Surviving Tomorrow's 24 Predictions for 2024
It's good news, bad news, and worse news
Happy New Year, my friends.
I like to think we do a decent job of forecasting the future over here at Surviving Tomorrow headquarters. Predicting the future is obviously a silly thing to do, but boy is it fun to speculate!
(But for the record, I went 21 for 22 in 2022 and 23 for 23 in 2023.)
My basic thesis from predicting the future is: Chart the current trajectory if nothing changes + assume things will generally get worse due to human nature and the second law of thermodynamics + assume there will be major surprises that no one can predict. 😂
Today we’ll make predictions about inflation, real estate, interest rates, collapsing Britain, killer cops, suicide, and former-future President Donald Trump.
This article is written in declarations but of course, it’s simply speculative. Circle back in a year and see how our predictions fared!
Let’s start with the good news first:
1. We do NOT all die in a global nuclear war
Nukes are for Boomers.
No one currently in possession of launch codes — not even Vlad or the Pakistanis — has the stomach or suicidality for total global annihilation.
Thank heavens for mutually assured destruction on a planetary scale. There are more than 15,000+ nuclear warheads on planet Earth, but clear through the end of 2024, the ten nuclear nations will continue their good work of keeping planet-destroying weapons out of the hands of rogue actors… for now.
This is where we cut to a banger of a quote from Albert Einstein that only a small percentage of the population will understand:
“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”
Luckily, WWIII won’t happen in 2024.
2. Healthcare systems spin into a death spiral around the world
How long can corporatists blame a “Covid backlog?”
That bull$#it ends in 2024.
Your health is a shareholder profit opportunity, which is why healthcare systems across the globe are under absolute siege right now.
Real-term budget cuts + more services outsourced to expensive private companies + an aging/sicker/weaker/growing population = death knell.
In the future, those who are rich or credit-worthy will pay FAR more for healthcare, and everyone else will just be sick and injured and suffering. Don’t you get it? Your health must be sacrificed on the altar of profit.
3. American taxpayers are forced to pay $1 trillion in interest
Mammonomics is simple: Powerful people hire sociopathic power-seeking political puppets to take over governments, ignore Biblical economics, introduce unsound money, cut taxes on those who benefit most from society (the hyper-rich), raise taxes and inflation on the poor, and fund the budget gap by selling interest-bearing debt to the rich, which them compounds until the masses are economic slaves.
Thanks to this homicidal economic model, America “owes” its rich creditors exactly $34,135,457,061,639.36.
$34.1 trillion dollars.
That’s 3400 billion dollars.
That’s 34 million million.
Imagine if every single household in America was given an average of $251,220.78.
But then how would the richest get richer?
And let’s note that’s just the federal debt that the elites have loaded on the nation. That doesn’t include state debts, county debts, and municipal debts. Nor does it include $17.3 trillion in consumer debt that shackles American households.
Worst of all, because interest compounds exponentially while real wealth only grows incrementally, there’s no way out of this debt doom spiral without bankruptcy or debt cancellation.
But creditors hate sound mathematics. They want interest.
So America just keeps raising taxes, slashing services, and printing more money, which creates more inflation and siphons wealth from the poor to the rich. Utter insanity. A guaranteed way to destroy the nation. It’s literally satanic.
By the end of 2024, Americans will be $1 trillion poorer in real wealth, breaking a new record and forking over $1,000,000,000,000 in interest to vampires for the first time in human history.
(For the record: It would cost less than $200 billion per year to alleviate all poverty globally. Instead, Americans alone will pay out 5X that amount to parasites. There’s a phrase for this: Pur evil.)
They will continue to ignore the obvious solution for this predicament: Jubilee the debt, tax the rich, and invest in the commons.
In the meantime, America will remain the land of the fee and the home of the slave.
4. Inflation still does NOT go away
Why?
Because corporations are now at the point where they have sufficient monopoly power that they don’t give a damn about your well-being. And because they don’t have any meaningful global competition since they own all the resources, they will keep price-testing until humanity breaks.
Because of corporations, overpopulation, and resource depletion, it’s inevitable:
Prices will keep rising.
Quantity will keep shrinking. (We’re rapidly moving toward single-serving everything.)
Quality will keep decreasing. (Remember when washing machines used to last fifty years?)
Ownership will keep evaporating. (And it won’t just be music and movies.)
Best guess? 2.2–2.9% official figures, 5+% real inflation.
But don’t worry: Corporatist governments will continue to lie about the actual inflation rate, manipulating CPI to avoid paying pensioners enough to survive. Inflation is a stealth tax that robs wealth while making people believe they’re getting ahead. (The Bible rightly calls unsound money “an abomination.”)
Grown-ups ignore the Feds and calculate their own inflation rate. Your bills will rise in 2024.
