With the curtain closing on 2008, it’s time for me to take out my crystal ball and predict what will happen in 2009.

1- Even with a surge in the polls, due to the Israeli/Hamas conflict, both Ehud Barak and Tzipi Livni will falter badly in the upcoming Israeli elections, paving the way for former PM Benjamin Netanyahu to reclaim the title, Prime Minister.

2- Due to continued falling crude oil prices, Iran civil unrest will lead to an overthrow of Ahmadinejad.

3- The earth will continue to cool, and Obama will have to back off some of his environmentally friendly campaign promises.

4- As cracks form in the European Union and talk heats up whether the Euro will continue to exist as a currency, the US Dollar will make a strong move back to parity against the Euro.

5- US economic growth will rebound much earlier than expected, end of Q1, and we will

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Amazon.com (AMZN) said that it had the best holiday shopping season to date, even though online consumer spending at U.S. retailers languished.

The company witnessed orders of more than 6.3 million items on its peak day, Dec. 15, which came to 72.9 items ordered per second. On that day, the Seattle-based company had shipped over 5.6 million units.

Amazon is a Zacks #4 Rank ("Sell") company. Shares of the company are currently up by less than 1%.

"AMZN" Free Stock Analysis: Buy? Sell? Hold?Zacks Investment Research

Economists say this recession will last till June 2009 at least. Conventional wisdom says it’s time to buy defensive stocks—utilities, consumer staples, booze, healthy banks, drug companies, and defense contractors.

I’ve been walking around with my eyes open, and I don’t think so.

Last week, Andy and I went to the bank then stopped at Starbucks. There were no lines in the bank. We had to wait 10 minutes to get to the counter in Starbucks (SBUX).

The legendary Howard Schultz is back, and so is Starbucks.

Schultz was the person who convinced the original coffee-roasting partners to expand in the 1980s when he visited them to find out why they were buying so many of the Hammerplast Swedish drip coffee makers he sold. They hired him for marketing help. But when Schultz’s best new idea was to open a coffee bar, they wouldn’t do it. Schultz quit, started

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The Boeing Co. (BA). is pushing back the schedule of its troubled 787 Dreamliner jet program by about six months as it works to unwind delays caused by the recently concluded union-machinists strike, and by thousands of improperly installed fasteners on the first couple of jetliners on the production line. This puts the high-profile airliner program about two years behind schedule.

The Chicago-based aerospace giant also has unveiled a series of management changes it says will improve supervision of both supply-chain management and production quality at improving oversight of supply-chain and quality problems that led to delays on all of Boeing’s jet programs in recent months.

With the move, the fuel-efficient jet’s first flight has been shifted into the second quarter of 2009 and first delivery into the first quarter of 2010. Prior to the strike that halted much of the company’s commercial airplane work from early September into November,

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The Boeing Co. (BA) may further delay first deliveries of its flagship 787 Dreamliner by at least six months – meaning the jet will enter service more than two years later than was originally projected – because of the recently concluded strike by union machinists and several other problems, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Sources told the Journal that the first deliveries of the fuel-efficient jet might not occur until the summer of 2010. Boeing’s most recent schedule called for initial deliveries in the third quarter of 2009. Officials with the Chicago-based aerospace giant are expected to announce the newest delays later this month, after making certain of the new timetable, the newspaper said.

A Recent Record of Costly Delays

Boeing has long prided itself for delivering new aircraft on time. That’s why escalating problems with the highly complex Dreamliner – a fuel-efficient jetliner that can carry between

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Portfolio manager says those who've kept a level head in rough times should be well-positioned now to take advantage of attractive valuations. 

Kenneth Smith has been spending a lot of time lately trying to make sure that market volatility doesn't send investors into a tail spin.

As a result, the chief investment officer at Seattle-based Empirical Wealth Management says that the high net-worth and institutional clients he works with aren't ready to panic yet.  

But he credits such realistic expectations to not only this year's educational push. Smith explains that he has been sounding a similar theme when markets were running strong from 2003 through late last year. The difference, he says, is that during bull markets the message has been to not chase asset classes that are performing well. 

Now, conditions are different. But the veteran advisor and portfolio managers says keeping a level head and remaining unemotional as market volatility remains high

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When it comes to the financial markets, September was a startling and unsettling month that Americans may never forget. We have witnessed the collapse and/or government rescue of financial services giants that are household names. The financial fears of the public and the resulting stock and bond market volatility have prompted the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury to resort to bailouts and backstops on a historic scale.

What does it all mean for the future of our financial system? While cringing at the potential expense, some experts seem to agree with government officials that intervention is most likely necessary, and that the costs of these measures outweigh the potential risk of doing nothing in the midst of a crisis of confidence.

Here’s a look at what may have prompted this situation, what has transpired recently in the financial sector, and how the government has acted to stem the negative effects of

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Sector 10 has been making waves in the emergency response paradigm. The main reason for the success of Sector 10 is its core management team that brings a wealth of expertise and accomplishments to the company.

Leading the way at Sector 10 is Pericles DeAvila who serves as the company’s CEO. He is the founder, inventor and the lead creative thinker at the company. DeAvila is responsible for all strategic, financial and operational aspects of Sector 10 and its associated businesses. The Sector 10 leader has entrepreneurial experience nationally and internationally with his beginnings in the construction industry. He was a construction manager for 11 years on large projects in Silicon Valley and in Seattle — including Safeco Field, the home of the Seattle Mariners.

Larry Madison serves as the company’s CFO and is responsible for all aspects of financial reporting and management. Madison is a revered name in the industry for

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It’s almost too much to digest at once, the new revelations over how various aspects of the sundry bailouts came about.  The information is too much, the outrage is too much.  But let’s try.

First comes word that Hank Paulson rewrote tax law without Congress’s say-so, giving the banks a $140 billion tax windfall.  Now one could argue the tax law Paulson circumvented was a dumb idea, but even mainstream analysts who don’t fuss over the plain language of the Constitution say Treasury overstepped its bounds here.  I hope conservatives who hailed the “unitary executive” philosophy of Team Bush might be rethinking things by now… but I doubt it.

Meanwhile, Paulson and Ben Bernanke have gone back on their promise to disclose just who’s benefiting from all the Fed’s emergency loans.  $2 trillion, no transparency.  To its credit, Bloomberg News has filed a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act

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.S. Treasury Secretary Henry M. “Hank” Paulson Jr. warned former Washington Mutual Inc. (OTC: WAMUQ) Chief Executive Officer Kerry Killinger to sell the thrift to JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) two months before WaMu failed, both The Seattle Times and Bloomberg News reported. According to the published reports, Paulson telephoned Killinger and told him that “you should have sold to JPMorgan Chase in the spring, and you should do so now. Things could get a lot more difficult for you.” The Times report quoted a WaMu executive who was familiar with the incident, but didn’t disclose the source’s name. Sign up below… and we’ll send you a new investment report for free: “Credit ...