Happy New Year everybody!

Another year has passed and it is time for us to make predictions for 2011.

No World War 3

World famous fortune teller Baba Vanga has said that the Third World War will begin as an ordinary war at the end of 2010 and last all the way up to 2014. As luck would have it North and South Korea have had several armed conflicts starting from November last year – so there is still a possibility for this prediction to come true.

Although 85% of Baba Vangas predictions have come true I am certain that World War 3 will not happen – at least not in 2011.

Wikileaks will get harassed but will still be around

The governments of the world who have something to hide will do everything they can to get Wikileaks banned. If possible they will look for a legitimate way but most likely this will fail – instead they will make the effort to discredit anyone who has something to do with the organization. More often than not this is done in secrecy in order to leave an impression that the governments had nothing to do with it.

Obama will keep losing credibility

A lot of the things that Obama promised while running for president have not come true. For instance the closing down of the Guantanamo Bay prison that is used to hold terror suspects was originally intended by January 22nd 2010 but it will most probably still be around on January 1st 2012.

Obama’s road of small failures will continue and as a result he will be losing credibility slowly but surely.

More trouble in the Euro zone

Although my home country Estonia was the 17th nation to join the Euro zone there are dark times ahead for the currency.

We will see at least one more European country getting into trouble that is eventually bailed out.

Despite of the trouble the Euro will still be around in 2012.

Oil prices over $120 per barrel

On January 1st 2010 the oil price is 91 dollars per barrel. It is my prediction that during 2011 the price will rise to over 120 dollars per barrel – an increase of more than 30%.

The main reasons area a weak dollar and an increased demand by developing countries.

Winter storms

The heavy winter storms witnessed in 2010 in Europe and USA will continue in the winter of 2011. This will raise several questions since people have not seen such severe storms for a long time. Are we in the beginning of a short ice age?

New Apple products

Apple will release their new iPad with a camera – this will give life to a boom of video calls using Skype and Apple’s own Facetime App.

The new iPhone 5 will also be released – nothing revolutionary there. In all aspects it will be slightly better than the iPhone 4 and very likely it will also be available in white. You can also hope for additional colors but they will probably debut with the iPhone 6 in 2012.

I will make a full income online

While I already make a hefty sum with my online ventures it is currently not enough to survive in luxury without a regular job. 2011 will most likely mark a year when I can start concentrating solely on my online businesses.

What are your predictions for 2011?

This post is about Estonia – a small, yet technologically advanced country where I run FinancialJesus.com from.

Background

Estonia is a very small country – about 1.3 million people live on 17 000 square miles (45000 sq km).

The largest city Tallinn has a population of about 400 000 – all other cities are smaller than 100 000 people.

Our better known neighbours include Finland to the north, Sweden to the west and Russia to the east.

Cool things about Estonia that you didn’t know

Let’s be honest – there is about a 99% chance that you don’t know anything about Estonia, but here is a list of things that make us unique and show just how advanced technologically we are.

E-government

From the year 2000 all Estonian government’s hearings are entirely paper free. The members of the government still have gatherings but all documents are held entirely online. If it is necessary to pass a new law it can be signed digitally.

ID-cards and Electronical signatures

All Estonians have an ID-card with a small chip that can be used to give electronic signatures. An Estonian can pretty much do every bureaucratic procedure online – this includes filing your taxes which is entirely web based and takes about 5 minutes. All relevant information is pre-entered into the tax forms – you just need to check if everything is OK.

E-democracy

Estonia is the first country in the world to have a unique system where every citizen can make suggestions for changing laws online. Other Estonians can vote if they like the suggestion and in the end the government has to consider carefully whether or not this suggestion can be implemented. You can basically change a law with one single post online.

Electronic voting

Estonia is the first country in the world to have successfully implemented national e-voting. A person wanting to give his vote to his favorite candidate online needs to have his ID-card that he uses to identify himself. A person can change his vote for as many times as he likes until the deadline.

Secure voting with mobile phones has already been used in smaller scale and there is a debate whether we should have mobile voting in addition to online voting.

Wireless Internet

Estonia is entirely covered with wireless internet. We have free wireless internet access in every gas station and in every cafe that hopes to have any visitors. In fact, it is very difficult to find a place where there is no free public wireless internet access! The many wireless networks that cover the whole country include 3G, 3.5G, WiMax and CDMA.

Estonia is the only country in the world where internet access is a basic human right. (Yes we have a law for that).

98% of people use online banking. Nobody uses checks.

Glimpse of World War 3

Being too wired can also have some negative aspects. In May 2007 Estonia became the first country in the world to become under a country wide cyber attack. The attack was headed from Russia with millions of computers around the world bombarding Estonian media, government and banking websites. Many of them become temporarily unavailable. Luckily for us – Estonia is the home of the cyber defense headquarters of NATO.

Mobile parking

Estonia was the first country to implement mobile parking tickets. You drive to the center of the city, park your car and dial a special number or send a text message. If you are done parking just call the number again. The money is taken directly from your bank account or added to your phone bill. If you are a fan of public transport you can of course buy a bus ticket with your phone or transfer money to your friends bank account just by dialing a special phone number. There are almost no regular parking meters.

Famous software

Estonia is also the birthplace for such famous software as Kazaa and Skype. The best days of the file sharing software Kazaa are already over, but the free internet based voice chat program Skype was sold to eBay for $4.1 billion.

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I was reading Adam Primero’s blog the other day and came across the following

“You probably remember the old subscription magazines that had classified ads. “Send me $1, I’ll show you how to make $500 a month” Do you remember those ads?
9 out of 10 times, you send $1, you get a letter that said, place ads in the back of magazines offering to share your “secret” for$1″

Well – I don’t remember these ads and NO, I don’t have a bad memory!

The reason is simple – I live in Estonia and to my knowledge this has never been done here. I can’t be 100% sure but I read a lot and have never heard of such a “business opportunity”.

As I do with other interesting ideas I wrote it down – “Maybe I will do it one day” I thought.

I am an easy person to get excited about new things but usually I get tired of them pretty fast. It’s about 99% certain to me, that after writing down an idea that would make an interesting start-up business I will never try to get the project started.

This time its different

This blog is here for a reason and if I can use it to make myself do something that is

1. A cool experiment
2. Easy to do
3. Has potential to make some money
4. Will entertain the readers at FinancialJesus.com

There is no reason I shouldn’t do it.

If I can use this blog to help keep my promises to myself and at the same time make a little money – I should go for it.

Next steps

I am going to do a little research and find a couple of newspapers that allow to post some cheap ads. After that I can hopefully publish an ad or two and see if the money starts coming in or not.

I will have to find a balance between how much money I will ask people to send me and how much I will promise to help them make. The sum I will ask for should be small enough that people are willing to send it to me and large enough for me to make some money!

Since we don’t use checks here in Estonia I must also think of a way that people can give me their money. About 98% of bank transactions are made through internet over here(Estonia is the #1 country in the world in online banking). So I need to decide between having people send cash in an envelope or having them make online transactions or both.

I am open for suggestions and tips how make this thing work.

I will keep you updated how it goes. If it works here in Estonia there is a good chance it will work in some other countries my readers are from! The best way to see, how much money I will make with all of this is to sign up for my full feed RSS or subscribe via email.