Predictions for 2022

Preface

As I mentioned in my post “How to make money in this booster reality“, I had a very big advantage upon entering into these pandemic times; I had quite a clear vision of what was going to happen in the near future. Thus, the events of the last two years … the various restrictions, the rollbacks and the following intensivations … they came as no surprise to me.

Back in 2020, I posted a few texts and videos about it all – like this one, “Litt tanker om det som skjer” (A few thoughts about what’s happening). I used to post my content on either YouTube or Facebook, but their built-in algorithms ensured that traffic to my pages collapsed. I was a nobody on social media. I had an audience, but not a large one. However, all over the world, YouTubers experienced that followers were removed, so that their audience no longer got notifications when new content was published. An increasing number of channels were being removed from all the major social media platforms; most of us remember that the sitting US president was removed from Twitter, but there were numerous others. Voices with alternative messages were silenced. The various media channels around the world have all been speaking with one voice during the pandemic. They have been spreading fear and uncertainty, around the clock, for the last two years.

It has been both fascinating and discouraging to observe how most people have consumed the message – the one voice – and followed all kinds of initiatives, even when it would seem obvious that they themselves would end up suffering, and for no good reason. What happened to critical thinking? The world becomes a dangerous place when you no longer can rely on people applying all their capacities.

Predictions

I will present my predictions for 2022 as a list of events. Many of them are likely to lead to new events, as in a hierarchy of things. Thus, the list will contain events that I think will take place in 2022, as well as events that may come into fruition later (see the subsections). How unlikely it may seem, I think most of the mentioned events will take place this year.

Below the predictions, I will list a few suggested solutions.

Predictions for 2022:

• We will experience a new financial crisis, much worse than the one in 2008. As the crisis unfolds, global measures will be taken:
  • Countries will introduce their new digital currencies. This has been prepared for years already and even tested on small scale, but the coming crisis will be the natural time to launch this new monetary system.
    • Initially both the old and the new currencies can be used, but there will be a shift over to the new digital currencies through measures such as ATMs being removed, cash not being accepted due to hygiene measures, cash being alienated through the media (used by criminals, used for tax evasion etc) and more.
    • Everyone will receive their own personal wallet, created by the central banks of each country. There is likely to be some free money in the wallet, to ensure that people start using this new system as soon as possible.
    • All businesses will be demanded to accept payments with the new digital currencies, and all corporate taxes and fees will have to be made in the new currencies.
      • Thus, the central banks will get the complete details of the economy of every corporation.
        • Accounting for all corporations will soon be handled by the central bank.
        • Corporations no longer need to pay for accountants and auditors.
        • Taxes and fees will be automatically deducted.
        • Corporal tax evasion no longer exists.
        • The central bank can control and decide how corporate funds are to be used.
        • If a corporation, for some reason, does not follow the rules or regulations, there might be a number of measures:
          • As their funds are now in their central bank wallet, fines may be issued and automatically deducted.
          • Their funds may be frozen.
          • Their wallet may be unable to receive payments.
          • Their taxes and fees may increase and so on..
  • The central banks will offer all services associated with normal banks, with better conditions.
    • You will be able to receive your salary on your digital central bank wallet, and it will never be late.
    • You can apply for mortgages, credits etc, and they will be handled instantly.
    • All social benefits will come directly to your wallet, without delay.
    • “Good citizens” (more on this below) may receive bonuses.
  • Banks will collapse; as the central banks will outperform them on every level, the old banking system will die.
  • The central bank will have complete control of the economy of the population.
    • This becomes a reality when the old banking system has died out.
    • Taxes and fees will be automatically deducted.
    • The population can easily be controlled by economic measures:
      • There are no ATMs, no cash, only the central bank wallet (I’ll mention crypto below, in Solutions).
      • Good citizens will be rewarded:
        • If you have taken all available vaccines and are a law-abiding citizen in general, your wallet will be accepted everywhere.
        • You may enjoy discounts on mortgages, insurance, electricity, groceries, travel etc.
        • You can move around freely and travel wherever you like.
        • You may enjoy bonus payments from the central bank; extra money, for being a good citizen.
      • “Bad citizens” will be punished (this will come into effect later than the bonuses for being a good citizen):
        • Those who have fallen behind on their vaccines and boosters may not be allowed to receive a salary. If they are, there will be a deduction or limitations on how the funds can be used.
        • The sames goes for those who get by on social benefits.
        • Various bad behaviours may lead to the freezing of funds, fines (that are automaticly deducted from your wallet), wallets not being accepted for fuel or travel, worse conditions on mortgages, insurance etc.
          • Those who are posting undesired content on social media and those who are commenting in an undesirable way, may be robbed of some freedoms. The same goes for those who are using non-desirable search words on the internet.
          • Those who are speeding or talking in the phone while driving, may need to pay more for their insurance.
          • Those who are under investigation or have been convicted, may experience worse conditions on their mortgages, insurance, being banned from travel etc.
      • Fines issued by the police or the courts will automatically be deducted from your wallet and may very well have an impact on bonuses you used to enjoy for being a good citizen.
      • Since the money now is digital and controlled by the central bank itself, the money can have a various qualities
        • A timer; if you receive social benefits on the 15th of each month, your money may be valid from the 15th of the month they are issued, to the 15th of the next.
        • Limited use; your money may only be used for necessities such as mortgages, rent, electricity … and groceries (but only at shops within a 5 km radius).
        • As each new euro, dollar etc is digital, it will have a serial number. Thus, each coin can be given and removed at the will of the central bank, in cooperation with the government and the current set of rules and regulations.
• The financial crisis will initially send the global stock markets into a deep dive. The central banks will then issue their digital currencies – as described above, but they will also invest directly in companies, so that the crash stops and turns back into the ever increasing stock market that we have already become used to … and dependent on.
  • The stock markets no longer mirrors the economy or the society (this has been the reality for a while, at least since the last financial crisis).
  • Stock markets function a controlled mechanism that transfers wealth from the population to a selected few. This, however, is not the topic for this post.
• The regulations we have all lived with during the pandemic, are creating a series of problems around the world:
  • We will experience shortages of various goods and services. This has already begun, but the problems will increase on a global scale. Even the food supply will be a huge problem many places.
  • As new variants are named, new boosters will be available, and we enter into a world where we are vaccinated every few months.
    • You have to be part of the vaccination programme to remain a good citizen.
    • The number of sick and dead will continue to increase worldwide.
    • Through the media, people will be lead to believe that this is because there are still too many unvaccinated. Ever stronger measures will be taken to convince the most steadfast opponents to join the vaccination programmes.
    • As the vaccinated get more and more afraid of the unvaccinated, people will turn against each other. This is mainly a consequence of the fact that governments and the media has built up fear in the society over the past couple of years.
    • Hardly anyone will consider whether the vaccines themselves may have anything to do with the increasing number of deaths.
  • More and more of those who still have jobs, will demand to work from home. The legislation will support such demands.
    • Office buildings are not the optimal investment opportunity in these times, while all sorts of home entartainment might get a nice boost. Fortunes will be made for those who succeed in delivering products and services that make life at home more bearable.
  • As restrictions, fear and supply chain problems leads to less and less goods and services being produced, combined with the fact that the central banks keep increasing the amount of currency, we will see inflation all over the world.

