Streetwise: Bracing ourselves

According to Wikipedia, those born in the Year of the Ox tend to be dependable, calm, methodical, patient, hard-working, ambitious, conventional, steady, modest, logical, resolute and tenacious.

However, they can also be stubborn, narrow-minded, materialistic, rigid and demanding.

In Chinese astrology, one animal is believed to govern the traits and successes of each year.

So how do these zodiac animals influence the economy?

Since the ox is considered to be modest yet stubborn, laymen like us could end up painting a gloomy picture, expecting those difficult times we had in the last months of 2008 to stay … for a long time.

However, it might be worth considering the views of professional astrologers.

The prophecy on http://www.revelation13.net/economy.html says the US economy and stock market should stabilise in January and the market should see some recovery in the rest of the year. Sadly, US markets are expected to do a lot better than those in Europe and Asia.

The forecast says: "Worldwide economic

chaos could occur during 2009 and until November 2010. World economics will likely see wild swings, oil-price instability and stock-market swings in 2009-2010."

As the world waits for the world's largest economy to recover its strength and lift the rest of us out of that deep, dark hole, the GaneshaSpeaks Team predicts: "The US will become really desperate between July 18 and August 6 on account of the global crude-oil business. The price of crude oil will have very volatile fluctuations during this period."

The Ganesha team

predicts even more bad news, saying controversies may be created in the

banking sector between July 15 and July 30. Should we be preparing for yet another massive collapse of banks? Luckily, the prophecy says banks may get some assistance between August 20 and September 24. Still, the US economy

is expected to experience high fluctuations between November 15 and December 10.

Well, no matter what

the prophecies say, the Year of the Ox has arrived, and we should brace ourselves for whatever the future holds.