Month: January 2022

Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

Despite a growing resurgence of interest in the science and psychology of narcissistic sociopaths and psychopaths it seems as though society today has lost track of how these people can sabotage the core fabric of a civilization or nation. It is very easy to hyper-focus on collectivist ideologies as the source of our problems and forget that these ideologies do not function in a vacuum; they cannot wreak havoc by themselves, they need psychopathic people directing them to do real damage.

There is something about collectivism that lends itself to projection and hypocrisy (collectivism is organization by FORCE instead of being voluntary). I suppose when your political ideology becomes your religion it’s easy to turn into a zealot. And while zealots find power in their single-mindedness and their cultism they also tend to lack any self-awareness. They literally go insane with devotion to their cause to the point that they lose track of whether or not their cause is fair and just. Their behavior becomes increasingly erratic and disjointed and every person they run into that does not share their views is immediately seen as a heretical enemy that needs to be exposed or destroyed.

To outsiders looking in, zealots are an endless source of comedy. You can’t help but laugh because their ticks and cricks and outbursts are nonsensical and absurd (just check out “Libs Of Tik Tok” for a mountain of examples). As long as they don’t have any real power these people act as a reminder of what happens when human beings abandon reason for madness. They can be frightening but they serve the purposes of entertainment as well as keeping the rest of us grounded. When they do gain power, however, that’s when things stop being funny.

Civilizations throughout history have consistently dealt with the problem of zealots, but the greater threat is the existence of narcissists and psychopaths sneaking into positions of authority and encouraging zealotry among the masses. Generally, psychopaths are seen as an anomaly which is quickly identified and shunned in order to prevent them from climbing too high up the ladder of social influence. The problem is they are not as rare as one might hope and many of them have the ability to hide among the herd.

Around 1% of any given population is made up of psychopaths while another 1% are sociopaths. Around 5% of people are identified as having narcissistic traits. Narcissists are self absorbed and view themselves as superior to everyone else – They believe they are entitled to adoration and authority. Sociopaths have an inability to feel empathy for others and this makes them impractical as leaders. Psychopaths also exhibit a lack of empathy but also have a propensity for emotional or physical violence. They take joy in the suffering of others and perpetrate a large number of violent crimes.

Even though psychopaths are 1% of the population, they make up 15% to 25% of those incarcerated in prisons. The drag they exert on society cannot be overstated.

There is definitely some overlap among the various types, but in general close to 10% of human beings exhibit dangerous and mostly inherent psychological malfunctions that are often not treatable. Think about that for a moment – 10 out of every 100 people are ticking time bombs waiting to make life miserable for the rest of us.

To be sure, some of them are still able to function in society. Sociopaths in particular can become valuable in fields where less empathy is required in order to accomplish certain tasks. They are particularly well suited as surgeons, EMTs, soldiers, firefighters, and any other job where seeing people in pain is not going to stop them from saving lives. They don’t necessarily take joy in seeing others harmed, but they aren’t emotionally phased by it either. As long as they are never allowed into positions of influence over large groups of people they can serve some good for the public.

History shows us that vetting and preventing psychologically broken individuals from slipping into institutions that offer power is not so easy. In fact, many monarchies and empires were built on systems that allowed psychopaths and narcissists to flourish because they relied on genetic succession. If a monarch had a son that was predisposed to psychopathy it did not matter, that crazed prince would one day become a king and there was little that could be done about it. There was no vetting process. Also, many such traits are passed on genetically, which means a power structure built on heredity could become progressively more destructive as psychopaths in royalty intermarry. This would help explain why psychopathic behavior is over-represented among monarchs of the past.

The creation of democracy and democratic republics was in part designed to help weed out aberrant individuals by using open elections and the voting process. In other words, let the people scrutinize candidates and remove the crazies from circles of power. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work too well if ALL the candidates are psychopaths and the public has no real choice. By extension, psychopaths have also found ways to circumvent the political process and control it without directly participating in it.

The corporate world and financial institutions allow psychopaths to influence politics from behind the curtain, buying off candidates and their loyalty or vetting candidates and ONLY allowing those with similar sociopathic, narcissistic and psychopathic habits through the selection process and into the political arena.

In tribal societies and in smaller low-tech societies the ability to identify and root out psychologically broken individuals and prevent them from becoming leaders was easier. In the midst of vast empires and technocracy it is much simpler for psychopaths to hide among normal people and blend in. I usually compare invasive psychopaths to mythological stories of vampires for this reason. I really can’t think of a better analogy. They insinuate themselves into a population, take up positions of influence which protect them from suspicion and then systematically bleed the town dry. This is what they do. It is in their nature and they cannot be fixed, they can only be removed as a parasite is removed from a host.

