seeing was, in fact, the benefits of Monti’s presidency – the opportunity
for change (as I put it Italy could ‘make use of the global crisis to do things
that would not be possible alone!).
And at least
they did better in the football too, even if they couldn’t beat Spain!
I expected
other countries to have an impact on Italy’s economy from august 2012, and sure
enough its trade balance improved substantially.
So 2012 was
difficult read – Italy being in such a bad state the outcomes don’t show in GDP
– the country is still in recession- but they are reflected in the future
potential created by Monti’s changes.
The
continued changes/another turning point that I predicted due to Jupiter’s
transits however have had another outcome too. Now Monti has resigned and even though Berlusconi is not planning to run as president his re-involvement hovers again so we'll have to see what 2013 will bring.
85% (average of 95 for 2011 and 75 for
2012)
My Spain forecasts for the whole crisis period were surprising mild. This is amazing for a country so badly hit by the end of the boom in 2007-8. And while Spain’s recessionary position picked up a bit in 2011, only to flounder again later, the unemployment and debt overhang remained a problem.
However what
sets Spain apart is its culture. It can just take more problems without them
over-spilling. And celebrate winning at football of course.
I just
couldn’t see much change happening in Spain in 2011-12, with lack of conflict
and apathy being the themes. However the position has been much worse than I
expected- although given an unemployment rate of 25% not as catastrophic as
might be anticipated.
I did see some desire to challenge in
November 2011 but didn’t expect a change as a result. In fact there was a
change of government on 20 November 2011.
There were
protests however against austerity cuts in many major cities in the summer of
2012 and a bailout of its banks. None of which I expected would occur.
I did end my
2012 forecast with a comment on the new hard aspects. I thought that usually
signified a change of leadership, though I did not expect one. In fact this
aspect has manifested in the Catalan independence intentions.
So Spain,
not my best effort this time. But I am sticking with the chart- I just need to
remove some of my biases.
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Switzerland
The fate of the Swiss economy is
tightly linked to that of the euro zone, which purchases half of all Swiss
exports.
The SNB has upheld its zero-interest
rate policy and conducted major market interventions to prevent further
appreciation of the Swiss franc,
Mostly I didn’t predict much drama for
Switzerland (let’s be honest the words drama and Switzerland are almost
inimical)
However I did expect things to be
trickier in the final quarter of 2011. And indeed, due to the increasingly
strong Swiss Franc some major firms had to undergo cost cutting exercises, UBS
was fined under the global Libor scandal and the country cut growth forecasts.
There were elections too and the Chair of the central bank resigned in January
2012 following allegations about family forex deals. None of these things would
be worth a mention for most countries but for Switzerland they represent real
excitement don’t they?!
My forecast for 2012 was frankly rather
vague. I did highlight May and August as key times but nothing stands out as
significant in either of these periods. The merger of mining companies Glencore
and xtrata was in the spotlight during the year although probably had no effect
on the overall Swiss economic situation
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- too vague and diff to predict the boring!I expected political or economic disputes disruptions to be out in the open by mid 2011 with the potential for transformation by late September.
I expected the last half of 2011 to go
relatively well and end satisfactorily and for 2012 to start in the same way. I
thought that attempts at reforms etc. could over-reach in August and December
but did not foresee any really bad outcomes for the whole period.
In fact, due to commodities, a rapid
devaluation in 2008 and other factors, Russia has indeed had a good 18 months
economically. Industrial Production growth remains one of the highest in the
world, But it does depends on who you are:
as of 2011, Russia's capital, Moscow, now has the highest billionaire
population of any city in the world- a positive of some sorts but with all
sorts of negative corollaries. Even so, most Russians don’t worry about rent as
homes were transferred to families from the state, so retail does well too. Politically there were protests
against the elections starting at the end of 2011 and running for the first
part of 2012. But the ruling party was returned so from their point of view it
was indeed satisfactory
Politically there were protests against
the elections starting at the end of 2011 and running for the first part of
2012. But the ruling party was returned so from their point of view it was
indeed satisfactory
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Turkey
As well as predicting possible
earthquakes (see previous review) I had already identified that Turkey would
probably be affected by international events and also perhaps internal ones by
the summer of 2011. I expected these, dark power struggles, to become even more
important throughout the remainder of 2011 and become quite severe by 2012-
culminating in a very tricky summer of 2012.
However I did not expect the economy
to suffer too much – seeing the end of a 29 year cycle and beginning of a more
positive new one for economic matters. I did expect some impact on some industries
due to economic restrictions elsewhere.
There was another earthquake in Oct
2011 and by this time the unrest in Syria would becoming more prominent. The
incidents related to this increased in 2012 to the point in October 5th when the Turkish PM said
"We are not interested in war, but we're not far from it either,"
Internally there also were on-going
Kurdish protests over the period including 10,000 hunger strikers in Nov 2012.
Investment in Turkey did decline due
to the global crises but it is still a beacon compared to many as the economy
continued to grow albeit at a lower rate and Fitch Group
upgraded Turkey's credit rating to investment grade
after an 18 year gap
A pretty good success rate on this one
I think!
95%My predictions for Iceland did not extend past 2009. With just more of same being my expectation.
Greece.
Deemed not big enough to be worth
forecasting by me originally, a late prediction for Greece was made after the
start of the crisis. I didn’t expect any major changes in direction for the
country late 2011 and early 2012, the instability would continue. And indeed
the crisis kept bubbling along through this time. On
13 March 2012, the Eurozone finally
backed a second Greek bailout
of 130bn euros. IMF backing was also given.
After this I saw some improvement in
April to June 2012. In fact the situation did settle a little after the
bailout- international focus shifted to other countries’ debts. Although the
elections had to be rescheduled for July in the end the pro-austerity party
won. So yes, despite austerity and continued recession things were more stable.
My only other forecast was that the
Uranus Mars aspects suggested no resolution to underlying dissent by the end of
2012 and unsurprisingly strikes and protests continued throughout the last
quarter with the ex-finance minister resigning over a scandal relating to lists
of alleged tax evaders.
The Greek sagas look like they will
run for some time. We will see in the next set of forecasts.
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