5. Interest rates do NOT plummet
Remember: Interest rates are still well below the 50-year average, and the people who set interest rates all have gray hair.
The fastest way to get rid of inflation is to tax the rich.
The most painful way is to tax the poor with interest.
So naturally, the elites are loading on the pain for homeowners and small businesses.
Rates will likely fall a bit. But so long as the fake inflation number remains above the target 2% — which, let’s be honest, will eventually be raised to 3% and will hide the real number which is closer to 10% — interest rates will stay above their once-freakishly low levels.
Whenever the Fed starts cutting rates, expect the $2+ trillion sitting in the reverse repo market to flood in and buy the houses your children will rent for the rest of their lives. American corporatism is now a global poverty-making machine.
6. The real estate market does NOT crash
Rent-trapped tenant serfs who are dying for affordable shelter are hoping for a 50+% real estate crash, but they won’t get it.
Some jobless areas might see a temporary ~10% decrease from current numbers, but that just takes us back to 2018 prices… which were still stupidly overvalued.
A real estate crash = house prices falling below real value. The only thing that could cause a proper American real estate crash in our lifetime would be a nuclear detonation in a major American city and/or a major war in the West.
But in all likelihood, the real estate market won’t collapse because interest rates will fall slightly, and as we’ve discussed, the age of real estate crashes is over. We live in the wicked age of bankster financialization — where all houses are making the transition from family homes to massively leveraged hedge fund assets, meaning prices will continue to skyrocket for the rest of our lives.
Democracies should (and used to) target a median house price of 2–3X the median annual income of a single earner. But sadly, home“owners” are still the majority of voters, and they keep voting for corporatist parties who are sponsored by the very same banksters that have shackled the nation with trillions in debt and make 2–3X seem “impossible.”
The answer is to ban interest, outlaw the financialization of shelter, tax the hyper-elites, use the money to build and sell millions of high-quality owner-occupied eco-homes, then rinse and repeat until homelessness and housing hardship simply do not exist.
7. American cops kill 1,400 people
American cops killed over 1,200 people in 2023, and with rising poverty, economic hardship, and existential desperation, expect several hundred more people to commit crimes that lead to law enforcement overreaction.
8. The housing crisis worsens as for-profit land-lorders continue to exploit tenants with impunity
Land-lording is a form of economic exploitation that gained widespread normalization during feudal times (the manor-holder was the “lord of the land” — and it is the evil practice of monopolizing human shelter for the purposes of extracting a profit from people in desperate need of shelter from the elements.
Thanks to Airbnb, second house-owners, land-lorders, and institutional investors, the rental market will continue to evaporate to dust, forcing working renters to surrender a far greater portion of their hard-earned wealth to passive extractors.
In 2024, more small-time parasites and multi-national predators will devour human shelter, including trailer parks, pushing up rents even further — and wasting more and more of humanity’s time in enriching passive extractors instead of working contributors.
9. Homelessness continues to rise
Joe Biden’s handlers thought they could decrease homelessness by 25% within two years.
They were utterly delusional.
Investors are diametrically opposed to solving homelessness.
The only way to keep rents high is to test “what the market can bear” — IE keep raising prices until you hit a vacancy rate of 2–5%. If your goal is profitability, it’s better to leave five families homeless and rent 95 houses for $3000/month than 100 houses for $2500/month.
Adam Smith said capitalism is all about incentives. The world of land-lording asks “what’s the highest rent I change?” not “what can the poorest person afford.” That gap in mindset literally creates homelessness, which is why we will never solve homelessness until we eliminate for-profit land-lording… and interest-based banksterism… and predatory corporatism. People just don’t understand basic math — America was engineered for bankruptcy and homeless; its economy was designed to create a handful of mega-winners and a bloodbath of losers.
582,000 people were counted as homeless in 2022, and that number jumped massively in 2023 to 653,104… the highest leap since record-keeping began. Over 71,000 precious human beings — people like you, your spouse, and your children — were thrown into the streets due to human greed.
If the trend continues — which it won’t because it will almost certainly compound — another 78,000 people will be hurled into the streets this year, bringing the American total to 731,000. In all likelihood, we could see figures crest 750,000.
In order to say they hit their 25% reduction goal, the government will need to redefine homelessness and concoct a new way of calculating homelessness numbers to make it seem like we’re winning.
Meanwhile, wealthy people will continue to leave homeless-filled cities like Los Angeles, pretending “not to understand” exactly why there are more people on the streets now than at any point since the Great Depression.
10. Britain continues its collapse back into feudalism
While the monarchy, aristocracy, and moneyed elite enjoy obscene levels of wealth and luxury, everyday Britain is rife with growing poverty straight out of a Dickens novel. Millions of Britons are now living without heat.
