To borrow an ancient curse, May you live in interesting times. 2024 is looking like it may be a very interesting year.
To borrow an ancient curse, May you live in interesting times. 2024 is looking like it may be a very interesting year.
We appear to be losing our proxy war with Russia in Ukraine. And it's an election year. With the two major party choices shaping up to a clearly senile incumbent with a 37% approval rating and a pompous narcissist who can't get over the fact that the last election was stolen from him fair and square,this could conceivably turn into a hot war. The deep state apparatchiks surrounding Biden know that their careers would all be toast if Trump is elected. They also know enough history to realize it is very hard to defeat a wartime incumbent president. See FDR who won his last election from his metaphorical deathbed. It's not hard at all to imagine Biden's supporters staging a Gulf of Tonkin incident in the Black Sea as an excuse to escalate direct hostilities with Russia.
And, if not the Black Sea, how about the Red Sea where U.S. helicopters have already sunk some Houthi fastboats which were attacking maritime shipping there. The Houthis, a rebel faction in Yemen which has Iranian backing, have been attacking any boat they think is going to Israel in alleged solidarity with Hamas in its war with Israel. The U.S. has already moved considerable Naval assets into the Mediterranean at one end of the Suez Canal and the Gulf of Aden at the other end.
Even without getting involved in direct hostilities, the economic fallout from a blockade of the Suez Canal will force 10-15% of world trade to go around the Southern Coasts of Africa and South America. Add to that that a drought has made the Panama Canal impassable for larger ships and we have ourselves a supply chain problem. You remember supply chain problems from the pandemic lockdowns, right? They certainly helped accelerate our plunge into 9% inflation. You can bet that if the U.S. gets involved more directly in a war in Ukraine or the Middle East...or China over Taiwan which we haven't even mentioned yet...the Fed will be close behind with lower interest rates and money printing. That would inevitably cause inflation and most probably wage and price controls.
2024 is looking pretty, well, interesting, folks.
It's not all bad news though. In Argentina, the second largest country in South America, a bona fide libertarian was just elected President. And he is acting like a libertarian as President. Cutting bureaucracy, firing government employees, preventing demonstrations from shutting down transportation, drastic deregulation of the economy and much more in just his first month in office. He has demonstrated that a democracy can produce a libertarian oriented government. He is fighting entrenched interests domestically from the previously entrenched Peronistas, and internationally from socialists and those benefit from Big Government all over the world. Not to mention big governments who see their model potentially challenged by a successful free market laissez faire approach producing unprecedented economic benefits for anyone willing to work.
History has a way of recycling. 2024 will see two contradictory cycles. Big government and warfare looming in the U.S. and much of the rest of the world. And Freedom in Argentina. May freedom advance!