In this week’s article, I wanted to follow up my piece from the week prior – Predictions for 2009 - and this time offer some offbeat predictions for 2009. First, however, I wanted to make a few observations about making prognostications. Many times prognosticators look to the past for patterns which will repeat themselves in the future.

I myself look to history quite often, searching for parallels to what is happening today. However, I always keep in mind that famous Mark Twain quote - “History doesn’t repeat itself, at best it sometimes rhymes”. The consensus Wall Street deflationists are ignoring this bit of wisdom.

The deflationists are assuming that hard economic times, like the 1930s, will lead to massive deflation. I predict that our current hard economic times will “rhyme”. The actions of the Bernanke Federal Reserve are completely different than …

PKey Newsbr•nbsp;Obama Is Said to Favor About $775 Billion for U.S. Economic Stimulus Plan (Bloomberg)br•nbsp;Dollar Rally Fizzles in Emerging Markets as Fed Awakens Appetite for Risk (Bloomberg) ... [Editor’s note: Are you sure?]br•nbsp;European Inflation Slows, Increasing Scope for ECB to Lower Interest Rates (Bloomberg)br•nbsp;EPA 'Cow Tax' Could Charge $175 per Dairy Cow to Curb Greenhouse Gases (Business and Media Institute)/P PKey Reports Due (WSJ): br7:45 a.m. ICSC Chain Store Sales Index For Jan 3: Previous: -0.5%. br8:55 a.m. Redbook Retail Sales Index For Jan 3: Previous: -0.5%. br10:00 a.m. Dec Non-Manufacturing Index: Expected: 37. Previous: 37.3. br10:00 a.m. Nov Pending Home Sales: Expected: 0.4%. Previous: -0.7%. br10:00 a.m. Nov Factory Orders: Expected: -2.2%. Previous: -5.1%. br2:00 p.m. Dec FOMC Minutes br5:00 p.m. ABC/Wash Post Consumer Conf For Jan 3: Previous: -49./P PbrQuotable br“If you can count your money, you don't have a billion dollars.”/P P nbsp; nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;J. Paul Getty/P PFX Trading – Stocks AND Dollar ...

It’s clear that 2009 is going to be grim in economic terms. Martin Denholm says investors should stick to sectors that fare better during recessions. The healthcare sector, discount retailers and utilities companies provide essential products and generate repeat business. Martin picks the strongest companies in these “safe haven” sectors.

This from Smart Profits Report

A Healthcare Haven

It stands to reason that the sectors and companies that traditionally fare better during economic recessions are those that garner essential repeat business.

As my colleague Marc Lichtenfeld has pointed out many times here before, that includes the healthcare and biotech sectors. And far from procrastinating, Marc just issued his “Five Predictions For The Healthcare Sector In 2009″ for Xcelerated Profits Report subscribers in the January issue. If you’re not a subscriber, you should be! You can get more information on that here.

No matter what happens with the broader economy, people will still

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I wanted to add an additional article that I found to the discussion of free-market capitalism and its role in the current economic crisis. This comes from Yaron Brook and Don Watkins via the a href="http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=index"Ayn Rand Institue/a. Ayn Rand is the author of classic novels such as Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, and Anthem. br /br /br /strongStop Blaming Capitalism for Government Failuresbr /By /stronga href="http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=media_YaronBrook"strongYaron Brook/strong/astrong and /stronga href="http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=media_DonWatkins"strongDon Watkins/strong/abr /br /br /Speaking of the financial crisis, French president Nicolas Sarkozy recently said, “Laissez-faire is finished. The all-powerful market that always knows best is finished.”br /br /Sarkozy was echoing the views of many, including president-elect Obama, who assume that the financial crisis was caused by free markets--by “unbridled greed” unleashed by decades of deregulation and a “hands off” approach to the economy. And given this premise, the solution, they say, is obvious. To solve this crisis and ...

The economic calendar is unusually light this week, with only the ISM Index reporting on Friday. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that the report will likely show a decline from the previous month. It has been an overriding theme this year that even though the bar gets set lower and lower as the months go by, the market still manages to underestimate the scope of the economic slowdown and reports continue to disappoint.