With just one year left until the corporatist Conservatives are replaced by the corporatist Labour party, Cons are desperately trying to earn themselves post-politics careers by selling off as many public assets as possible, waging a full-out assault on the National Health Service. Everyday Britons are still paying full pop via taxes, of course, but now they’re just dying on the kitchen floor while waiting 12+ hours for ambulances to arrive.
What needs to be done in the UK is obvious: Get rid of feudalism once and for all.
Abolish the monarchy and aristocracy.
Democratize the banks.
Tax rent-seekers out of existence.
But it won’t happen, because the majority of voting Britons still have the mindset of serfs.
11. Global debt grows by trillions
Total global debt topped $307 trillion in 2023.
Instead of investing in creating new assets, corporations are paying out their profits to the rich as dividends and stock buybacks, and the rich are simply bidding up the price of current assets. It’s an idiotic way for the snake to eat itself, but it requires evermore debt from the working class to try to keep up. This suits banksters just fine, who create fake credit out of thin air, to be paid back with hard money and interest.
The answer, of course, is a global debt cancellation and a ban on interest. But because banksters rule the world, expect the world to pile on tens of trillions in new debt this year.
My best guess? We finish 2024 carried somewhere between $350–400 trillion owed to our masters.
12. Subscription serfdom takes more territory on the path to you owning nothing
2023 saw more people rent-trapped, Apple introduced a monthly fee to have a warranty, and McKinsey published a report estimating the used-car leasing market will have a compound annual growth rate of about 15% from 2023 to 2030. (If this happens, there’s a VERY good chance you won’t be able to afford to buy a car in 6 years without massive debt.)
I do not see an economic exit on the horizon. Corporations will not stop until you own nothing and must rent everything.
The goal is global assetlessness for the masses and total corporate reliance, and under subscription serfdom, it’s only a matter of time before you won’t be able to afford to own a house, car, mattress, or even clothes.
13. Airbnb continues to destroy families and communities
Thanks to its unsustainable grow-forever business model, 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.
We won’t see the widespread smashing of windows and torching of Airbnbs quite yet, but it will eventually be the thing to do, like it was with Jehovah’s Witness buildings in the seventies.
Eventually, society will come to realize the truth: Airbnb is a global threat to affordable homeownership and rentership. Expect to see some small gains on this front as more cities move to protect their people from profiteers. Federal governments can abuse their subjects with impunity, but city mayors tend to get kicked to the curb.
14. Global democracy remains in decline for the eighteenth consecutive year
Freedom House will release its annual report and it will contain more of the same — increasing authoritarianism across the planet.
Yet, sheeplike citizens will keep voting for corporate-captured mainstream parties instead of defunding the corporations who bankroll the sociopathic politicians that execute the will of private interests.
Weep for us, Athens, for we held your dream in the palm of our hand and smothered it to death.
15. Donald Trump will try to take office one way or the other
Check out my article for a timeline of what the next year in US Presidential politics might look like:
Donald Trump Will Be the Next President of the United States Whether He’s Elected or Not
So far, we’re right on track… and it’s a slow-moving trainwreck in the making.
One thing is certain: Whether sleepy Joe or crazy Don seizes power on Tuesday, 5 November 2024, the true power — the corporatocracy — will remain in complete and total control of the United States of America.
16. The world’s corporate-captured politicians will do nothing meaningful about climate change
Zero.
Coal will do great.
Geothermal and hydro will be almost completely ignored. (Though, nuclear might have a better at-bat.)
Emissions will reach record levels.
Rivers, lakes, oceans, and skies will continue to fill with microplastics.
We will not save the planet from ourselves.
Pollution is far too profitable for the shareholders that benefit from it.
(Quick note: If you own stock in the Fortune 500, which 99% of people with 401ks/RRSPs do, then you’re culpable. 🤭)
17. New global warming records are shattered
We broke heat records in 2022 and again in 2023.
The current El Niño arrived in mid-2023 — is one of the strongest on record—and is expected to last until April. Typically, El Niño–related warming follows 6–12 later.
So expect some smashing new heat records in 2024.
Also expect scientists and politicians to act “surprised” and “baffled” at the “unforeseen” extra warmth. The phrase “faster than expected” will become ubiquitous.
If we don’t see a record number of wildfires this year, it will only be because so many million acres of trees burned to ash last year.
Be prepared for massive increases in insurance premiums as insurers adjust to the new normal.
Let's pray we don't see a wet bulb mass casualty event in southeast Asia.
18. Tech monopolies gain ground
Most would post their largest profits of all time like they did this year, but they will continue to expand their reach and market position with mergers, acquisitions, and growing monopoly power.
Shareholders will be richly rewarded as workers suffer suppressed wages, zero-hour contracts, and diminishing social safety nets.
