Ok, I'll play.
- Rent and housing prices will rise far faster than inflation, leading to record numbers of both involuntary cohabitation and homelessness. Construction for affordable housing and non-luxury rent properties will not substantially increase, resulting in major economic upheaval in most metro areas, even relatively small ones.
- The Great Resignation and massive labor shortages will continue unabated, and will likely worsen sharply, driven by a pathological intransigence and outright delusional refusal to raise wages or improve working conditions. The lower middle class will be unable to afford the basic necessities of life - food and shelter - whether the work 80 hours or 2 hours a week, so why bother working at all?
- Congress will not raise the minimum wage. They might try to do something for the sake of optics, but everybody will already know it'll be bullshit.
- Hoarding of wealth will worsen, driving stock portfolios dangerously high. This will trigger a massive market correction in the following years of historic proportions, potentially rivaling the 2008 collapse. Probably won't be 1932 levels of bad, but might come close.
- Russia and China will put forward a geopolitical lie that the US is doomed and their economies are somehow oh so much better. Just look at our economic numbers! Yeah that's recent, we just published that yesterday! Huh? What do you mean "independent audit"? What's "credible source" mean? And don't you dare mention that pesky "free press" nonsense. We have...places...for people like you.
- Patient-facing healthcare staff demand will rise even more sharply, as will their pay, and their amount of overworked hours, even beyond 2021's hellscape of abuse. Record numbers of people in these roles will commit suicide, leading to fewer staff and further demoralizing an already exhausted staff in communities where this will happen.
- Government spending will drastically increase far beyond expectations as a necessary tourniquet for a hemmorhaging economy. The dollar's value will continue to fall, ultimately stabilizing by Q4 as the Fed finally makes the hard call on policy.
- Right-wing conspiracy theories will continue to gain followers and popularity, driven substantially by continued efforts from malicious global adversaries, most notably Russia, who will seek to invade Georgia and forcibly annex it again if that division is enough to keep us paralyzed, unable to drop the hammer on them after the deed is done. This will further stress similarly declining conditions in the EU as they try to stabilize the situation.
- Remote work will increase in popularity, as will competition for remote jobs across all relevant economic sectors and roles. This will keep job seekers unemployed longer in spite of the labor shortage. It will also increase discrimination and create a false sense of entitlement for employers, making them feel somewhat as if they once again have all the power. Expect pay and working conditions for professional roles to improve as employers try to compete for "the best" throughout the nation, not just their area(s).
- The catch for remote work? Your privacy - your dignity - will be the price you have to pay if you want that better job (now necessary just to survive since rent is so much higher). Employers will drastically increase workplace performance monitoring to the point of absurd, abusive, and even downright evil. Those who refuse to give in will be unemployed longer than those who capitulate, creating a strong preference for "easy to abuse" as a major, if not top, hiring criteria, above qualifications, especially among large corporations. Corporate so-called "values" will be increasingly viewed as outright lies.
- At least 10 people who read this comment will be dead inside of one year due to this economic upheaval. Many more will die nationwide, a frighteningly record number of them being children.
- Costs for healthcare, particularly mental health, will rise faster than inflation and faster than costs to provide. Antidepressants and other psychiatric medications will be prescribed in record numbers, even beyond 2021's standards. Prices for these medications, even old ones, will sharply increase as a result. Expect your co-pay and deductible to go up, and your available formulary to be heavily revised to your detriment. Insurers will not be held accountable.
- Antitrust and privacy protection efforts will universally stall, and most will die out. Google, Facebook, and their ilk won't face justice any time soon. This means their abuses of human rights and privacy will not only continue, but get worse. Much worse.
- Violent crime will increase drastically. Upper-middle-class white families will feel fear for their safety and their lives for the first time, and not all of us will handle it well. Expect gun sales, particularly to those who shouldn't have them, to increase, and while most will eventually get it together, eventually somebody's going to get killed by an untrained gun owner who open-carries, now legally, purely out of fear. This will lead to further calls for gun control that will go without meaningful reform, yet again.
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COVID didn't cause all this, it was just the catalyst, the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. This perfect storm has been brewing for decades in Washington's cesspool of greed, arrogance and sociopathic narcissism that only Ivy league, Wall Street, military-industrialist elitists could manage to foul up this badly. This has been a long time coming, and it's not your Trump-supporting neighbor's fault any more than it is the Black Lives Matter guy's across the street. We're all being used, abused and lied to, and without a way to enforce consequences for those who've put themselves above the welfare of this country that we've entrusted them with, it won't change. A violent revolution is doomed to failure - how can you bring freedom and hope with a blood-soaked sword? - but some form of non-violent, powerful action will happen by 2050, probably sooner.
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America has been through worse and triumphed before. We can do it again! This is not the end at all, but the painful moment of change in an ongoing cycle of birth, death and rebirth. This is where the ascended phoenix catches fire and burns, falling to ash below. And it's going to be hard. Not everyone who reads this post will live to see 2023. But don't give up, because that phoenix will absolutely rise again, and we're going to need you - your help, your passion, your joy and heart - to make our mutual moment in the sun last longer this time 'round.
It's always darkest just before dawn.
...but there is always a dawn. Just make sure you're still around to see it. Because you damn well deserve it. And because future generations deserve it too.