These people are the top threats to any given civilization. They are moderators of chaos and they actively conspire to supplant free society. They are what I would call primary organized psychopaths and they do indeed work together for mutual gain, much like a pack of wolves. They represent the 1% of the 1% (i.e. the globalists).

Psychopaths at the top of the pyramid have been organized for a long time, but what about the millions of other people out there with such traits? What happens when they are given a way to congregate?

Modern society and Big Tech social media have created even worse circumstances because now the greater psychopathic community is no longer isolated. That 1% that used to be mostly relegated to quiet corners and the fringes of humanity are now able to organize into aggressive mobs of hundreds of thousands, leading millions of lesser sociopaths and narcissists. This is creating a subculture of what I would call communal insanity – As the old saying goes, the patients are taking over the asylum.

We see this specifically with the political left and the open promotion of narcissism as an acceptable way of life.  This is not to say that psychopaths don’t try to infiltrate conservative circles as well, only that leftists are much more welcoming to their kind. These are people that once felt powerless because they were shunned and now they want revenge.

The thing is, they were originally shunned from influence for a very good reason; they are not psychologically equipped to handle any measure of power. Now they are being handed institutional control and they are being whipped into a frothing frenzy. They see themselves as the underdogs and the “revolutionaries”, but really they are just emotionally stunted and handicapped and they were put in permanent time-out to protect the rest of humanity.

But how is this danger dealt with, not just in the short term but the longer term?

Our culture has to be fundamentally changed with psychopathy and other aberrant traits in mind. We can no longer ignore the effect these people have on humanity as a whole. The first step would require separation from movements and institutions that promote psychopathic and narcissistic behaviors. In other words, we need to return to a model of isolation for the psychopathically inclined instead of treating them as if they are some kind of victim status group that needs special attention and “nurturing.”

As noted, in many cases these characteristics are inherent (inborn) and cannot be treated. There is no fixing the problem because it is not so much an illness as it is a completely different psychological structure. They might as well be a different species, and a predatory one at that. There is no mutual coexistence with them. They see us as food.

Candidates for positions of authority would have to be screened for psychopathy, narcissism and sociopathy. If they have too many of the warning signs then they should not be allowed to pursue those jobs. This is the only answer beyond fundamentally changing the way our election system functions, which I’m not necessarily opposed to either. A random lottery system for government jobs along with strict term limits (not just for normal political positions but also in bureaucratic positions) would at least be better than what we have now. I would rather risk the possibility of less qualified people being randomly chosen for government than have a system that attracts a concentrated culture of malicious parasites.

What better way to discourage psychopaths than to take away any long term benefits of working in government? What better way to disrupt the influence of corporate elitists than to take away their ability to finance or choose the candidates that end up in office? And even if they were able to buy off some officials, with term limits they would have to start over and over again with the latest crop of new officials.

Some will of course point out that changing the system tomorrow will require getting rid of the psychopaths that run it today. I agree, it’s a dilemma. Sadly, once psychopaths become organized and entrenched history tells us they will not be moved without the force of violence. They don’t care about protests, they are not moved by reason or logic, they don’t care about the suffering of the masses and they will always see themselves as the rightful rulers of us “lesser” peasants.

They derive supremacy from the mobs of the stunted that they lead and exploit; the nearly 10% of the population that when organized becomes an army of raging mad hatters hungry for scraps from the table of power. We can and should continue to separate from the collectivist mob and the zealots, but all psychopaths view separation as defiance and will try to interfere. Eventually there’s going to be a fight, and maybe that’s for the best.

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A Sports Illustrated model shared her most “terrifying” experience of her life when she discovered that a stalker placed an Apple AirTag in her coat pocket. The person allegedly tacked the swimsuit model’s location for hours, and she only discovered the device when her iPhone alerted her about an “unknown accessory.” 

“I went to a restaurant, a popular spot in TriBeCa, a very upscale, safe neighborhood,” Brooks Nader, 26, told Fox News. “I go there all the time… I was at the bar waiting for some friends. It was early, like 45 minutes to an hour early. So I thought, I’ll have a little bite to eat while I wait for them. It’s winter so it’s freezing. I had my big winter coat with me and laid it on the bar stool. I did go to the bathroom once and I always take my purse with me. I didn’t take my coat because I assumed no one was going to steal it and I didn’t have anything inside of it.”

Five hours later, Nader was walking home when she received a notification from her Find My iPhone app that read an “Unknown Accessory Detected — This item has been moving for you for a while. The owner can see your location.”

 “I’m just honestly grateful that I got that notification from Apple. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have known,” she said, adding that someone at the restaurant likely slipped the AirTag in her coat jacket while she was in the restroom. 

