I Made 22 Predictions at the Start of the Year. 21 Came True.
I Made 22 Predictions at the Start of the Year. 21 Came True.
Take a guess who let me down
On December 31, 2021, I published an article in which I made 22 predictions for 2022.
As I caveated at the start, the article was written in declaratives but of course, it was simply speculative. That said, I’m a firm believer that predicting the future has a formula:
Chart the current trajectory if nothing changes + assume things will generally get worse (second law of thermodynamics) + assume there will be major surprises that no one can predict. :-)
Clearly, that last factor is the major disruptor. There were loads of things I didn’t see coming from the vantage point of the last day of 2021, like Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the UK Conservative government’s diabolical use of that human tragedy to loot the British nation, or that Jon Batiste would win the Grammy for album of the year.
But as for my trajectory-based predictions, as we’ll see today, 21 out of 22 proved correct. (Though, yes, I realize there’s still a week left and things could change!)
Let’s dive in:
Prediction #1. We don’t all die in a global nuclear war
I posited that nukes are for Boomers, and no one currently in possession of launch codes has the stomach or suicidality for total global annihilation. I still published an article about how to prepare for a nuclear strike, but I’m pleased to see even that hasn’t come to pass.
Outcome: Correct
Prediction #2. The stock market doesn’t crash
It has truly been a crazy year for the stock market.
(Not that I care, because the stock market is just a casino for parasites to extract wealth from the working poor and is a major threat to the real economy.)
But no matter, when writing this, the S&P 500 sits at $3,849.78, down from $4,775.21 on December 31st of last year — IE down 19%. This is no doubt a lot of money for people who “earn” their living by stock trading, but considering the market is still seriously overpriced compared to the start of the pandemic, and the P/E ratio of the S&P 500 is still well above the 100-year average, we’re nowhere near true crash territory.
Outcome: Correct
(I also predicted that there would be no meaningful rise in workers’ real wages when you factor in crushing inflation, which also has proven true so far.)
Prediction #3. Bitcoin hits seventeen billion trillion dollars
I immediately wrote “just kidding” in the original article.
The crypto crackdown did, indeed, continue, and as predicted, Tether somehow managed to keep its fraud alive.
Outcome: Correct
Prediction #4. The metaverse is a flop
Absolutely dead on delivery.
I almost feel bad that Mark Zuckerberg is so out of touch with reality.
Poor little war criminal.
Outcome: Correct
Prediction #5. Inflation doesn’t go away
“Inflation is transitory,” they lied.
But CPI has always been a bald-faced lie and smart people calculate their own inflation numbers.
US inflation is still hovering around 6%, and in the UK, real inflation is still rising:
Outcome: Correct
Prediction #6. Supply chain challenges continue to plague humanity
Indeed, supply chain challenges — real and manufactured — have given corporations a cover to price-test what they can squeeze out of consumers without any extra value-add.
The upside, as predicted, is that more of us are shopping close to home as pockets of localism make a reemergence.
Outcome: Correct
Prediction #7. Republicans win the mid-terms
I’ve been predicting for a while now that the GOP is going to take the Presidency in 2024, whether they win or not.
But as usual, The Donald disappoints. Have we turned a corner toward sanity? Or was Big D just not right-wing enough for the fascist insurgency? Only time will tell.
Outcome: Incorrect
Prediction #8. More predator corporations move to the Subscription Serfdom Model
We’ve been sounding the alarm on subscription serfdom for a while now — corporations are literally training our children from a life of assetless neo-feudalism — and sadly there are more land-lorders, SaaS startups, emerging monopolies, and payment plans than one year ago. I honestly do see an economic exit on the horizon.
Outcome: Correct
Prediction #9. Airbnb continues to ruin families and communities
We predicted Airbnb hosts will continue to outbid working families for residential homes, which will make sale prices rise, rentals disappear, and the few remaining rentals skyrocket in price. I don’t know any renter who isn’t seriously hurting right now.
And yes, Scott Galloway did remain silent about one of his favorite investments, even though he claims to “care” about the next generation.
Airbnb remains a global threat to affordable homeownership and rentership, and as we covered in recent weeks, now that they’ve crushed the rental market, they're invading new territory.
Outcome: Correct
Prediction #10. No more lockdowns
As predicted, even rented politicians and privatized media corporations weren’t able to muster up enough fear to stuff everyone back indoors for another year.
(61% of Americans gained an average of 29 pounds during lockdown — nearly half of Millennials gained 41 pounds — and the health repercussions will be felt for a generation.)
As predicted, the governments who were stupid enough to try to place their citizens on house arrest over infectious-but-mild variants saw revolts in the street.
Outcome: Correct
Prediction #11. Loneliness and depression increase
Because we’re engineering our society for loneliness.
And sadly, suicide rates are rising and pill-popping has reached an all-time high.
Outcome: Correct
Prediction #12. Social media continues to destroy society
And as correctly predicted, Congress did nothing meaningful to stop Facebook.
