What does the next 10 years look like?

What does the next 10 years look like?

What are things that will be a part of the mainstream and events that could take place?

None of this may come true. Some of it may come true. But it’s fun to think about it.

Here’s a rambling of what I think could happen in the next 5-10 years:

There will be a world economic crisis unlike anything I’ve seen in my lifetime and could rival the Great Depression if it happens like I think it will.

Bank failures.

People on the streets.

Tons of businesses going under.

But that has to happen in order for the world to progress.

The companies and businesses that have been surviving on cheap debt because interest rates are so low need to be taken out of the market.

You have to allow the market to balance itself.

Evolution needs to take place. Evolve or die.

If you do anything to intervene, all it does is make things worse.

The US Fed has no more moves in their arsenal to combat what is happening right now.

Inflation is here.

The only way to burst that bubble is to raise interest rates, something which the Fed hasn’t done substantially since the Paul Volcker days in the 80s.

Side note: tweeted this a few weeks back and his name will start to get mentioned a lot more https://twitter.com/anishkbio/status/1443412157287260162?s=20

He was the one that solved inflation because it got so out of hand, but the market didn’t like it.

Will that have to happen again?

My sense is it’ll be deflation first followed by hyperinflation because the US government can’t let the legacy companies die.

They will print their currency to maintain the banks and legacy institutions which benefit asset holders aka rich people. 

But most of the population can’t afford to live comfortably.

Inflation robs the poor and gives to the rich.

Depending on who’s in power in America, that could continue.

The problem then is the US dollar is screwed.

Some countries' central banks around the world have started to buy gold, raise interest rates and realize inflation is getting a little out of control.

They're also not buying as many US treasury bonds anymore so the Fed is the one buying the debt.

Countries like China, Russia, Iran and North Korea would love to trade in non US dollars.

Something I learned recently is one of the reasons the world runs on US dollars is all oil transactions happen in US dollars.

The petrodollar.

The history of the petrodollar is fascinating (learn here - https://www.thebalance.com/what-is-a-petrodollar-3306358). It explains why the US dollar is still the most dominant currency.

The question though is for how much longer and what would replace it?

It probably fails in the next decade if they decide to step in, nationalize the banks and continue to print currency.

The counter argument right now is no other currency is as stable.

A lot of other countries peg their currency to the US dollar so whatever happens the dollar is how other currencies go.

Inflationary environments around the world cause conflict.

When a significant number of people in those countries can’t afford the basics, they’ll rebel.

That’s coming to America in my eyes.

They’re losing the battle on the world stage.

China is now the most transacted country.

The US has a massive trade deficit problem. They don’t make enough stuff.

When you export something, you make a good in your home country and send it to another country. You get paid.

When you import something, you pay someone else to send something to you.

If you import more than you export, you have a debt problem.

Which in America is massive. 28 trillion dollars.

One way to solve that problem is to go through a deflationary bust.

Leverage and debt needs to be removed from the market.

When that happens, people lose jobs, they lose houses, more people are on the streets and conflicts could happen.

The issue is the world is too intertwined these days.

Anything that happens in one country can affect everything else.

China has its own problem.

The real estate debt problem is a big issue because that could be systemic.

The Chinese banks could be in trouble.

But you know who else owns Chinese debt?

The world.

Xi knows he has to pop this bubble before it gets even more out of hand. Because he’s now president for life, China has a 25-50 year plan.

You don’t think there will be any economic crises that happen in that time?

Of course they will.

History is undefeated. Bubbles have occurred many times before and will continue to occur.

We’re at the beginning of one.

So what will happen as a result of that?

Crypto gets crushed.

Stocks get crushed.

Banks get crushed.

Rich people who own the assets get crushed.

Good.

Crashes are healthy for an economy because they let the good survive and the bad die out.

Inequality is too high.

Last time it was this bad in the US was in the 1920s.

The VIX goes through the roof.

AMC and GME go to the moon.

Defi could become mainstream if Gamestop is really working on a brand new stock market based on blockchain and Ethereum 2.0.

Web 3.0 is another Internet revolution.

You can now participate in ownership of your data.

You get to profit directly off what you make.

This changes the game for creators.

Now they don’t have to go through middle men.

They can sell directly to their audience.

This is going to change music and art forever.

Now artists could be mega famous and rich by going to their fans directly and letting their fans own a piece of them.

The best example I can give is imagine owning Drake’s original albums and the royalty streams from that.

Do you think that would be valuable?

Fuck yea.