The incident occurred on Wednesday. Nader told her 800k followers on Instagram about the incident. “A ton of women told me, ‘Watch out, this happened to me, it’s an AirTag,'” said Nader

The use of AirTags for nefarious activities has been documented. We noted Canadian thieves used the tracking device to track and steal luxury vehicles. 

Authored by Matt Stoller via BIG Substack,

Concentration is increasing prices and keeping them high. The ammunition duopoly and the “Great Ammunition Shortage” is just one example.

Covid has done a lot of things to our society. But talk to anyone who enjoys hunting, and they’ll tell you one of result is the ‘Great Ammunition Shortage of 2021.’ “5.56 ammunition for an AR-15 used to be about 33 cents a round,” said Mark Oliva, director of public affairs for the National Shooting Sports Foundation. “Now you’re looking at closer to almost a dollar a round. So it is much more expensive and it is much more difficult to find ammunition.”

One of the more interesting questions in the discussion over inflation is the relationship between concentration and pricing changes. Most economists believe that supply shocks are increasing profits, but that this increase will serve as an inducement to more productive capacity. “Capitalism is on our side,” said economist Alan Blinder in the Wall Street Journal. “Shortages raise prices, but high prices create opportunities for profit, which attract capitalists to alleviate the shortages.” If Blinder were correct, then one would expect lots of new productive capacity and new entrants into this market.

Ammunition is a highly concentrated industry. There are many ammo brands, like CCI, Federal, Remington, Winchester, and Speer, but they are all controlled by two firms – Vista Outdoor and the Olin Corporation. As Elle Ekman wrote in the American Prospect, Vista and Olin rolled up the industry through mergers, as well as taking advantage of the privatization of government facilities making ammunition and government contracts.

During the pandemic, a lot of people decided they wanted to buy and use guns, either for hunting or personal protection. The 12 million new gun owners, plus existing activity, meant that the industry experienced the same demand shock that lots of outdoor activity segments saw. The result has been a shortage of ammunition, and higher prices.

Like a lot of industries, there are cost pressures in ammunition; the price of raw materials, like brass, have gone up. Additionally, the State Department has blocked imports from Russia, adding to the pricing pressure. But the cost story is really a sideshow; the pricing increase is going almost entirely to profit. For Vista, margins skyrocketed in 2020, and continued to increase in 2021. As the CFO of Vista, Sudhanshu Shekhar Priyadarshi, told investors in November, margins rose to a record 27% in Q2 of 2021, on top of an already extraordinary 2020.

According to Blinder, and most economists, competitors should enter the market and invest in new factories, or existing firms should expand existing capacity to seize market share, eventually leading to reduced prices. But the industry hasn’t experienced such competitive dynamics. Profits, said Priyadarshi, have gone to share repurchases and paying down debt.

There are several reasons for this, but the main ones are consolidation and high barriers to entry in the industry. Ammunition is difficult to produce, as it requires careful manufacturing processes to safely handle explosive materials. Vista recently bought its competitor Remington out of bankruptcy, lowering the number of firms in the industry that could even build a factory and distribute ammunition effectively. And the limits on capacity were explicit. The head of ammunition for Vista, Jason R. Vanderbrink, explained that the “most important” reason for the Remington acquisition was “added capacity to Vista without increasing the overall market capacity.”

This isn’t purely a story of informal cartel engaged in profit-seeking, but also risk-management. Like a lot of commodity businesses, the ammunition industry is cyclical, with shortages and price hikes when demand increases, followed by collapses as capacity increases and demand stays level or declines. Industry executives know this, and are intent on that not happening again. Here’s Christopher T. Metz, the CEO of Vista, talking about their purchase of Remington, a competitor in the industry.

Because of some of the consolidation we’ve done with Remington, even if you look long term, we don’t see the same type of price compression the industry may have experienced in previous times.

Vista has set up two pricing programs to ensure high prices and stability. The first is a subscription service for ammunition, which gives them a steady flow of ammunition demand and lets them plan production more easily. The second is, well, an informal form of price-fixing, or output reduction. They aren’t totally explicit about it, but they use code words to make the point. Here’s Metz explaining that they collude with their competition to keep capacity lower than it should be.

“Now with ammunition being the largest part of our business. I mean, clearly, buying a Remington, we’ve created what we feel like is an even more disciplined industry now as we go forward. We’ve got, I think, like competitors in the sense that they watch growth, they watch their margin profiles. And we feel like we’ve got a disciplined industry.”

And I’ve mentioned previously that we studied, as best we can…industry capacity and making sure that we’re not only managing our capacity, but very mindful of what’s being brought into the industry, so we don’t get over our skis, if you will.

