In 2019: Dan Rattiner's Happy Times Predictions for the New Year

The United States and the Chinese shake hands on a deal to end their standoff. They will henceforth be 50-50 partners on the “Belt and Road” program and will settle up their accounts together at the end of every year by splitting that year’s profits. In addition, the two countries agree to ignore the problem of polluting the atmosphere with carbon dioxide and instead focus on the problem of cleaning it up as they create it.

China’s contribution will be to require the 1 million young engineering students graduating this year to come up with a new chemical compound that will clump up all the excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, while the American contribution will be to fire robot rockets into the atmosphere capable of rolling up the clumped CO2 into a huge, filthy ball and have it fired off into space as an enormous dirty planet circling the sun, called TrumpXi.

There will be two headquarters for the new partnership, one in the East and one in the West. The one in the East will be in Beijing. The one in the West will be in Long Island City.

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The ever-increasing robo-call sales pitch phone call problem will be solved by everybody in America never answering their phones. Going forward, all wanted phone calls will be arranged for a particular time by text, an hour ahead.

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The Donald Trump Charitable Trust went out of the non-profit business last month, but it re-emerge as a profitable business called the Donald Trump University & Charitable Trust at the end of the year.

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Congress will pass a bipartisan bill (signed by Trump with his left hand while tweeting with his right) requiring the President to tweet his thoughts 24 hours a day at three-minute intervals and just rest in between. He jumps at the chance and the stock market surges to a new high.

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The country becomes obsessed by the controversial lyrics of the Christmas Song “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” which suggest that a woman, after much urging, agrees to spend the night with a man against her will, or at least against her better judgment. Some argue it’s against #MeToo, while others argue it is against #Christmas, and in the end it is decided that instead of banning it, earplugs will be issued to anyone wishing not to hear it on their music provider’s playlist, and three shakes of a jingle bell will announce that in 10 seconds it will be played, so put your earplugs in.

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Part of a second Christmas song will be banned in 2019: “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” It clearly promotes bullying. Thus, its second verse will be changed from “All of the other reindeer, used to laugh and call him names, they never let poor Rudolph play in any reindeer games” to “All of the other reindeer, proud of his odd but cute little nose, vote to have him up front to take the sleigh through the darkness to wherever Santa wants it to go.”

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The Dan’s Papers “Best of the Best” contest will announce in the fall, when the 2019 awards are given out, that the “Best Resort Community” in the world is “The Hamptons,” in a tie with “The North Fork.” Lagging behind are Palm Beach, the Riviera and Hawaii.

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Elon Musk vanishes for a week, then turns up on Mars, standing atop a bluff and looking through binoculars at a cherry red Tesla drifting by with its right turn blinker on. Thank goodness, he’s okay. His people were worried about him.

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Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Theresa May will announce that they will have a re-vote to decide whether they should Brexit or Brenter. The EU says, well, whatever. All of the Scandinavian countries in the EU, just fed up to here with all this, express their frustration by stamping their feet…or maybe it’s because of where they live, it’s so cold.

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The head of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, is arrested and charged with being a witch. His defense is that he can’t get a fair trial in America because of social media, and the judge in the case rules in his favor. But the judge also rules that Zuckerberg can’t get a fair trial anywhere in the world, so he commands that Zuckerberg be shot off into outer space and tried there.

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President Trump, after two years of acting on what his gut tells him, has an annual checkup at which he is diagnosed with an acute case of irritable bowel syndrome, and for the sake of the country will need to stop using his gut for the rest of his term, after which he should retire. Congress announces they are sorry he is not feeling well and so will not send him to jail for the crimes he committed before becoming President. The stock market soars.

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Model Gisele Bündchen files for divorce from football player Tom Brady, saying their third Super Bowl was never consummated.

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President Trump and Congress agree to Trump’s plan to build a stainless steel wall 50 feet high on our southern border with the understanding that any Mexican who can climb over it and come down safely on the other side would be a credit to America, a contender for the American Olympic Gymnastics Team and clearly a health nut and not a drug dealer and so be granted immediate citizenship. Those who come down injured will be fired out of a cannon and over the wall, back to Mexico.

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Bernie Sanders leads all other contenders toward the Democratic Party nomination for president in 2020, but then, in a strange turn, is found by the pollsters to be trailing Mr. Trump in a head-to-head matchup, even though Trump has already announced he is not going to run again. On the other hand, the CIA finds that the Russian government has hacked the poll company results and has readjusted the numbers.

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The leading contender for the Republican nomination is Jared Kushner. But when it’s learned he is not only 100% Jewish but also one-quarter African-American, one-eighth Cherokee and one-eighth Mexican, he is forced to withdraw his candidacy, because these numbers just don’t add up.

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A 100-story Trump Tower is discovered having secretly been built in the Russian port city of Vladivostok. Based on tracks in the dirt, it appears to have been built and dragged off to there from Moscow.

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Jeff Bezos, the Chairman of Amazon, announces that through his online information gathering, his firm has learned exactly what everyone needs and wants, when they want it and whether it is for themselves or somebody else. As a result, he is taking over everybody’s Amazon accounts and henceforth will have computers do the ordering, shipping and credit card payments in a timely fashion. This frees up everybody to do something else, he says. Wash your dog, feed a homeless person, give to charity, study to be a doctor, sleep late, take a holiday—but don’t go for too far or for too long, as all the boxes will pile up at the front door of your house.

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The first completely autonomous car is put on sale, sold and launched out into traffic in Pittsburgh. But after four blocks it swerves off the road and into a utility pole. A study determines that the robot driving the car had an alcohol level of 1.9 and had fallen asleep at the wheel.