Seers Use Stars, Stats to Divine O.C. Future
It’s time to check the final score.
A year ago, Esmael Adibi, the head of Chapman University’s Center for Economic Research in Orange, and astrologer Laura Rose DesJardins, the owner of Astro-Forecast in Costa Mesa, agreed to match wits and predict what 1993 had in store for us all.
Both came well recommended.
Adibi and his crew of academic number crunchers have made predictions for years about Orange County’s economy for local business leaders. And for 21 years, DesJardins has made a decent living discreetly searching the stars and calculating their influence on business for boardrooms across Orange County.
The past recession-weary year was no cakewalk for anyone in the prognosticating field. Economic crystal balls grew cloudy with a new Administration in Washington pushing for sweeping changes in trade, health care and tariffs. Still, our local prognosticators did fairly well on their predictions about how Orange County in general and four broad industry sectors would fare in 1993. They also looked into the future again to see what this year holds.
They erred on two significant points in 1993. Each side humbly claims undisputed victory over the other, but you, the readers, should decide if knowing the configurations of Pluto and Saturn are as accurate as knowing the county’s gross domestic product and local unemployment trends.
ORANGE COUNTY
Orange County pretty much remained in the dumps all year. Layoffs were legion--about 15,000 jobs were lost in 1993--and many businesses were forced to rethink how they operate.
But Adibi and DesJardins said the county was going to continue suffering only until mid-1993, then job losses were to give way to growth. They also predicted that increased foreign trade was going to lay a patina of hope over Orange County’s dull economic landscape.
Uh huh. Sorry, guys.
It didn’t matter that Orange County’s astrological sign is Leo and that it was being influenced by Sagittarius or that the gross national product grew 4.4% by the fourth quarter and that taxable sales were up 3.6%.
Orange County was still in a slump.
“That is one area in which I kind of blew it,” Adibi said. “But we both did.”
What neither counted on was that corporate executives, shaken by the uncertainty of health care reform, deferred hiring until they get a better idea what effect reform will have on their payrolls.
DesJardins’ and Adibi’s predictions about new foreign trade opportunities also were a bit premature. But that is changing rapidly, according to their predictions for this year.
“Orange County is taking on a whole new image and is revitalizing itself,” DesJardins said, pointing out that Saturn and Neptune will play significant positive roles in the year ahead. “The old image is ending completely.”
Adibi takes a more conservative posture.
“President Clinton’s tax package has significant contractionary fiscal implications associated with it, particularly in the first half of this year when the higher tax liabilities need to be paid,” he said.
In other words, expect another bearish year for Orange County.
HIGH TECHNOLOGY
That was the only area in which the two forecasters differed significantly. DesJardins said that the high-tech industry, fueled by a conjunction of Uranus and Neptune, would be on the upswing in 1993; Adibi gave it a thumbs down.
Sorry, DesJardins, your worthy opponent wins this one.
The high-tech industry ended up losing 5,000 jobs, largely caused by continued cutbacks in defense. In fact, Adibi said, expect more to come.
In mid-December, for instance, Rockwell International Corp. said it plans to cut an additional 500 jobs from its Seal Beach and Downey plants. Other defense contractors looking to downsize or convert to commercial production face similar fates.
“Clearly, we don’t need that much defense,” Adibi said.
In her defense, DesJardins points out that she didn’t receive information to chart defense firms in 1993.
She notes that she accurately predicted a rise in computer companies in 1993.
DesJardins points out that companies such as AST Research Inc. in Irvine, which makes computer hardware, have done well overall. Vice President Al Gore visited AST in September, praising its corporate restructuring, and then took time for a photo with AST Chief Executive Safi Qureshey.
As a footnote, DesJardins accurately predicted last year that Roger Johnson, head of Western Digital Inc. in Irvine, would leave the firm for bigger and better things. He was tapped by President Clinton in July to be chief of the General Services Agency.
Her tidbit for the future was not reported in last year’s story because--hey! Who would have believed it?
HEALTH CARE
It was a safe bet for both to predict last year that the health care industry was poised to receive a welcome boost under Clinton’s reform proposal.
Health maintenance organizations Pacifi-Care Health Systems Inc. in Cypress and FHP Inc. in Fountain Valley had stellar years in membership growth and revenue.
But HMOs aside, the county’s overall health care sector didn’t grow as aggressively as either had predicted. Only about 500 jobs were gained for the county, largely because of job cuts at medical device makers Beckman Instruments Inc. in Fullerton, Allergan Inc. in Irvine and drug distributor Bergen Brunswig Corp. in Orange.
“Even HMOs are not even sure which ones will be around in the future,” said Adibi. “There is a real vagueness out there.”
In fact, both said recently, this year will be painful for the industry.
Continued job losses, Adibi said, will cut into managed care membership and will trickle down to hurt the fast growth of HMOs. DesJardins agrees, what with that pesky Saturn moving into the sun at the same time Pluto is moving into Saturn.
“It’s a whole new chart,” she said. “It looks like a double whammy.”
TOURISM AND ENTERTAINMENT
The tourism and entertainment industry, including lodging and food services, showed a few more signs of life than real estate, defense and other major industries.
That, after all, is what Adibi and DesJardins both predicted.
Adibi said the industry took in 2% more revenue than it did in 1992, mainly driven by visitors from other areas of the country where the economy is reviving.
But what he didn’t predict was that employment was flat.
Businesses “got more out of existing workers by offering overtime instead of hiring new employees,” Adibi said.
The stars will continue to be good for the industry this year because of the influence of the constellation Sagittarius, DesJardins predicted. And even Disney will benefit from the moon moving into Neptune, making a major positive decision by mid-year. After all, Neptune represents image.
Disney, of course, needs to make a decision soon on whether to continue its $3-billion plan to expand Disneyland in Anaheim into a resort, complete with a Westcot theme park. The plans were thrown in doubt after the company lost $514 million on its Euro Disney park in Paris for its fiscal year ended Sept. 30.
REAL ESTATE
“What more can we say?” Adibi said, shaking his head. “We were right about real estate.”
Indeed, the continuing decline in the real estate market might have been an easy pick for anyone to make. In fact, the average home price dropped an additional 3.3% for 1993--on top of a 1.4% drop for 1992.
Last year, Adibi attributed his prediction to the simple proposition that unemployed folks were not interested in taking out home loans, even if home prices and interest rates were at their lowest levels in years.
DesJardins said the source of the problem was grander than that. It was the fact that Saturn, Neptune and Uranus were all in Capricorn, a configuration that represented limitations, restrictions, losses and delays.
Is it over?
Not on your life, both said.
DesJardins said to wait at least another year, when all three planets reposition themselves to a more lucrative configuration.
So there you have it.
Is stargazing--DesJardins calls it cosmic biology--as accurate as the number-crunching computers at Chapman University?
That is for you to decide.
The better question could be: Why go through the exercise of forecasting at all?
Both Adibi and DesJardins defend the practice as vital to employers, who must chart courses for their enterprises, and to employees, who need help making valuable decisions about personal finances such as home purchases and other investments.
“It’s an awesome responsibility,” Adibi said, noting that picking up the right trends is the most difficult part of forecasting. “But I think we did excellently. Only I did better.”
Humph! says DesJardins. She points out that she did just as well with her general predictions and better with such specific prognostications as Roger Johnson’s departure from Western Digital.
