2023

 

I used to make predictions every year.  Covid was such a disruption that I finally just waved the white flag and gave up.  But, now I’m ready to give it one more shot.  The 2023 predictions:

_1 The Ukraine-Russia conflict gets resolved. Probably before the end of March.  Russia gets something out of it and the world agrees that Russia did not lose the war (even if they did.)

_2 With the Ukraine-Russia situation settled world energy markets calm down and the European economy starts a slow recovery.  2023 will not be great and we will have a recession.  But it won’t be very deep nor will it last long.  Inflation eases up.

_3 The 2024 Presidential campaign is in full swing by the second half of the year.  The Democrats are stuck with Biden/Harris and the Republicans try to figure out how to make Trump go away.  I predict Trump does indeed fade out.  Barring a scandal of some sort, DeSantis is the favorite going into 2024.

_4 The Stock Market surges in the second half of 2023.

_5 2023 will be a big year for M&A activity, especially in transportation/logistics and food/grocery.

_6 Georgia repeats as college football national champs. Kansas City wins the Super Bowl.

_7 As evidence mounts that Covid originated in a Chinese lab, the “Covid Story” goes away.  Republicans will push it, but it will be to a dead end.

_8 There will be some Federal response, at last, to the border crisis.  It has become a nasty loose end going into the 2024 elections and the Democrats recognize the need to do something.

_9 The United States, along with other Western industrialized nations, continues to move further to the left on climate, economic and social issues.  Conservatives will object and continue to issue dire warnings.  But the tide has turned and isn’t likely to change until there is some sort of cataclysmic event.

_10 And lastly, I have one prediction that is guaranteed to be correct: Expect the Unexpected. 

"A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both." - Milton Friedman

2022

 

2022 has been interesting.  If you like roller-coasters, you may even have enjoyed it. On the Chinese Zodiac calendar 2022 was The Year of The Tiger.  But not just any Tiger.  This was the year of the Water Tiger.  This “water” concept is part the ancient Wuxing philosophy that sees all of creation being subject to the cycle of Five Elements: Wood, Earth, Fire, Metal and Water.  Water is the low point.  It is the most “Yin” of the five elements.  Its motion is downward and inward.  Its energy is stillness and conserving.  Its color is black, its time the night, its light the moon.  It comes from the north and it brings cold.

 

As a Christian, I take seriously the warnings not to delve too far into such things.  Not because they are not real; but because they are real and come from a place where dark spirits work against God and those created in his image.  I would say those dark spirits have been hard at it in 2022.  The world is in chaos, nations are struggling with inflation and access to reliable, affordable energy.  The shadow of Covid and the fear of what comes next is ever present.  The cultural divide between progressives and conservatives has never been greater.  The basics of civilization are up for grabs.  We can’t agree on energy, food, education, housing, work, sex, gender, marriage, giving birth, dying, law and order, art, literature, humor or even what words are permissible.  Morality is relative and God is whatever one chooses “it” to be or not at all.

 

Obviously, this didn’t all just start in 2022.  It’s been building up forever, since The Fall or The Beginning, wherever one chooses to plant that stake.  But it has been accelerating and 2022 feels like the bands are about to break.  We can only do so much and we can only take so much.  2023 will be The Year of the Rabbit.  But it’s the Water Rabbit.  So, we are still under water.  I suppose the world can hope it does not get any deeper before we run out of air.

 

As for me, I will cling to The Faith and look to Jesus.  There is only one Truth.  I know that’s not popular to say these days.  But it doesn’t make it any less so.  2000 years ago, God became one of us in order to save us from the dark powers of this world.  Those powers do not want us to believe that.  But it doesn’t change the facts of the matter.  In the end, all of the elements, including Wood, Earth, Fire, Metal and Water will be consumed and replaced by a New Heaven and a New Earth.  The lion and lamb will lie down together as will the tiger and the rabbit.  And there will be Peace.