In other words, Vista executives are planning to ensure that prices won’t come down. They have expanded some capacity on the margins, but because there are only two real firms now, they can easily pull that extra production offline if necessary. We’ve seen the management of pricing across economic cycles in other concentrated industries. Chris Leonard wrote about Tyson Food’s control of the poultry business, and how during the financial crisis this meant the entire industry could raise prices by all cutting production at once.

No one in the room was excited about the idea of a production cut. It was Tyson’s nuclear option. It meant the company would intentionally scale back its business, cutting down its sales. It also meant farmers would get fewer deliveries of chickens, reducing their income even as their debt payments stayed the same. But Smith decided that a cutback was inevitable.

Ultimately, Tyson cut its production by 5 percent in December. Around that time, the industry as a whole was estimated to have cut back the placement of new eggs between 6 and 7 percent.

In a matter of weeks, the price of a boneless, skinless chicken breast rose by about 20 cents, according to an industry estimate. Within a short few months, Tyson’s chicken business was profitable again.

What was remarkable about this plan was the fact that Tyson executives could even consider it. Decades of lax antitrust enforcement allowed Tyson Foods to buy most of it competitors, giving executives at company headquarters the ability to control production on thousands of farms and dozens of major poultry plants across the nation. In 2008, Tyson Foods and its competitor Pilgrim’s controlled more than 40 percent of the national market. The third-biggest company controlled just 8 percent. Modern American farming was run out of the central office.

If meat-packers were doing this fourteen years ago, then what is happening in the ammunition industry shouldn’t be a shock. Vista and Olin, in other words, are following the legal framework laid out more than a decade ago. In fact, we can see that within the ammunition industry itself, since Olin is more a chemical conglomerate, and its ammunition division is something of a sideshow. But that firm’s leaders are also excited about margins and price increases across their whole suite of products.

Barriers to Entry

When economists like Alan Blinder, Jason Furman and Larry Summers, discuss inflation and concentration, they are relying on the idea that markets are competitive, and that new entrants will drive down margins of existing players. This is not a crazy theory. Some bottlenecks will go away; Congress is acting to reduce the problem at the ports, otherwise known as the world’s most profitable traffic jam.

But in terms of concentrated industries, is it really true that there will be mass entry with high profit margins? As we see with ammunition, the answer is, probably not.

This relates to an interesting question in antitrust law, which is the idea of barriers to entry. Such barriers can be financial or technical, such as the expertise and expense needed to enter many industries. But as antitrust law has weakened, it’s also made it much harder for new firms to come into concentrated markets. Let’s keep going with Tyson Food. As New York Times reporter Pete Goodman tweeted, independent meat-packers actually can’t enter the market to compete with Tyson, even if they can built out facilities.

Striking, though, that there’s no involvement of retailers, no? Ranchers have told me that capital isn’t the barrier to launching slaughterhouse capacity; it’s the reality that big packers retaliate against any chains that buy beef from independent producers.

— Peter S. Goodman (@petersgoodman) January 3, 2022

That doesn’t mean inflation is going to keep rising, only that concentration means that price signals are less responsive to underlying supply and demand. Tommaso Valletti, formerly top economist at the EU Competition Authority, noted that there are likely impacts on inflation of competition – the more competition the more quickly prices adjust.

Also, more competition implies more frequent price adjustments.
See e.g. work on exchange rates across sectors by @GitaGopinath & Itskhoki (QJE 2010), or by @CGenakos & Pagliero (AEJ: Applied, forthcoming) on excise taxes and cost of petrol in islands (literally).
3/ pic.twitter.com/O3nJ0ZbOcK

— Tommaso Valletti (@TomValletti) January 5, 2022

This makes sense, and it’s consistent with what is happening in the ammunition market. Vista executives are trying to stop price adjustments downward by controlling output.

Still, the problem of market power hasn’t penetrated the world of macro-economists trying to understand price adjustments. When economists say that inflation is unrelated to market power, what they really mean is that they don’t have models of inflation that incorporate market power. Market power isn’t under the lamp post, so it must not matter.

But of course, that’s ridiculous. It does matter. The only question is, how much?

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Welcome to BIG, a newsletter on the politics of monopoly power. If you’d like to sign up to receive issues over email, you can do so here. 

Tire shops in the US complain about a tire shortage. They say snarled supply chains have put the overseas rubber industry in limbo, and by the time the tires are shipped to the US West Coast, port congestion adds weeks until they arrive at warehouses. 

The shortage comes as winter storms are battering states in the mid-Atlantic, Northeast, Midwest, and Pacific Northwest. People are rushing to purchase winter tires, but there appears to be a limited stock for certain brands and models. 

South Carolina-based Hay Tires Pros’ president David Hay told NewsNation Now that tires “made in America” have no problem sourcing, but “premium Asian tires are the ones we’re having problems with. They’re stuck on ships on the West Coast.” 

