Patrick Wood's 2023 Forecast

And other odds & ends

Change is certain. Evil actors and corruption are just as certain. This makes forecasting more difficult because the evil actors never advertise in advance what they are going to do to screw things up.

Nevertheless, there are certain trends already in place that promise to make 2023 one of the most difficult in at least 15 years. Here are a few that I am watching.

The Fintech world is in chaos

For the past several years, the Fintech (Financial Technologies) world has been in startup mode with truckloads of venture capital to pay salaries and expenses in lieu of profits and customers. When interest rates started going up, the brakes were applied. Today, there is virtually no forward movement in the industry; venture capital has dried up and previously received capital injections are all but spent. So, in the first half of 2023, you can expect to see a train wreck of spectacular proportions - employees laid off, companies shuttering, last-gasp mergers and acquisitions, etc.

The Fintech world is full of Technocrats, if not exclusively so. If there is a silver lining to this, it is that their plans will be set back 5-10 years.

Commercial banks will be hard hit as well, and I expect there will be another round of consolidation of the banking industry. The Central Banks want to force more banks out of business so that there is less competition for Central Bank Digital Currencies when they arrive in full force.

Inflation vs. Deflation

Everybody is screaming about inflation. Don’t believe it. While it is true that some consumer prices have increased in the last year, there is a huge rollover in prices of other commodities, tangible assets and capital goods. Take the pending home sales crash, for instance. Over the last six months, it is the largest drop in history. Other segments of the real estate market will feel the pain. Falling real estate prices are deflationary.

In early 2022, used car prices were in the stratosphere, but they have been dropping ever since. Industry analysts are expecting 2023 to continue this trend with declines between 30% and 50%. Falling auto prices are deflationary.

The value of small to medium-sized businesses is dropping as well. Revenues are down while uncertainty is up, making it harder to sell these smaller companies. This is deflationary.

Bear Market to Continue

2022 was a bad year for equities markets in general. In fact, it was the worst year since 2008. The NASDAQ composite has declined by over 36% since its 11/14/21 peak of 16,053. The bear market is still young, however, and one of the worst slides may come during the first quarter of 2023. Of course, nothing goes in a straight line, so expect countertrend rallies along the way. Overall, the trend is down and it has a long way to go. Falling equity prices is deflationary.

Don’t expect gold or silver to buck the market’s trends. There is currently a tight correlation between precious metals and stocks. Thus, if stocks go down, the metals complex will follow right along. There are always reasons to invest in precious metals, especially for preservation of capital, but don’t expect them to be outperforming everything else. Gold and silver will never go to zero. Stocks can and sometimes do go to zero. Falling precious metal prices are deflationary.

Recession vs. Depression

The recession of 2008-2009 was called “The Great Recession” and many were concerned that it would spawn another Great Depression. The Federal Reserve delayed the latter by creating massive amounts of liquidity and kicked the can down the road. Now, we are back at the same crossroads. Rising interest rates are drying up liquidity, putting intense stress on economic activity. The odds are increasing for another “Lehman Brothers” moment catching everyone by surprise while sending shock waves through the financial system.

Historically, there is a strong case to be made that economic activity follows the stock market and not the other way around. From this point of view, the first half of 2023 should see the start of another “Great Recession”.

Signs of depression setting in will include bank and insurance company failures, bankruptcies of larger companies, supply chain collapses, etc. Remember that a huge Technocrat moral hazard exists to intentionally destroy Capitalism so that the Great Reset can take place. If Humpty Dumpty is already poised to fall off the wall, how much more likely is a push from his enemies to help him on his way?

Pandemic Resurgence

Nothing has changed in the global elite’s plan to disrupt society with tyrannical mask mandates, vaccine passports and mandated shots, etc.. There is nothing rational about it, they control the narrative and hence, the propaganda. In my opinion, China is playing us (and the world) like a fiddle; its draconian “zero covid” policies did nothing to stop the local spread of a virus, but it has spooked other nations into putting up travel restrictions for anyone coming out of China. So far, those jumping on the bandwagon include the United States, Japan, Malaysia, and South Korea.

Now that Biden has “institutionalized” the bio-medical cartel by executive order, expect a never ending cascade of experimental injections for all sorts of diseases. Also expect a reformulation of existing vaccines to include mRNA.

Border Collapse

I live in Arizona and our southern border is in total chaos. The Federal government’s plan is to demolish the border entirely, ushering in calls for regional governance of the North American Union. This will include Mexico and Canada.

For the next two years, Arizona now has a radical and incompetent Democrat governor who will toe to every whim of President Biden. She has already said that she will remove many of the border barriers that were erected by our previous Republican (RINO) Governor Doug Ducey.

As a result, crime rates will continue to rise as migrant tent cities pop up everywhere. Biden has led us into the worst humanitarian crisis our nation has ever known.

Technocracy and Transhumanism

Both of these groups have the Biden Administration eating out of their hand. Except for any public pushback to the contrary, they will make unhindered progress in all their goals for at least the next two years. This includes Smart Cities, surveillance, social credit scoring systems, universal id systems, vaccine passports, etc., etc. The only way any of this can be pushed back is through local intervention in cities, towns and counties. If you let them continue unchecked, they will bury every community in the nation into a panopticon control grid from which there will be no escape.