Surely things can't get worse! Or can they? Haven't we been asking this for over 5 years now? What can we expect from 2006 financially and economically? Let's take a look at what we can expect of the new year - bearing in mind, of course, that any form of prediction in Zimbabwe is whimsical, given the proven tendencies of this regime to interfere with economic forces in order to protect or better their own lifestyles, regardless of the effect on the people they are supposed to be serving. Will we see any improvement to our standard of living? The short answer is "probably not".