 Hay said the tire shortage adds all kinds of issues for the automobile industry. 

“It’s causing all kinds of stress. Then you add chassis shortages, driver shortages, truck shortages — it’s a real problem.”

The problem isn’t just on the East Coast but also in Lansing, Michigan, where tire shops have trouble sourcing winter tires. 

“We were shopping around for different brands,” Michigan resident Shawn Foxworth said. He said the shortage had been a headache. 

“It took a while to get here,” Foxworth said, adding that tires prices were much higher than last year. 

Some people have waited weeks tires, if not at least a month, due to snarled supply chains. Even the online tire website Tire Rack has experienced a backlog for certain tires. 

The expanding list of car parts in short supply comes as no surprise considering not one ISM respondent said anything about improvement in supply chains…

People who purchase winter tires at the very last minute might run into sourcing problems or at least pay a hefty premium this winter as supply chains remain snarled. A word to the wise: buy in the offseason and prepare because the ability to purchase things on-demand today is becoming harder and harder. 

Authored by Pat Buchanan,

While all facts are true, not all facts are relevant.

And what are the relevant facts in this crisis where 100,000 Russian troops are now stationed along the Ukrainian border?

Fact one: There is not now and never has been a vital U.S. interest in Ukraine to justify risking a war with Russia.

History tells us that. Even as Ukraine was suffering in the Stalin-induced Holodomor, the terror-famine of 1932-33, President Franklin Roosevelt granted diplomatic recognition to the Bolshevik regime.

During four decades of Cold War, the U.S. never regarded Moscow’s control of Ukraine as any threat to the USA.

President Joe Biden was thus right to rule out military action in response to any Russian incursion or invasion of Ukraine.

Moreover, as it is declared U.S. policy not to retaliate militarily to an invasion of Ukraine, Biden should make it clear that Ukrainian membership in NATO is a closed question.

Not going to happen.

Ukraine is not going to be invited to join NATO and be given Article 5 U.S. war guarantees that are the primary benefit of membership.

Hence, with U.S. negotiations with Moscow over Ukraine impending, what is the state of play?

Russia is demanding that the U.S. give formal assurances that Ukraine and Georgia will never be admitted to NATO, and no nation bordering Russia will ever accept offensive NATO weapons that could imperil Russia’s security.

If Moscow cannot get such assurances that Ukraine will never become a member of NATO, Russian President Vladimir Putin warns, Russia may invade and occupy Ukraine to neutralize that threat.

The U.S. position?

While we will not resist Russia militarily, the most severe sanctions in history will be imposed on Russia, possibly including cancellation of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany.

Putin has lately issued a counterthreat.

If such severe sanctions are imposed on Russia, this will result in a “complete rupture of relations” and be a blunder “which our descendants will later appreciate as a huge one.”

Not long ago, a total severing of relations was the prelude to war.

While Putin and Russia initiated this crisis with the deployment of 100,000 troops to Ukraine’s borders, we should try to see this crisis through Putin’s eyes.

The heart of Greater Russia as one ethnic, cultural and historic nation consists not only of Russia but also of Belarus and Ukraine.

Yet, consider the political condition of that core nation today.

Ukraine has broken from Moscow and seeks its future in the West, the EU and NATO.

Belarus, a nation of 10 million, just went through an election where only fraud guaranteed victory for its 67-year-old autocrat, Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus for a quarter-century.

Though an ally of Putin, Lukashenko is not the future.

And Putin himself, while popular, has been in power for two decades and is bedeviled by rising democratic resistance in Russia.

Now the Americans — who have, in a quarter-century, moved NATO across Germany into Eastern Europe and the Baltic states — are planning to bring into an alliance established to contain Russia the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Ukraine.

Putin has to see himself as the ruler of a diminishing Russia, not a rising power.

Time is not on Russia’s side or Putin’s side.

His principal ally, China, has 10 times the population of Russia and an economy 10 times Putin’s. Moreover, China harbors ancestral claims to Russian territory in the Far East, which, in 1969, caused a border clash between the two countries.

Putin has decided that the long retreat of Russian power must end, that the eastward march of a NATO alliance created to contain and resist Russia must end, and if this means risking war over Ukraine, so be it.

Putin may see this as a now-or-never moment to halt the decades-long attrition of Russian territorial and national power.

And the U.S.?

In the Cold War, President Dwight Eisenhower did not intervene militarily to save the Hungarian rebels who rose against Moscow in 1956. Nor did President John F. Kennedy act to stop the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961. Nor did President Lyndon B. Johnson intervene to prevent Moscow’s crushing of the “Prague Spring” in 1968. Nor did President Ronald Reagan act when Solidarity was crushed in Poland in 1981.

