I hope everyone reading this has had as good of a 2022 as I have had. It has been crazy. I’ve jumped jobs, moved cities, and experienced all kinds of other changes. But this blog isn’t about me-- it’s about American politics (with a hint of sports and culture). And American politics was anything but good. We’ve had the worst inflation in ~40 years, we’ve been watching the largest war in a similar time frame, and we’ve had an election. Here are 10 predictions and 10 items I have on my wishlist for 2022.
Predictions
Ukraine will control more of its country on 12/31/2023 than it will on 12/31/2022, but the war will be ongoing. The Ukrainian Armed Forces will also have received and begun deploying western designed tanks and fighters (as opposed to the western-updated, but legacy Soviet donations they have now).
RDS will consolidate most of the anti-Trump Republican party behind his 2024 campaign.
Joe Biden will announce his intentions to seek reelection in 2024.
In the last month, we have seen multiple incredibly promising tech breakthroughs. OpenAI released ChatGPT, two mRNA malaria vaccines, an mRNA vaccine for cancer, a possible mRNA vaccine against all flu types, base editing to cure cancer for the first time, and a breakthrough in fusion energy. That trend will continue into 2023.
The year-over-year inflation rate as measured by CPI will fall below 3%, but the US economy won’t enter a recession. I’ll call that a successful soft landing.
Liberal democracy re-triumphed over authoritarianism in 2022. It will continue to kick its ass.
China will not invade Taiwan.
The US won’t engage in any combat operations against a sovereign nation.
At least three streaming platforms will either fold or consolidate.
I know this is subjective, but 2023 will be the first “normal” year since 2019. 2020 had COVID, 2021 had inflation, and 2022 had the first peer-to-peer war in decades that the US didn’t win in weeks.
Wishlist
Ukraine finishes off the Russian army and ends the war. They join the EU and begin the process of joining NATO.
Donald Trump pulls out of the 2024 race for whatever facesaving reason.
Jared Polis or Jon Bel Edwards become the 2024 frontrunners for the Democrats.
China abandons zero-COVID.
The Federal Reserve delivers a soft landing.
FDA reform to get it out of the way of life-saving treatments and tests coming to market and CDC reform to make it more prepared for the next pandemic.
As I write this the DJIA is down over 10% YTD, the SP500 is down nearly 20%, and the NASDAQ is down over 30%. All three get back over their 2022 starting points.
US life expectancy won’t decline for the third-straight year.
We get a glimpse of the sixth-generation fighter being developed by both the US Air Force’s and US Navy’s NGAD programs.
Bitcoin dies.