Financial experts and journalists are always tempted to think holistically, (that is a fancy word for “globally”), about what may happen. However, anything longer than 12 months cannot be forecasted because there are too many variables. But just now there are many near certainties going that will continue for most of the next 12 months, so here is a good speculation about what may happen.
China will be hit by millions of Covid deaths. They do not have the effective vaccinations nor hospital capacity to deal with the millions of older folk and others who are at risk from the ravages of the plague. Their economy will be hit hard and economic growth will slow down fast. President Xi will be seen as a problem for many and he will eventually be removed but not in the next 12 months.
Russians will not tolerate Putin much longer because of his stupid decision to invade Ukraine where more than a hundred thousand Russians will end up dead or seriously wounded, where oligarchs see their wealth melt, and more importantly, where young people and ordinary families will start to wake up of the depths of their deprivation and demand change in large numbers on the streets. Russians in the big cities cannot be fooled for too much longer by Putin’s brutality towards his own people and Ukrainians.
In the USA, Trump will not get elected because ordinary Americans, both red necks and the educated, will start to understand that he is a monkey who only lives for increasing the size of his piles of bananas. He is not clever, just a stupid egoist who has managed to avoid prison by blaming others. America, as always comes to its senses more quickly than others.
Europe has seen Johnson, Truss, Berlusconi, Erdogan, Orban, and a few others who do not rank highly in telling the truth. They will all disappear as time passes to be replaced by better men and women. We are however stuck, for the time being, with Macron, Scholz and Lagarge, all of whom are not well-suited for the jobs they have secured because of bad lobbyists. Europe has a habit, like the USA, of managing to get things straight in the end because there are many better politicians and voters who understand what needs to be done. We must thank our lucky stars that we have Ms. von der Leyen, who is one of the betters types in charge! However, we will see a major economic downturn, higher taxes and the need for clean power… Europe will not respond as fast as the USA.
The war in Ukraine has caused many big problems, terrible carnage and destruction, inflation, with serious food and fuel shortages. The war has at least forced us to think hard about peace and security, as well as climate change. We must thanks president Zelensky for being the national hero – a man in the right place at a very bad time. We will help the democratic construction of this brave country…
In the Middle East, we have seen that we cannot trust most of the leaders there because they are like Putin – they just want to grab everything and do not care about their own people. Women are treated like slaves along with foreign workers. These leaders live in the Middle Ages and have no interest in democratic fair societies – they just want live useless lives in golden palaces protected by goons with guns.
Conclusion – it is a good speculation that the bad apples will eventually suffer next year and be plucked away from the leadership positions, that the economic downturn will cause interest rates to fall, that the price of fossil fuels and electricity will fall, that taxes will increase, along with public debts as a share of GDP, and many will be left without a job. In other words 2023 will be a hard year for many, but there will be light at the end of the tunnel in the USA, and later in Europe. There will be dark days for Russia and hard times for China. There is. strong possibility that the US Dollar will fall in value too… but don’t bank on that…