Historically, those presidents who refused to use force in Central or Eastern Europe, to avoid a war with Russia where U.S. vital interests were not imperiled, were proven right.

Time was on America’s side in the Cold War. And, with Russia, time is still on America’s side.

Our great challenge in the 21st century is not Russia.

Indeed, in the long term, we want Russia on our side in the long struggle between the U.S. and the West, and Communist China.

What the U.S. should do in this Ukrainian crisis is to avoid a war with Russia, avoid an escalation, and leave our adversary with an honorable avenue of retreat. Again, with Russia, time is on our side.

Even at the best of times, it’s human nature to want to decode the future.

During times of uncertainty though, we’re even more eager to predict what’s to come. To satisfy this demand, thousands of prognosticators share their views publicly as one year closes and another begins. In hindsight, we see varying levels of success at predicting the future.

In truth, as Visual Capitalist’s Nick Routley details below, experts are merely guessing at what will happen over the coming year. In 2020, almost nobody had a pandemic on their bingo card. In 2021, NFTs completely flew under the radar of experts, and nobody saw a container ship get lodged in the Suez Canal in their crystal ball.

So, why should we pay any attention to predictions at all? Are they, as Barry Ritholtz says, “wrong, random, or worse”?

For one, these guesses are backed by expertise and experience, so the accompanying analysis is informative. Perhaps more importantly though, influential people and companies are in a position to shape the future with their predictions. In some cases, sentiment and actions can turn a prediction into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Regardless, whether for research or pure entertainment purposes, we’ve sifted through hundreds of reports, interviews, and articles to see which predictions are generally the most agreed upon. Where do experts see the ball moving over the next year? Our bingo card sums up the top 25, and below, we’ll dig into some of the trends that could shape 2022.

Want to dive deeper into this year’s predictions? Join us for our interactive webinar on Jan 13th, 2022 by becoming a VC+ member: Join VC+ Today

Vibe Check: What’s the General Outlook for 2022?

Based on the hundreds of predictions we analyzed, the general mood can be described as cautiously optimistic.

For starters, the global economy will likely keep growing, but not at the rate it did in 2021. We aggregated 40+ predictions from reputable sources such as the IMF and Goldman Sachs to determine median GDP estimates for the world, and select regions:

Next, there’s broad agreement that monetary policy will begin to tighten over the next 12 months. Here’s what major central banks are predicted to do:

Multiple experts described an era of lower equity returns and increased volatility. Many of the issues that plagued 2021 have carried over into 2022.

Technological disruption continues to reshape industries, and climate change and cybersecurity issues will be top of mind this year. Geopolitical tensions are heating up as well, now that countries have acclimated to the immediate challenges posed by the pandemic.

In short, nobody expects 2022 to be uneventful.

Trends that Will Shape 2022

Some of the predictions above are straightforward. GDP targets and explicit binary statements don’t require too much explanation.

Below are some of the predictions experts agreed on that are worth digging into in more detail:

1. Geopolitical Tensions Will Flare Up

There are a number of potential hotspots around the world, but here are a few that experts are watching in 2022.

Iran: Tensions ratcheted up between the U.S. and Iran after an attack on a U.S. military base in southern Syria in the fall of 2021. Further, the tension between Iran and Israel has the potential to escalate further in 2022, drawing in other nations in the region into a conflict.

Ukraine: This is a continuation of tensions that flared up after Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014. Europe’s dependence on Russian gas and Ukraine’s position as a key gas transit hub makes this a situation experts are watching very closely.

Taiwan: The risk that China will make a move on Taiwan has elevated in the minds of experts, though actions may contain “more bark than bite”.

2. China’s Rocky Start to 2022

At the dawn of 2021, many of the predictions around China were largely optimistic as the country had entered a recovery phase sooner than the rest of the world.

Fast forward to 2022, and the predictions are the polar opposite as China faces challenges on a number of fronts. To begin with, there is pessimism around China’s zero-COVID strategy, which even today sees entire cities fall under strict lockdown orders. This strategy has unavoidable economic impacts.

Secondly, uncertainty around power shortages, a potential housing crisis, and regulatory crackdowns have dampened enthusiasm for the country’s near-term prospects.

Finally, Xi Jinping eliminated term limits on the presidency in 2018, potentially positioning himself to lead China indefinitely. As the Chinese Communist Party’s 20th National Party Congress approaches later in the year, if the country is still on uncertain footing, it could create a tense political atmosphere in Beijing.

