| DPnet.– The Law of Diminishing Returns will cause the global economy to grow at a slower and slower pace, until it starts to shrink and enters terminal decline in 5 to 6 years from now. And when analysts do consider debt, the outlook becomes a lot worse. The world is imminently headed toward a crisis on multiple fronts. There's not much time to act. |
Top Predictions for 2025
The political trends that appeared, seemingly against all odds, in 2024 are going to accelerate.
The climate changed with Trump's election. That was emblematic, but similar things are happening in other countries. The conservative/libertarian AfD will likely oust the current German government, which resembles that of old East Germany. Castro’s son will be dethroned in Canada. And almost everywhere, even the media, has come to recognize that the Milei revolution in Argentina is succeeding.
It’s becoming apparent that progressivism and wokeism are morbid. White males are less afraid of committing thought crimes, being canceled, or being labeled racist or sexist. DEI, ESG, and Woke values are retreating. These trends will grow, even while leftists, statists, and socialists pull out all the stops to resist them.
It’s funny that the WEF and their ilk still talk about 2030 as being a magic year because the change in the trend that started in 2024 runs counter to everything that the WEF and the progressives were aiming for in 2030.
I’m surprised—and very pleased—to see what looks like a cultural sea change. But we’re still on the cusp of a giant financial crisis. If the markets meltdown, the kaleidoscope could reset mass psychology radically. The fundamentals remain very shaky. The climate and CO2 hysteria are ingrained in the public psyche. And there’s an excellent chance the usual suspects will try to ramp up another vaccine hysteria. A bird flu seems to be on the dance card for 2025.
Trends in motion tend to stay in motion until they reach a crisis and a new trend emerges.
Fortunately, technology continues to advance at an accelerating rate, and that’s crucial. Throughout history, innovation has changed the nature of life much more than politics, personalities, or even war.
Roughly five thousand years of recorded history show the trend is up, exponentially. That’s why I’m essentially an optimist. But one who recognizes that humanity suffers from occasional bouts of evil and stupidity. Time is on humanity’s side, although that can be an academic observation from the point of view of your own short lifetime.
On the pessimistic side, about 50% of the population in Western societies has been transformed into parasites, collecting much more from the government than they contribute to society. That’s a big deal because almost all progress has come from the West.
Europeans, especially, have become ingrained with bad habits and values. We’re undergoing another stage of the Industrial Revolution that started about the year 1800. It’s destroying lots of old jobs—mostly a good riddance—which will upset the people whose rice bowls are broken. But things will be fine, as long as enough of the middle class survives. The plebs and the "elite" will survive (because they’re basically parasites), but the middle class is the source of production and vitality in any modern society.
Unfortunately, society has retrogressed over the last few generations. But perhaps a counterrevolution has started. The remaining middle class wants to eliminate the parasites. I’d like to believe that the current technological expansion will aid in that and lead to another boom—not just a financial boom, but an economic boom featuring vastly more production at vastly lower costs.
In the short term, however, the Greater Depression will cause the average guy’s standard of living to drop. That’s the best case, even if society stops supporting parasites. Why? Because capital will be reallocated away from consumption and back to rebuilding wealth.
The worst case is that the world continues to party on, with borrowed money. Then, we could have a hyperinflationary depression.
Even though I think the Greater Depression will persist at least over the next decade, the long-term uptrend—which has been going on since the end of the last Ice Age—will continue and hopefully accelerate radically.
So what happens next?
The elite and the parasites still control the State, and that’s critical. The State still has legitimacy, but it’s not part of the cosmic firmament. Though it’s losing its legitimacy, people still view the institution the way children view their parents. Even though those who control the apparatus of the State act more like predators than parents. They will use it to their personal advantage.
I expect promiscuous spending will continue under Trump, notwithstanding the best efforts of Elon, Vivek, and DOGE. That’s because if they don’t keep spending and creating money, the whole pyramid of debt that’s been built up over many decades will come crashing down.
The US dollar, therefore, will continue being inflated. But at the same time, if the Trump administration deregulates radically, efficiency in manufacturing and production will improve radically. Despite lots more money being created, costs and retail prices could drop enough to disguise the effects of inflation.
Despite the positive effects of deregulation, there will be lots of unemployed people as distortions in the economy are liquidated. The good news is that the economy, which is to say the amount of real wealth being created, will start improving, even while the financial situation—stock and bond prices—gets ugly. Rapid change presents lots of paradoxes.
The size of companies born in the last 50 years in America and Europe. America, as heavily regulated and taxed as it is, is vastly more conducive to business than Europe. That trend will widen over the next few years.
It’s important to recognize that the US government is bankrupt, living on borrowed money, and that trend has gone exponential. I know it looks like Morning in America with the defeat of "Kamala and the Jacobins"… that’s a good name for a rock band. But, seriously, the US has become an overextended and corrupt multicultural domestic empire. It’s unsustainable in its present form. Anyway, the morning only lasts for six hours.
The US is more militarily aggressive than ever. It’s said—I don’t think anybody knows exactly—that there are over 800 bases abroad in 80 or 100 countries. This is, to use a currently fashionable word, completely "unsustainable". Trump says that he doesn’t want war, and that makes sense. But he’s all for more military spending. He apparently doesn’t understand that more spending is a provocation to the Chinese, and just a gift for weapons manufacturers, so-called defense companies.
Trump seems committed to using the US dollar as a weapon, by trying to force other countries to use our fiat currency. He sees that exporting paper money in exchange for real goods yields a higher standard of living, and wants to keep that Ponzi scheme going. But he doesn’t seem to understand the huge reaction it’s causing.
The thought of using tariffs to punish foreigners who are shipping goods to the US in exchange for depreciating fiat dollars is quite idiotic.
No doubt that the Trumpers will try their best to get rid of egregious stupidities, as did the Reaganites when they took over in 1980. But the stupidities are much more ingrained and embedded than they were in Reagan’s day. It’s going to be tough.
Abolishing regulations is fantastic and will liberate the economy.
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** Doug Casey is a best-selling author, world-renowned speculator, and libertarian philosopher who advocates free trade. He is a provider of subscription financial analysis about markets.