Solutions

More could be added to the predictions, but this will do. However depressing this may be; for every problem there is a solution, right? There is nothing to gain from foreseeing future events, if you don’t act on them in constructive ways.

The easiest way to deal with everything, of course, would be to just go along with it all without ever thinking about it again. However, I would not recommend this approach, as I would expect you would end up suffering far worse than if you were to take almost any other approach.

Another, very simple solution, would be to reduce the noise. Stop consuming the news. Turn off the TV and radio. Return to looking at a topic from at least two angles. Return to using your critical thought. Many have become news junkies during the pandemic, staying up to date with everything served, without looking into any of it. There is a song from the ’90s, called “Free Your Mind” … this would be a great exersice for many of us, now after more than two years with fear being implanted into our minds. In fact, reducing the noice might be one of the most important measures at this time.

Some solutions are easy, while others are harder. If you have a running business, it will be hard to evade the measures being put in place. There may be ways to get around the worst obstacles, like putting in place structures that takes advantage of countries who resist putting the new measures in place. What is legal in one place, might not be legal another place; but you are free to take your business where it is treated best.

As a business, you could of course accept payments in crypto, as well as paying others in crypto. Depending on what sort of customers and suppliers you have, this might be an option. (More on crypto below.)

As an individual, the economic part will be much easier. The solution may very well be in the crypto space. As soon as you receive payments, you could change it to one or more cryptocurrencies (if the central bank wallet accepts sending the digital currency to a crypto exchange). You could of course choose to be paid in cryptocurrency, as long as those you are doing business with accept this. There are a number of large, solid cryptocurrencies, as well as great payment solutions (using various cryptocurrencies when paying with a VISA or MasterCard for instance), and I expect that many of the strongest cryptocurrencies will increase in value as the worlds economic setup is changing. The number of alternative payment solutions will also continue to increase.

By moving wealth into the crypto space, your wealth is no longer a victim of the whims of central banks, and it is no longer part of the wealth transfer, causing most people to become increasingly poor, while others end up ridiculously rich. In the initial crisis, I expect the valuation of the various cryptocurrencies to dive, just like the stock markets, but I expect them to turn around faster and outperform the stock markets from then on.

Even if the stock exchanges are to take a dive in 2022, investing in stocks might still be one of the best investments within the system. As central banks are issuing new amounts of currency, most of these will end up in stocks, thus pushing the valuations of various companies ever higher. I think this will continue until all the digital currencies issued by the central banks are phased out and replaced with a new digital currency, issued by the World Bank. Until this happens, certain stocks will probably provide great investment opportunities. As for now, such companies would be for example Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Pfizer and others who are to gain from people joining the vaccination programmes, staying home, being entartained and shopping online.

As we already see, one of the basic costs increases dramatically; the electricity bill. We have already been led to replace our fossil fuel cars to electric cars and we are more or less in the hands of the electricity supplier. Generating your own electricity would be an advantage – the same would probably apply to water and food. The Amish society emerged around 1700 and now, for the first time in history, the amish may very well experience that others envy them for being completely self-sufficient. The rest of us are more or less fully dependent on goods and services being provided on an ongoing basis, and we have no choise but to pay what is required. This may be problematic in a world that is entering several crises at once, so taking measures to reduce the damage may be money well spent.

So, will the central banking system ever end? Probably not. The largest corporations can easily afford to get the brightest of brains on board, and central banks – as issuers of currency – are, of course, in a unique position. The difference between rich and poor will continue to increase, but if you avoid some of the costs and manage to generate wealth by investing smarter than others, you may actually drastically increase your standard of living in the times ahead. There will be restrictions of all sorts, but there will also be ways to get through it all just fine.

There is, of course, a whole lot more to be mentioned in the solutions section as well, but … if you’re still reading this, you’re probably one of very few.

As we will probably continue to spend a lot of time in our homes, why not take up the habit of reading and writing, drawing, painting … unfold yourself and make the best of the situation.