3. The Year of the Worker

Labor dynamics have stayed in the spotlight since the pandemic upended the world of work. There are a number of trends that emerge from this broader theme:

• The labor shortages that emerged during the pandemic will remain in place in 2022 and beyond. Certain sectors, such as cybersecurity, are facing acute shortages of skilled workers

• There is a broad consensus that the future of office work is “hybrid”. Companies that don’t offer flexibility will face a disadvantage in attracting talent

• The internet and social media have opened up a number of career pathways for individuals to earn an income beyond simply working for a company

• Work/life balance and burnout will be central points in discussions around workplace culture

4. The Changing Digital Ecosystem

If predictions are any indication, we’ll be hearing a lot more about NFTs and Web3. There are plenty of opinions on the former, and they run the spectrum from exuberant to outright bearish. Whether the hype surrounding profile picture NFTs dies down is anyone’s guess, but the technology has opened the door to a lot of experimentation for artists and creators.

On that note, experts are generally excited about the prospects of the burgeoning “Creator Economy”—a catch-all term describing the new technological ecosystem and growing infrastructure that is allowing individual content creators to monetize and flourish.

Another trend that is picking up steam is ecommerce centered around social media. The ability to purchase products straight from influencers is becoming more common on major social platforms, and ecommerce companies are creating more products to support influencers in their marketing endeavors.

By 2026, Gartner estimates that 60% of Millennial and Gen Z consumers will prefer making purchases on social platforms over traditional digital commerce platforms.

5. Inflation Slowly Eases Off

Worries about inflation have always cropped up here and there, but in countries like the U.S., truly damaging amounts of inflation haven’t been seen since the 1980s.

Last year, the narrative changed.

After trillions of dollars of pandemic stimulus and borrowing, inflation suddenly came back on the radar—and it was not “transitory” as early central bank statements hoped. Now, going into 2022, experts expect higher-than-normal inflation levels to continue.

While inflation is expected to have an impact going forward, experts also see it leveling off (relative to 2021) as supply chain disruptions work themselves out.

6. Another Banner Year of Electric Vehicles

As climate change dominates more of the spotlight in 2022, regulatory actions will force automakers to consider the future of their fossil-fuel models.

Even as incentives are slowly rolled back in a number of markets, EV sales are expected to set new records this year. As well, electrification of fleets will be a trend that gathers momentum.

Industrial and battery metals like lithium and cobalt surged by 477% and 208%, respectively, in 2021, a trend that many experts believe will stretch into 2022.

The Good Stuff

Of the hundreds of sources we looked at, here were a few that stood out as memorable and comprehensive:

• Bloomberg’s Outlook 2022: This article compiled over 500 predictions from Wall Street banks and investment firms.

• The All-In Podcast’s 2022 predictions: This lively podcast, featuring Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis, David Sacks, and David Friedberg, is always entertaining and informative. In this predictions episode, biggest business winners and losers is great, as is best performing asset.

• Eurasia Group’s Top Risks for 2022: This comprehensive group of articles covers a lot of ground, and offers up some very credible predictions as to what might happen on the world stage this year.

• Wood Mackenzie’s Predictions for 2022: Wood Mackenzie analysts offer 10 predictions for key developments expected in the energy and natural resources industries in 2022.

Lastly, if you’ve found our Prediction Consensus useful, we’re going to be diving even deeper into this subject matter in the coming weeks.

Our VC+ members get access to the whole Global Forecast 2022 series, which features a webinar and additional articles that flesh out predictions for the coming year in even more detail. You can learn more about it here.

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

Below is my column in USA Today on the lingering questions in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. These questions are likely to grow if the court overturns the conviction of Ghislaine Maxwell due to what appears to be exceptionally serious allegations of juror misconduct.  Maxwell could end up with a second trial while various powerful men appear to have escaped any serious investigation, let alone a trial, on their alleged roles in such abuse.

Here is the column:

The conviction of Ghislaine Maxwell last week on five of six felony counts represented the first guilty verdict to come out of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal since his death. The question is whether it will be the last.

Maxwell was rightfully convicted as someone who was an enabler of sexual abuse, a craven figure convicted of enticing minors to travel and the transportation of a minor.

However, these girls were enticed and transported for a purpose and, quite possibly, for people other than Epstein.

The prosecution framed its case in terms of the transportation rather than the destination of the girls – and chose to limit the trial to just four of the victims. The trial offered insights into the bizarre relationship of Epstein and Maxwell, one sustained in part by Maxwell’s eagerness to fulfill Epstein’s demands for a steady stream of young girls.

Taste for human consumption

On one level, Epstein and Maxwell were embodiments of the conspicuous consumption culture we have seen in an array of criminal defendants, from Donald Trump’s former presidential campaign chair Paul Manafort to the late Bernie Madoff.

However, Epstein and Maxwell found each other as soul mates in a mutual taste for human consumption. Where Manafort consumed $15,000 ostrich jackets, Epstein and Maxwell actively harvested children.

