With tongue firmly planted in cheek, here are some notable things I expect to happen in 2021. Or not.
Don’t be surprised if the Southeastern Conference announces that its football teams will play a 24-game regular season schedule in 2021, with each school playing twice a week. If injuries and in-season surgeries deprive a team of having 22 moderately healthy players available, teams will be allowed to borrow players from the Vanderbilt women’s soccer team to complete their starting roster.
Proclaiming affordable housing a human right, Congress will announce the cancellation of all mortgage debt on residences located in urban areas and vacation destinations. New would-be homeowners will be shocked to learn that lenders are hesitant to make new home loans. When past due, rent will be cancelled. Renters won’t understand why apartment rental rates skyrocket.
Faced with renewed nationwide lockdown orders, millions of Americans will finally turn to YouTube for instructional videos on how to use the large metal things installed in the wall of their kitchens.
Based on the religious fervor and confession-like posts of its users, Facebook will file paperwork to become a church. Amazon’s response will be for Jeff Bezos to purchase five fledgling religious organizations, promising to offer one-stop, pray-from-home salvation for all.
Under pressure from New York state taxing authorities, the Catholic Church – the world’s third largest real estate owner – will be form a Real Estate Investment Trust to tax shelter its 177 million acres owned around the world.
Former homeowners in Knoxville’s Westwood neighborhood will petition the city for compensation for houses taken during the most recent redesign of the I40/Papermill interchange.
Don’t be shocked to see Amazon purchase Walmart and immediately close all 5,200 U.S. Walmart and Sam’s stores, turning the locations into Amazon distribution centers. It would be part of Jeff Bezos’ plan to create a utopian society where no one leaves their homes for anything.
Encouraged by the popularity of its targeted loan cancellation programs, Congress will implement a modern version of the Deuteronomic semicentennial Jubilee – where all debts are cancelled every 50 years. Cities across the country will rush to issue 51-year bonds but will be shocked to find little investor interest in purchasing the debt, except at exorbitant rates.
After interest rates begin to skyrocket, the Treasury Department will propose regulations that would permanently set interest rates at or near zero percent. In favor of the proposal are US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, former President Donald Trump and Goldman Sachs. The next COVID-19 stimulus checks will arrive in envelopes with pre-printed ballots for the 2020 mid-term elections.
Expect to see the word “quit” removed from our official lexicon, instead replaced by the less offensive and pejorative phrase “opt out.”
David Moon is president of Moon Capital Management. A version of this piece originally appeared in the USA TODAY NETWORK.