Income inequality! From the United States’ Presidential Reality Show®, where the leading Democratic candidates are pushing for higher taxes on the wealthiest and bashing billionaires, to Lebanon, Algeria, and the many other countries written about in the Trends Journal where people have lost everything and have nothing left to lose – the bottom line of most of the protests is...
INDEPENDENCE: FOLLOW NO LEADER
From warlords to nobility to elected officials, the new millennium push is “Power to the People.” There’s never been anything like it. Across the globe, protests, demonstrations, and uprisings are being led by groups of many and not one leader. Following no leader or allegiance to political parties, especially established ones, is a 2020 megatrend… a societal evolution. Indeed, with...
ELEGANCE 2020
Around the world, as revolutions and riots accelerate at unprecedented levels, it’s all going down. Global economies are slowing down, and uprisings across the globe are bringing governments down. From Bolivia to Sudan, Algeria to Lebanon, Iraq to Spain, Hong Kong to Chile… the awake and the aware see it and feel it. How to rise above it? Elegance! Elegance:...
REAL ESTATE: PEAK NO MORE
From Europe to Australia, North America to Asia, the post-Panic of ‘08 real estate boom has peaked, and its decline will accelerate in 2020 and beyond. Pumped up by the cheap money binge and record-low interest rates following the Great Recession, now, with wealth concentration not trickling down to the wage-stagnated/deep-in-debt general public who can’t afford a modest home to...
THE ROARING 2020s
Out with the old, in with the new. Sinking economies, worldwide strife, political tensions, family squabbles, health problems, personal issues, business difficulties, money troubles… It’s inescapable… and people want to escape. It’s the “Roaring 2020s”: Welcome to Fantasy Land! From entertainment to everyday life, leaving the past behind and wanting to live the high life, it’s party time for the...
HOMELESS/HELPLESS
In 2020, the homeless population in a country, state, city, town, or village near you will rapidly increase. As civil unrest intensifies across the globe, pushing already sinking economies lower, the global “Homeless/Helpless” trend, now in its early growth stage, will rapidly accelerate as economic conditions continue to worsen. Trends are born, they grow, mature, reach old age, and die....
FU&K-U-SHIMA: WORST KEEPS COMING
Long forgotten, it’s far from over. In fact, it’s getting worse, and, in 2020, it will be back in the news. Playing off the 2020 Summer Olympics, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is promoting the show that his country is recovered from the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster. It’s not working: with barely seven months to go before the games begin,...
HI-TECH HEROIN
It’s a global crisis. Its debilitating, toxic effects leave no country, no corner of the world unscathed. It fits the definition of an addiction and an epidemic… it’s the world’s addiction to hi-tech. And it will worsen as each generation knows no other life and overindulges on their electronic devices. Like pre-Baby Boomers were addicted to cigarettes, most smartphone and...
U.S.: CHEAP MONEY PUMP, PUMPING
The Dow dipped lower on Friday and was down 250 points yesterday, posting its biggest decline in nearly two months on weak manufacturing activity, and, of course, on “trade uncertainty.” Today, as we go to press, it’s down 350 points on news that President Trump suggested he may want to delay a trade deal with China until after the 2020...
INDIA: DOWNHILL SLIDE
Third-quarter GDP for India, Asia’s third-largest economy, fell to 4.5 percent from 5 percent in the second quarter, as households and companies pulled back on spending. India was hot last year, with growth exceeding 8 percent, but it’s down to its slowest pace in six years. Earlier in the month, Moody’s downgraded India’s economy to “negative” from its previous “stable”...