One of my New Year’s resolutions was to stop procrastinating, which, of course, didn’t stop me from never getting around to writing the annual “predictions” column.
This is an old columnist favorite, because you can write about almost anything and by mid-March, no one will remember what you predicted — thus giving you the opportunity to praise yourself in print for the accurate predictions and conveniently ignore the dumb ones.
Of course, you don’t need me to make a presidential election prediction, but within two weeks of Mitt Romney’s election, he will conduct a hostile takeover of Haiti, spin off the depreciated assets, and sell the whole place to Disney, who will build a giant amusement park that will employ every Haitian in need of a job.
Fear not for the Front Street undevelopment project across from the Hartford convention center. I predict that by mid-summer, a tattoo parlor and a sex-toy shop will open there, confirming the value of the economic development theory known as “industry cluster.”
I predict that 97.2 percent of all the community and civic awards doled out in Metro Hartford this year will go to nonprofit executives and staff, because, in its cute, Northeastern way, the region revels in those who are most clever at turning us all into victims, in need of staff support paid for by taxes generated by businesses — commercial enterprises run by capitalists who toil on behalf of Big Pharma or Big Insurance or Big Airplane Engine Manufacturer, thus making them ineligible for civic gratitude.
Governor Malloy’s new initiative to evaluate every state economic development tax incentive and tax break and other such stuff will go nowhere, because most of those were established as favors to particular pals, or as an excuse for politicians to have pat-yourself-on-the-back press conferences. The incentives won’t go away — and nobody wants to know whether they “work.”
A public opinion poll of Hartford and its ring-suburb residents on the value of the proposed Hartford-New Britain Busway will reveal that most folks have never been to New Britain, aren’t sure exactly where it is, don’t know why they would want to go there, and question whether they would travel there on a bus — because at the end of the trip, they would have to, well, you know, get off the bus. And then what?
In a two-day period sometime between now and mid-September, two crazy boyfriends, six gang members, three nightclub patrons, one clumsy convenience store robber, and three drug dealers, will commit dramatic murder and mayhem in Hartford, which will prompt front-page headlines about a “crime wave,” a prayer vigil and parade led by minority preachers, and a promise by the police chief that the state cops will be brought in to arrest every aimless young man in bad neighborhoods on one pretense or another.
Serial entrepreneur and civic cheerleader Howard Baldwin will concede that the prospects for bringing professional NHL hockey back to Hartford are thin, but that Hartford would make the perfect place for international chess tournaments, because many insurance actuaries really like chess, guaranteeing that downtown would be filled with big-spending, heavy-drinking actuaries any time there was a chess tournament in town.
The Obama team will announce make-believe, “draconian” defense budget cuts aimed at Pratt, Sikorsky, Hamilton-Sundstrand and Electric Boat — just in time for the Democratic U.S. House incumbents to “save” them, before the November election.
Cohen the Columnist will get a raise from the Hartford Business Journal, making him ineligible for food stamps.
Laurence D. Cohen is a freelance writer.
