Top 10 expectations (Threats and Opportunities) for 2022

Overview:

Well its 2022 now – buckle up because i have a seeking suspicion this year will be a doozy!  Why?  I am glad you asked…  This year i think will show some continuation of the trend and events we have seen starting in 2019 and 2020.  This is because our culture  is at the top (or bottom depending on how you look at it) of multiple cycles, the most important of which are the. 100, 250, and 500 year cycles (for more information on the sociological cycles please see the book Zero Hour by Harry S. Dent).  This time of upheaval is an exciting time.  A time of great opportunity, but also a time of great peril.

Let’s get the bad news out of the way first.  For each of these events, I will also give a rough shoot-from-the-hip estimate of the likelihood i think there is for these events to happen.  Please note: This list is purely for entertainment value, and is not intended as legal, medical, or financial advice)

 

Potential Threats to keep an eye on:

1: Continued COVID-19 and related chaos (99%)

The COVID bug is here to stay and I fully expect there to be continued lockdowns and mandates (especially in certain areas and population centers), but also, I think we will start to see a lot of blow back against the vaccines, and medical censorship.  We may even see the “script” flip a but to where the new narrative is that the COVID vaccines are causing more harm then they are fixing and Donald Trump is to blame for rushing them under his “Operation Warp Speed”

2: Inflation, and perhaps hyper inflation and/or deflation may be about to hit in a big way (85%)

in the past to years we have seen historic bailouts, stimulus and wonton government spending as well as historic industrial shut downs an supply chain disruptions greatly impacting the amount of goods brought to market.   At the same time this is going on, a number of factors (Oil being politically disfavored, the US military no longer able to provide a guaranteed blanket of protection to oil producing countries thus enticing them to leave the petrodollar treaties of the 1970s)  are coming together in a confluence to undermine the value and respect of the US Dollar on the international stage.  These factors are coming together to create the possibility of the perfect storm to create a hyper inflated US Dollar.

At this point you may be asking “You said hyper inflation or deflation, what would be the cause of the deflationary Scenario?”. Well I am glad you asked, but I am not glad at the answer I have to give. To put it bluntly, the answer is “death”.  It seams that the all cause mortality rate is up 24% for folks getting the Covid vaccine (See https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/317091?s=09) If all of the sudden our death rate goes up by 24%, this may cause a general drop in demand, which would put deflationary pressure on the global economy.

3: Growing global food insecurity as the cost of food raises and the availability of food drops. (90%)

In addition to all of the reasons from item number “2”, we are specifically seeing some troubling numbers in the food industry, specifically when it comes to food “precursors”  (fertilizer, insecticide, herbicide, live stock feed, etc ) we are seeing massive price growth. (see https://cap.unl.edu/crops/fertilizer-prices-forecasted-continue-increase-what-know)

4:  Conflict (International and/or Civil) (70%)

Between Russias saber rattling over the Ukraine and the wests almost guaranteed response if Russia decides to attempt to annex the Ukraine and Chinas desire to Annex Taiwan (and the wests almost guaranteed response to that)  a World War is quite likely.  Also, just because we multiple supper powers threatening to go “hot” does not mean that the other typical flashpoints are not still active.

When it comes to Civil unrest things are equally tense. People around the world are growing tired of heavy handed authoritarian COVID response, burdensome environmental regulations, and corrupt election tampering.  The discontent is not only contained in the populace either.  In some cases the military senior leadership have expressed concerns that an uprising could rise from within their own ranks.

5: Cyber interference with Infrastructure (75%)

In 2020 and2021 we saw multiple reports of high visibility cyber security incidents.  Several of them where against specific infrastructure and caused some temporary and localized disruptions.   The World Economic forum has warned of something much grater, a “Cyber pandemic“, a cyber security event that would have long lasting and unrestricted societal impacts much lime the Covid-19 pandemic.  For more information on what something like this might look like, please check out my article on cyber attacks.

 

Potential Opportunities to investigate (NOTE: NOT FINANCIAL OR INVESTMENT ADVICE.  For entertainment purposes only!  I am not a financial advisor! )

BlockChain and the Metaverse

Some say that blockchain and the metaverses that are built on it are the new up and coming internet technology.  There have already been multiple millionaires and billionaires minted out of the space, and while i fear the season of nacent exponential growth may be coming to a close, i don’t think we are quite there yet.  Not saying you should mortgage your kids, but it may be worth learning about and educating our self on (Again, NOT FINANCIAL OR INVESTMENT ADVICE!)

Automation

Anything that you can do to automate your world will not only make your life easier, but could potentially catch an employers eye.  If you are looking for a programming language to learn with which to construct automated solutions, i would look into “Python”

Decentralization

As the world around us changes and our society and the support infrastructures on which it is built, falls into disrepair around us, it may be wise to look at decoupling yourself, your family, and your community from  dependance on the modern life support infrastructures we have grown to depend on. Ask your self: “if the power where to go out for 6 months, what would i do? what would it mean for my day to day life?  What would it mean for my community? How can i soften that blow to my families life style?   Start to look into things like:

• -Solar power and battery storage and/or solar generators
• -Traditional generators
• -Gravity fed water purifiers
• -Save up food stores
• -Save up a rainy day fund (not financial advice)
• -Back yard gardening and small scale animal husbandry (chickens, rabbets, etc)
• -Preserving food
• -Home Schooling
• -3d printing
• -First Aid and medical equipment and training
• -Fire suppression Equipment and training
• -Self defence equipment and training
• -Entrepreneurship

Health

The healthier you are the better off you will be going into this cycle(and in general).  Now is a great time to start trying to eat better, exercise, etc.

Community Building

During the great depression, many people got through it by relying on their neighbors and by being a neighbor that could be relied on.  Now is the time to start to build those relationships (that said, if you have been preparing, its good to be a little circumspect in what you divulge of your own preps, and maintain a bit of operational security).  Get to really know your neighbors, especially neighbors that you have skill sets that they could use, or neighbors that have skillsets that you could need. Try to figure out who your community leaders are and try to help them start to think about these high impact scenarios.