With the economic calendar being so light, I thought I would take some time to give you my thoughts on what I see happening in the markets over the next 12 months.

As I mentioned in my piece on Dec. 17, I think the market will do well in 2009. There are just way too many coincidences lining up to lead me to believe otherwise. I still think there will ...

Ceding that Chapter 11 is likely still in the cards for General Motors Corporation (GM) and Chrysler LLC (Ford Motor Company {F} is not part of this bailout), President Bush today allocated around $15 billion in an emergency loan to assist two of the Big Three. The money will be drawn from the $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) already passed by Congress to bailout the U.S. finance industry."This is the price of failure," the president said. Three months from now, after President Obama will have settled into the Oval Office, inability by the companies to pay back the money would likely mean that Chapter 11 bankruptcy would be the next step for the automakers. President Bush said Chapter 11 was "unlikely to work at this time," meaning without this near-term loan. How this loan is going to result in a "positive ...

The markets are looking over the worst spending slump in 60 years…that planet’s first Worldwide Bailout… And look at that - we’re back to the ‘deficits don’t matter’ stance…the more the Fed tries to fix the problem, the worse it gets… Savers are losing a couple of percent per year to inflation…investors are losing money in every asset class…and more!

The rally seems to be continuing. The Dow rose 70 points yesterday. Oil slid up to $44. Commodities went up too. And gold shot up $34 - to $808.

The markets must be “looking ahead”…right over the worst economic news in 60 years.

It’s the “worst spending slump since ‘42,” says a headline at Bloomberg. In ‘42, the United States was at war with Japan and Germany. And it looked for a while as though we might lose! No wonder spending collapsed…the economy was shifting to a ‘war footing.’

And now spending is collapsing

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Obama’s stimulus plan may still be vague, but you can be sure it will involve huge construction projects says David Newman. And government funding will be targeted at US companies. That’s why David recommends the PowerShares Dynamic Building & Construction Portfolio ETF (NYSE:PKB) as an all-American infrastructure play.

This from The Sovereign Society:

Often it’s the fine print that makes all the difference in the world. If you need any more proof of that fact, just ask the millions of Americans trapped in a sub-prime, Adjustable Rate Mortgage.

With half a million jobs lost in November alone and no one predicting an end to this recession any time soon, Mr. Obama hinted (read “fine print”) that $500 billion in spending is not out of the question.

He would like to see a plan that creates 2.5 million jobs. His interview on Meet the Press this past Sunday indicated that

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Steve McDonald looks ahead to the investment climate in the new year. He sees a bounce in the Dow reaching as high as 11,000. But an economic recovery will depend on whether the Obama administration can restore confidence in the public. For 2009’s top money-makers, Steve picks six high-dividend stocks and two corporate bond plays.

This from Investor’s Daily Edge:

So, for what it’s worth, here are my predictions for 2009, please adjust the time frame as necessary.

The bailouts will work. The banking/credit crisis will ease in early 2009, and with it businesses should be able to start borrowing again.  Once the money flows open up we should see some relief from the recession.

Ford (NYSE:F) will survive, I’m not sure about General Motors (NYSE:GM). Chrysler has been dead for a long time.

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There's been a lot of talk about Obama's new economic stimulus plan. The word "infrastructure" keeps getting thrown around, and I think its getting misinterpreted. Because we keep hearing infrastructure, every stock in that space is getting a pretty good bump. Here are some of his words: br /br /span style="font-style:italic;""Hence Mr. Obama's emphasis over the weekend on spending on "infrastructure" -- build roads, modernize schools, expand Internet access, improve buildings' energy efficiency, put better technology in hospitals."/spanbr /br /span style="font-style:italic;""The need for a big economic jolt means "we can't worry short term about the deficit," Mr. Obama said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "We've got to make sure that the economic stimulus plan is large enough to get the economy moving."br //spanbr /br /I'm not sure how much of the money is going into the "build roads" part of the conversation. I think we're going ...