It begins with a topic and then turns into a prediction. This year marks the 30th anniversary of the University’s Educated Guesses, which features UA professors’ predictions for he new year. This edition caters toward trending events, world news and effects of recent national events.
“The Office of University Relations started the Educated Guesses project in 1981,” said UA spokeswoman Cathy Andreen. “The media relations office continues to do this project each year.”
The office brainstorms ideas for the coming year and asks professors to make predictions in their areas of expertise, Andreen said.
Peter Clark, associate professor of chemical engineering, was asked to make a prediction about the oil industry. His guess is that gas prices will bounce along with the value of the dollar.
“Oil is traded in dollars and the price is quoted in dollars,” he said. “Therefore, when the value of the dollar drops, it takes more to buy a barrel of oil.”
Clark was in the petroleum engineering department years ago, but it closed in the mid-90s. Despite that, Clark said he still remains knowledgeable about the petroleum industry.
“There is a connection with the current rise in oil prices with the worry that the Chinese will be using more oil for automobiles in the near future,” he said.
In addition to making predictions about the oil industry, the Office of Media Relations sought a prediction about the impact the baby boomers will have on the fight for Social Security.
Gary Hoover, an economics professor, said he was contacted to speak about his expertise of the area of public policy.
“The baby boomers were born around the time of 1946, so this year they are turning of retirement age, and my prediction is that they will remain active in the fight for Social Security benefits,” he said.
Hoover said a common misconception people have is that the money they are paying into Social Security now will be saved for them later. In actuality, he said, the money the working class is paying now goes for the people who are retiring now.
“With more persons retiring, one of the suggestions from the commission is to move the retirement age up to 67,” Hoover said. “My prediction is that these baby boomers will not stand for any reduction in benefits or to move the retirement age up.”
He said the baby boomer generation has a lot of political power, because their generation is more likely to vote than those persons in the age range of 18 to 24.
“If this problem is talked about now and a solution is reached, then there will not be an issue of Social Security running out for upcoming generations,” he said.
With predictions about gas prices and Social Security came marketing professor Kristy Reynolds’ prediction about shoppers being more focused and value conscious in 2011.
“The recession forced a new thriftiness onto consumers,” she said. “Many shoppers started budgeting more and being very careful about how they spend.”
Overall, she said, consumer spending should increase this year, but shoppers will still be very vigilant about their budgets and what they buy.
