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Everywhere I hear the sound of marching, charging feet, boy,
‘Cause summer’s here and the time is right for fighting in the street, boy

Jagger Richards 1968

Finally I’m back. My Atlantic trip was extraordinary and I ended up doing two deliveries to and from France, so in all I covered more than 6000 miles.

Before I left I wrote a post called 2010: The Next Leg Down. I wanted to go over it and see how I’m doing in the trend forecasting business.

Oil and the Deep Horizon rig: I’m still waiting for the oil price spike. But the good people at BP are doing their best on my behalf, bless ‘em. Or rather, Transocean.  Although Transocean is not well known publicly, it’s the largest rig operator in the world, with about 300 rigs. What makes this accident so important was that it was an ultra-deep drilling operation and if the US bans more ultra-deep in the Gulf of Mexico it will impact oil supply within a year. As the cheap easy oil disappears we are faced with difficult choices: Just how much ecological horror do you think you can stand to stay on the highway?  We need to remember that Deep Horizon was no mundane oil operation. They were tapping into the Tiber field – 40,000 ft down. It was the deepest vertical well in history. You could lose Everest and have 13000ft spare in that hole. This was the Apollo mission for deep drilling. Was it dangerous? Of course it was. Whenever we take one of those giant steps for mankind, it’s inherently dangerous. But in all the fervour to get to the 70 billion barrels deep in the Gulf, we chose to suppress that information. What happens if we have a big hurricane season this year?

Nukes: While the west mutters and hovers, Asia is going all out. It will be interesting to follow the split in attitude. Just this week, Monju, the giant Japanese breeder reactor was brought back online after a 14 years of repair.  China, which has 11 reactors in commercial production, has 20 under construction. I’m waiting for the argument in the West to get much more heated as people start to wonder how we’ll compete with nuclear Asian countries in 10 years.

Immigration: I get a gold star. In the UK immigration has become the biggest issue in the election. It was an immigration argument with Mrs. Duffy that caused Mr. Brown’s worst moment in the campaign. As we hit the next leg down, and the European economy buckles  under  the sovereign debt bubble, which will make Lehman brothers look like the teddy bear’s picnic, immigration will turn ugly. Big right wing gains across Europe. As southern Europe goes into full street fighting man mode it’s only a matter of time before they decide that it’s the foreigner’s fault. Look out.

I’m off to the Frontline Club to have a glass of wine and watch as Britain has a revolutionary election, involving three white guys instead of two. No, really. It’s time for real change. Honest.