When wondering about the future, you can always check in with the Magic 8 Ball.
"Hey, Magic 8 Ball, who's going to be president?"
The answer, of course, is "Outlook cloudy."
You can ask your Uncle Greg, who likely will start every answer as if he was the clear choice to be the leader of the free world. Of course, he's the unanimous choice about which one of your family members is wearing underwear turned inside out.
You even could try to discern a realistic prediction from the talking heads on TV.
In truth, the answer about who will be on the ballot in November has been clear, according to Vegas, for months.
Ah, Vegas. This side of Wall Street, Vegas is the home of real capitalism.
Make your decisions. Put your money down. Roll the dice. (That trading stocks is the bedrock of our economy and gambling is against the law is the ultimate double standard.)
Vegas is smarter than we are when it comes to seeing the future. That's how they build five-star hotels and offer lobster dinners for $5.99. They know the odds, play the odds and cash the checks.
So we should not be surprised that we are speeding toward a Hillary Clinton-Donald Trump face-off come November. Oddsmakers have forecast this for months now, despite the hand-wringing from the GOP and the upset-gumption from Bernie Sanders. (And the fact Ted Cruz announced his VP pick is akin to the Atlanta Braves naming their Game 1 starter for this year's World Series.)
This is where we are. It's not shocking; it's terrifying.
Trump is running on a campaign of hate and aggression.
Clinton is the biggest criminal to aspire to a political office this lofty since Nixon resigned.
It's an election that will make history, for good and bad and mostly bad.
This is the ultimate choice between picking between the lesser of two evils. This will be the election most people will identify with the capital letter after the candidate's name more than the name itself. This will be the election that, hopefully, will start the overhaul of what is clearly a broken system.
I love this country, and make sure my family is thankful for the land and liberty we have. We are blessed to be born here, and the discussion about freedoms and elections is assuredly a first-world problem when you compare it to people who do not have clean drinking water or edible food.
But for us - here and now - our political process is a problem nonetheless.
So as we stare at the collision course of arguably the two most despised presidential candidates in the history of this country, it has to be time for change.
It has to be time for better.
No business could be operating in today's culture with a mantra written in the 1700s. No business can survive with the fundamental belief of "that's the way it's always been done."
We need change. In fact, we should crave it - from both parties and across all demographics.
And if there's one hope the vast majority of us who are outraged that Trump and Clinton are the only choices to lead our nation can carry from this election, it may be that.
We need an election this terrible to be the genesis of change.
Or at least we can hope for that.
Or, considering the choices, maybe at most.
Contact Jay Greeson at jgreeson@timesfreepress.com. His "Right to the Point" column appears on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.