For Maxwell, unrestrained, unapologetic consumption was a matter of breeding from a pampered upbringing by her father, publishing tycoon (and fraudulent businessman) Robert Maxwell. For Epstein, it was a taste fueled by sexual and criminal addiction.

The Epstein-Maxwell alliance was forged by a deep corruption on every level, but that corruption was not limited to this despicable duo. Maxwell facilitated flights and travel to produce girls on trips attended by a list of the super elite. And Epstein allegedly used his stable of young girls as an enticement for powerful men.

The travel logs and guest records on Epstein’s trips read like a who’s who of the global elite. That by itself is not strange. The most elite in our society tend to flock together. What was notable is that these high-powered trips included teenage girls along with presidents and princes.

There are only two possibilities that arise from the records. 

First, that Epstein and Maxwell trafficked victims for only their own enjoyment.

Under this theory, young girls and women were transported to an island or homes with powerful men, but those men were interested only in the pleasure of Epstein’s company. They simply often traveled without their spouses or children.

Second, Epstein used what former President Trump called Epstein’s taste for “beautiful women on the younger side” to draw powerful friends into his circle of influence.

These trips are now largely public record, and the pictures are well known. Bill Clinton getting a massage from a 22-year-old woman in an airport in transit. Prince Andrew with his arm around a teenager in an Epstein home. Names from Donald Trump to Bill Gates have been associated with Epstein or his infamous flights on “The Lolita Express.” Clinton took 26 flights on Epstein’s plane, according to Fox News.

None of these pictures or records proves criminal acts or establishes which of the two scenarios is true. What they do create is an ample basis for investigation and formal questioning by the FBI.

Yet, with the exception of Prince Andrew, there is no public account of a formal investigation into those who were the possible beneficiaries of Epstein’s actions.

The history of the Justice Department’s involvement in the case magnifies these concerns. In 2007, Epstein faced a state investigation that found probable cause for at least four counts of unlawful sex with minors and one count of sexual abuse. He was the subject of a 53-page indictment that could have resulted in life in prison.

That is when the Justice Department struck a breathtaking plea agreement that effectively negated the claims of more than 40 minor girls (many between the ages of 13 and 17). Epstein pleaded guilty to Florida charges of felony solicitation of underage girls in 2008 and served a 13-month jail sentence.

The agreement violated federal law and the rights of the victims. Nevertheless, former U.S. attorney Alexander Acosta , who signed off on the agreement, was inexplicably made Labor secretary under Trump. He later resigned.

The special treatment did not end there. Epstein was not sent to state prison with other sex offenders. Instead, he was housed at the Palm Beach County Stockade and, after only several months, was allowed to leave on “work release” for up to 12 hours a day, six days a week.

Willingness to investigate

Epstein reportedly had sex with at least one teenage girl, according to a lawsuit. Epstein was allowed to hire the deputies who guarded him on work release. According to reports, he was not locked in at night and a television was installed for his use.

His work?  A foundation that he created and then closed after serving his time.

In July 2019, Epstein was arrested again on sex trafficking charges. A month later, he was found dead in a New York jail cell. His death was ruled a suicide.

Many are wondering whether Maxwell will now name names or produce rumored tapes. It is not clear that she has such evidence to offer, but with 65years of potential time on sentencing, she has every reason to cooperate.

Prosecutors already have dozens of names of people who frequented Epstein’s homes and island. Critics of the prosecution say what is lacking isn’t the evidence but the willingness to investigate.

Highly vaccinated and “boosted” Israel was among the world’s first countries to impose a vaccine passport requirement on its population, which the government calls a ‘Green Pass’. And yet the pandemic has continued there unabated, and all that average citizens are left with is immensely curtailed freedoms.

As a glaring case in point, Israelis apparently can’t even order a Big Mac from an automatic kiosk at McDonald’s unless their Green Pass status is up to date. Most recently, this means a citizen has to have not just been double-jabbed, but they have to have received the booster. This also as Israel has approved a second booster for the immunocompromised and elderly. Watch the absurdity unfold:

Welcome to Israel’s draconian rules pic.twitter.com/9ryjbTKi2V

— Libs of Tik Tok (@libsoftiktok) January 3, 2022

“Mcdonald’s appears to be the first food provider in Israel to deny customers who do not have proof of vaccination,” one local news source comments on the disturbing video.

“Activist Shlomo Walfish went to the McDonald’s in Bet Shemesh to try to order food,” the report descsribed. “The computer that takes orders then denied him service after selecting that he does not have a green passport.”

With the green pass system, other public venues like bars, gyms, and theaters are denying people access; however, this could be a first example of a machine literally being programed to halt service to unvaccinated people – or at least those without proper vaccine “credentials”. 

And we are being told this is all in the name of public “health” and “safety”… No Covid passport = no food.