19. Russia and Ukraine will still be at war
Donbas/Crimea is Vlad’s Vietnam.
It’s a meat grinder for human flesh, but so long as Zelensky can fundraise for weapons and Russia keeps selling its oil to China, young bodies will die for the ego of old men.
Expect the map at the end of 2024 to look almost exactly the same:
20. Israel and her neighbors will still be at war
Despite unending protests and resolutions and sanctions from the U.N, the U.S, and basically everyone else, Israel will stay resolute in securing its borders — meaning it will continue its campaign until Hamas is obliterated and Israel has total security from the Jordan to the Med.
Many are predicting Netanyahu will lose re-election. I give it a 50/50 chance. Nothing wins re-elections more than war for the prospects of safety.
Ultimately, and very sadly, the greater conflict of Israel vs Islam will continue until one side is completely destroyed. Israel is committed to occupying the entirety of the “Promised Land,” and Islam is committed to destroying the Jewish race.
On a side note, migration from Muslim-majority countries will continue to plague the West. Expect migration to take center stage in future elections — it’s far easier to blame weak newcomers than strong land-hoarders — which can only help right-wing parties grow in strength.
21. Suicides reach an all-time high
There’s so much loneliness, anxiety, pain, depression, and economic desperation in the world — and suicide has become so easy thanks to death pods and other painless methods of offing oneself — that the math suggests we’ll break records for self-kills this year.
Best guess?
55,000 Americans commit suicide in 2024 and 8.7 million globally.
22. More people get addicted to pills
70% of Americans are on some form of medication, but the Big Pharma+Corportized “Health” “Care” cartel won’t stop until every person on earth is hooked on a dozen different overpriced pills.
I’m calling 120,000 drug overdose deaths in 2024.
23. We WON’T reach the breaking point
There won’t be a civil war in America in 2024.
British serfs will not finally overthrow the aristocracy.
Canadians will not stop voting for their corporatist masters.
There will be no year-long general strike.
There will be no nationwide riots.
No revolution.
No democracy.
(We’re past the point of violent revolution anyway. Nothing is unquellable in the age of AI, facial recognition, militarized policing, and the digital internationally connected economy. Even a yearlong global general strike wouldn’t do the trick, because the global economy is now so connected—and the masses of city people no longer own land to garden and see them through—that it would just lead to mass starvation.)
24. Most people find a way to carry on
Because human beings are a miracle.
I met a woman when I was in Transnistria — the dystopian half-nation between Moldova and Ukraine that’s controlled by the Russians — who showed me the scar on her chest where her husband tried to stab her in the heart before burning their house down and abandoning her and their two children. She still had the fortitude to smile.
I’ve visited the largest garbage dump in Africa, where thousands of men, women, and children spend their entire lives digging through the trash for anything of value. Do they know how precious and strong they are?
I’ve been to North Korea, where I witnessed malnourished children drawing water by hand from mud wells. I didn’t see a single piece of wildlife in five days — no birds, rabbits, squirrels, rodents — because they’d all been eaten. Yet our Korean brothers and sisters soldier on.
It’s awe-inspiring how resilient human beings can be.
And we won’t give up in 2024.
Bits and bobs
In February, we’ll enjoy a leap year on Feb 29th. While leap years are inevitable under any system, I’m personally in favor of getting rid of time changes and having 13 months of exactly four 7-day weeks each, plus a one-off New Year’s Day that becomes a two-day holiday every four years.)
Mark your calendars for Monday, April 8 — it’s the last total solar eclipse in North America until 2044. If you don’t expect to be alive in twenty years, this will be the last of your lifetime.
July 26: The Summer Olympics begin in Paris. Will there be an Islamic terrorist attack? I’m bracing.
November: Four astronauts will blast off aboard Artemis II to re-visit the moon for the first time in 51 years. These things are prone to delays, but we’ll see.
In conclusion
Trajectory is everything, my dear friends.
Insanity, as you know, is doing the same things and expecting different results.
As long as we keep buying products from the same corporations, incinerating our time on the same extremist-creating social media sites, and voting for the same corporate-captured political parties, we’ll keep going where we’re already headed:
Democratic destruction, ecological collapse, and economic irrelevance.
Surviving Tomorrow exists to sound the alarm and suggest a better way.
THANK YOU for reading.
THANK YOU for sharing articles far and wide.
THANK YOU for subscribing. Thanks especially to the paid readers who support my work.
Ultimately, I believe God is sovereign. He has seen every version of how every event could play out — call it the multiverse if you will — and He will meet us there. Nothing can separate us from the love of God. It’s His presence that sustains everyone and everything, despite our endless rebellion. He is a good God and we can trust Him — regardless of how our predictions fare.
All my love,