The Globe and Mail

Theme No. 2:

Canadians in debt

With interest rates expected to stay on hold until about the middle of the year, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty may be forced to act after the holidays to rein in overstretched borrowers.

Most observers believe any such move will be modest, however. With the recovery still somewhat fragile, the last thing the economy needs is a sharp pullback in the housing-related investment and consumer spending that powered the rebound this year. At the same time, economists and finance experts are divided about the magnitude of the problem. Some question whether Canadian indebtedness – despite rising to unprecedented levels in the third quarter – could trigger a wave of defaults, given that the most at-risk mortgages in the country are insured by the government.

Theme No. 3:

An energy game changer

In the U.S. and Canada, the shale gas boom has been called a “game changer” that promises abundant supplies of relatively low-cost fuel for decades.

While there are believed to be major deposits of natural gas trapped in shale deposits across Eastern Europe, companies are only beginning to explore the commercial potential, and warn a shortage of drilling equipment and skilled labour could act as a brake on development.

The coming year will see a major expansion of investment in shale gas plays around the world, notably in Europe, China, India and perhaps even South America. Companies and host countries hope to repeat the North American experience that has transformed energy markets across the continent.

Theme No. 4:

A new era for natural gas

Some time in the coming months, heavy equipment is slated to mobilize on the Pacific shores of British Columbia’s north coast.

Not far from the aluminum smelting town of Kitimat, the machinery is to begin clearing the trees along Bish Cove to make way for a project that will usher in a new era for Canada’s natural gas producers.

It likely won’t happen until fall. But at a time of low North American gas prices and abundant new supply, the decision to construct a $3.5-billion liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal, the first of its kind in Canada, has nearly arrived.

When it is built, Kitimat LNG will connect the prolific gas fields of northeastern British Columbia with energy-hungry buyers in Asia.

Theme No. 5:

India's potential

India’s problems are obvious and enormous: crushing poverty, persistent corruption scandals and a crumbling infrastructure that is decades out of date. At first blush, India’s economic virtues are less apparent, but they are tremendously compelling, particularly over the long term.

As China’s roaring economy has been the pacesetter for recovery from the global financial crisis, the world’s most populated country has garnered the bulk of international attention. From its undervalued currency to its mushrooming modern super-cities to its yawning trade surplus with the United States, China has dominated the attention of the world’s financial markets this year. Yet 2011 may finally be the year when people wake up to the potential of the other Asian economic superpower.

Theme No. 6:

Debt and deficits

European Central Bank president Jean-Claude Trichet never comments on what he calls “market behaviour” but it appears he knows a thing or two about market psychology. At a press conference in early December in Frankfurt, shortly after Ireland’s bailout and in the thick of a run on Portuguese bonds, he in effect cried “foul!” The euro zone’s public finances, he said, are in “much better shape than other big advanced economies.”

He rolled out some figures. The euro zone’s collective budget deficit, as a per cent of gross domestic product (GDP), will fall from 6.3 per cent in 2010 to 4.6 in 2011. The equivalent 2011 figures for the United States and Japan are 8.9 per cent and 6.4 per cent.

The message: If you think we have debt problems, look across the Atlantic or the Pacific, where budget deficits are out of control, relatively speaking.

Theme No. 7:

Newfoundland's moment

For the past six decades, since Newfoundland and Labrador entered Confederation, any transition in the province’s political leadership was tinged with underlying pessimism that nothing could really change.

However eloquent the leader – and the Rock’s leaders are invariably eloquent – the province could never escape the harsh realities of crushing public debt, high structural unemployment, and the mantle of being Canada’s perennial doormat.

But this time, it’s not like that. When Premier Danny Williams retired in late November, he left behind a different kind of legacy – that 2011 will be Newfoundland and Labrador’s moment, when the province cashes in on its great promise to become Canada’s Atlantic powerhouse.

Theme No. 8:

The U.S. recovery

The world’s biggest economy is stirring again.

The latest sign: U.S. factories revved up their manufacturing activity at the fastest pace in seven months in December, according to a closely-watched survey released Monday by the Institute for Supply Management. Another encouraging piece of data came from the Commerce Department, which reported that construction spending notched a small increase in November, the third such monthly gain. Investors cheered, sending U.S. stocks to fresh two-year highs on the first trading day of the new year.

While a vigorous economic recovery isn't on the horizon, it seems increasingly likely that a respectable one is. That means economic growth might actually accelerate over the course of 2011, unlike its herky-jerky pattern in 2010.

Theme No. 9:

The Austrian school of economics

He’s the man the economics profession left behind.

Friedrich August von Hayek, born in Vienna in 1899, was an emerging star in the early 1930s. He was lured to the London School of Economics at that time to counter the growing influence of Cambridge University’s John Maynard Keynes, who was developing his ideas on how governments could counter recessions by replacing lost private demand. . .

But in 2011, Hayek is poised to exact a measure of revenge. The stage for his comeback is already set: Capitol Hill.

Theme No. 10:

The gamification of advertising

“Would you like to play a game?” In the classic 1983 drama WarGames, starring Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy, that computer-generated query sparks a nearly apocalyptic cautionary tale about playing with technology you can’t really control.

But with fears of technology apparently as dead as the Cold War, people are now spending a growing amount of time playing online and mobile games. And marketers are building entire game-based campaigns, in hopes of using fun to embed brands in customers’ lives.

Theme No. 11:

Apple's future

It’s as long-shot a proposition as there is in the technology world: What if 2011 is the year Apple AAPL-Q the company that revolutionized mobile computing, falls flat?

Anyone who bet against Apple over the past five years missed out on a stock that almost quadrupled in price, a company that went from a cult favourite in the tech world to the largest company in the industry, passing Microsoft last year. Skeptics missed out on the holy trinity of mobile consumer electronics: the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad.

But increasingly, analysts are beginning to consider the possibility that the company behind the resurgence of tablet computers (among other things) can only create so many groundbreaking, blockbuster products.