By John Branston
It is December, which means Christmas cheer, a little more football, a lot more basketball, and predictions! Easy cheesy click-bait and you can’t go wrong because they’re PREDICTIONS.
- At least half of these will be wrong.
- The Memphis population will fall below 600,000.
- The fastest growing suburb will be Arlington because of its location near Ford Blue Oval City and away from Memphis, schools, churches, medical offices and housing.
- The Grizzlies will not make the NBA Playoffs.
- Ja will get in trouble and be traded.
- Homicides in Memphis will decline because what goes up must come down. Eventually.
- There will be a murder on Beale Street after midnight when nothing good happens.
- The new barbecue contest on the river will be a hit because it’s new and deliberately not corporate.
- The new starting wage at big employers will be $18 an hour because of the UAW ripple effect.
- Ford will keep building in Stanton but cut back its production forecast for EVs.
- The UAW will get a union vote at Nissan in Canton and Toyota in Tupelo.
- The union votes will fail.
- Amazon will live up to its name and build out another million feet of space, topping its 800,000 square-foot fulfillment center in Raleigh but not as big as its 3.8 million foot facility in Middle Tennessee.
- Amazon “free delivery” will cost more.
- Tennessee will replace Michigan as the Car/Truck capital of the USA.
- Nashville will be “Motor City” as well as “Music City” on a t-shirt and cap.
- There will be a new Elvis movie.
- AI will replace reporting in major media as openly and unapologetically as media now embrace advertising and junk “news”.
- Taylor Swift and Justin Timberlake will play a dual concert at the football stadium. In Nashville.
- At least some of these will be right.
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John Branston has been a reporter and columnist in Memphis for 40 years.