The amazing thing is the better an artist does, the more valuable it is to his fans and the rest of the world.

They get to participate on the upside while the artist gets to go direct to his/her community.

Web 3.0 is still a bit clunky and a lot needs to be worked out in terms of security, convenience, app infrastructure, etc.

But that future is coming.

People around the world can create and have people who follow them own their work.

That part is amazing.

I’m definitely going to be part of that.

Imagine selling your writing to the people that like it and having them participate in your rise.

Super exciting.

It’s possible there could be a war over Taiwan.

China is preparing.

Saw a Balajis tweet thread that spoke about this exact topic.

They’re preparing the population for war.

Xi has come out and already said Taiwan is a part of China.

Eventually they’ll be under Chinese control.

Is the US really ready for war with China right now, especially after Afghanistan?

I doubt it.

China will become the most powerful country in the world.

The future of the world will be in Asia.

The west is losing and Asia’s winning.

What other currency crisis could happen?

To be fair it’s a lot of them.

The US has a debt bomb, the Chinese have a real estate debt and banking problem and the Euro could be unstable and brought down by any member.

The next global economic crisis could crush all of them.

There will be many more pandemics and disease outbreaks.

Animals are coming in closer to contact with humans as their habitats are getting destroyed with global warming and corporate greed.

Hopefully most of the future pandemics will not be transmitted via aerosol because if the next one that happens has a more severe death rate, the world is screwed.

Think about this – the Covid death rate is 1% and as of today, 5 million people have died of Covid. What if that death rate went up a few percent to 5% or 10%.

Thankfully science has saved us as Moderna and Pfizer were quick to answer the challenge and mRNA has potentially revolutionized vaccines and pandemics.

Challenge trials will be done if we ever have a pandemic worse than Covid.

Challenge trials are when you run clinical trials where you infect a person with the live disease and monitor them as they progress.

People want to sacrifice themselves for something if they know it can help the greater good.

They’re already started in the UK 

At least we know we can get a solution.

Another issue though is misinformation.

How do you know who to believe anymore?

There are too many anti-vaxxers.

Too many believe in their freedom to choose, which they have every right to.

But when you know how vaccines work and how useful they’ve been throughout history, it’s an easy choice.

Vaccines were one of the greatest inventions of the 20th century.

One study estimates they’ve saved 10.3 million lives around the world since 1962. That’s pretty good.

But if most of your population won’t listen and a virus has a higher death rate, you have a problem.

Think how bad hospitals were at the beginning of the crisis.

Now imagine the death rate is 5 times worse.

That’s what could happen.

This is why we need people to talk about the biggest issues facing our world.

We can’t solve a problem if we never talk about it.

Smart people need to start sharing their opinions of the world and solutions to how to fix problems.

Climate change is a huge fucking problem.

We need innovators and governments to understand how important it is to finance this revolution while also supporting the world’s poorest countries.

Whoever develops the best solution to the energy problem is going to win.

That’s where the US or Europe could win, but I’m sure there’s a lot going on in China.

One solution I need to write a full post on is about H3 and how the space race could be the most important race of our lifetime.

If they can get H3 from the moon and figure out nuclear fission, all energy sources around the world would slowly disappear.

That’s still years away, but don’t think that countries and smart people know what’s going on.

One of the guys I followed during this whole Gamestop saga, Houston Wade, has a background as a geologist and was on a podcast talking about how Blue Origin is the next greatest company of all time if they solve this issue. (Start at 30:00). 

The countries that do it could become the new kings of the universe.

Space travel becomes more commoditized.

More people get to go to space.

Problem is it will be for the wealthy for a long time.

Biotech is also going through a revolution.

The information and data we’re gathering on people is unbelievable but it’s also clunky and filled with bias. Getting actionable insights from AI now still needs to be proven out.

There’s too much AI hype these days and only certain people are getting actionable insights about what they’re developing,

More personalized medicine. Medicine that is built and delivered specifically for you.

One of the major issues though is around data ownership. All that information is extremely private. Do you really want a big company like Google to know everything about your health, your phone, your search history, your twitter use, etc? I don’t.

Cybersecurity might be the most important industry.

If anyone has access to your data and can shut down your entire system or infrastructure remotely, that is terrifying.

Governments, banks, healthcare systems, companies etc. can have their information stolen and let out into the open if they don’t think enough about cyber security.

Pay for your security online.

So yea those are some of my thoughts on what happens the next 5-10 years.

Maybe it all comes true. Maybe none of it does.

Who knows but it’s fun to think about.