Outcome: Correct
Prediction #13. Ch!na continues to dominate America
While Americans bickered about gender and raising the debt ceiling for the umpteenth time, Xi declared himself boss-for-life and kept Ch!na focused on their economic colonization plan of debt-trapping poor countries, buying global assets like seaports, and rolling out Orwellian surveillance to dominate their own people.
Outcome: Correct
Prediction #14. The climate crisis continues to worsen
Yeah.
C02 emissions are still rising.
We’re not going to stop polluting until it’s far too late.
But as predicted, many people are wising to the con of shaming the middle class into not eating meat, using plastic straws, heating with woodstoves, driving fast, or taking baths.
Outcome: Correct
Prediction #15. Debt increases
Federal debt grew to $31 trillion.
Personal consumer debt grew to $16 trillion.
The banksters will yet again, and we’re one step closer to the mathematical inevitability of interest payments hoovering up 100% of all human wealth.
Outcome: Correct
Prediction #16. Global democracy remains in decline for the sixteenth consecutive year
Freedom House’s annual report confirms the expansion of authoritarianism rule across the planet.
Outcome: Correct
Prediction #17. The rich get richer
As predicted, the elites didn’t capture another $5.5 trillion haul as they did during the pandemic. While they’re now “suffering” some paper “losses” thanks to increasing interest rates, they’re starting to go on a buying spree as the middle class can’t afford to hold onto assets. When the dip reverses, this shopping season will reveal the rich are significantly better off in real-wealth terms.
Outcome: Correct
Prediction #18. The poor get poorer
If you live in the US and your pay didn’t go up 10% in the past year, you took a real-terms pay cut and are poorer than when you started 2022.
It’s almost twice as bad in the UK.
As predicted, food, transportation, and house prices rose in 2022, and many people received the tiniest of pay raises, leaving the middle class and working class significantly poorer in real relative wealth.
Also as predicted, millions dropped out of the workforce thanks to financialization and monopoly creating a situation where working for less than subsistence simply no longer makes sense.
Outcome: Correct
Prediction #19. Governments desperately try to stave off a crash
Central banks have raised the interest rate nearly a dozen times in most cases — still well below the 50-year average, but enough to freak out corporations and individuals who didn’t plan for a rainy day.
Even greedy land-lorders have started protesting that they might lose the houses their tenants are slaving to pay for.
Welcome to the free market, I guess.
Central banks are doing a lot of crazy stuff right now — everything from rate rises to quantitative easing to quantitative tightening, and sometimes rows in the opposite direction at the same time.
Rather than doing the right thing and letting the whole house of cards burn to the ground in a reset to sanity, they’ve somehow managed to keep the boat afloat. At least for now.
Outcome: Correct
Prediction #20. Housing becomes increasingly unaffordable for renters
The rental market will continue to feel the crush thanks to Airbnb, second house owners, land-lorders, and institutional investors, forcing working renters to surrender a far more significant portion of their hard-earned wealth to passive extractors.
As predicted, homelessness is getting worse, and wealthy people pretend “not to understand” exactly why there are more people on the streets now than at any point since the Great Depression.
Outcome: Correct
Prediction #21. Homeownership becomes increasingly unaffordable without massive debt
Ding ding ding.
This year, millions of young-ish people pole-vaulted the massive chasm into homeownership, loading themselves with multi-six-figure debt, effectively wage-enslaving themselves for forty years to a bank that simply printed digital credit into their bank accounts… and then the interest rates skyrocketed.
Outcome: Correct
Prediction #22. Most people find a way to carry on
Unbelievably, despite the political meltdown, the wars, the scandals, the environmental catastrophes, and the corporate takeover of the global economy, most of humanity didn’t kill themselves or go to war.
It’s a testament to how resilient human beings can be. It’s also scary when you realize that predator corporations know it, too — they know how much more life can still be pressed out of the middle class. And they didn’t stop testing that thesis for a minute in 2022.
Outcome: Correct
Dream prediction #1:
That baby Concord would take his first steps, and that his first spoken phrase will be either “corporate corruption” or “sic semper tyrannis.”
Well, folks, Concord stood up YESTERDAY for the first time and took two whole steps! (He then immediately pooped himself.)
He still hasn’t said his first word — likely because I’m speaking English and my wife speaks to him in Finnish — but here’s to hoping.
He boards his first ferry and train tomorrow, and his first flight the day after that. Bon voyage, baby bean!
Outcome: Half-correct
Dream prediction #2:
That Surviving Tomorrow, which grew to 15,000 followers in this its first year, would grow to 50,000+ followers as its wonderful and intelligent readers consistently and purposefully clap, share, and strongly insist that all their friends and family join the conversation and follow along.
Well… we nearly doubled to 27,435 followers, but I’d appreciate your help in spreading the word.
Outcome: We still have work to do
Have you enjoyed Surviving Tomorrow this year?
Feel free to buy me a book or a bottle of scotch for Christmas — both improve my writing. ;)
PS. Be sure to check back in a few days when I publish my 23 predictions for 2023.