Finally, I’ve come to the point where the 2022 recaps and 2023 predictions are rolling in faster than I can deal with them in individual posts. Here are a few highlights:

Five Thirty Eight – “Numbers that Defined 2022”

• The U.S. hit a record low poverty rate of 7.8%. This is expected to increase with the end of pandemic support programs. I would like to think that low unemployment and rising wages also have something to do with this.
• 47% – “the percentage of Republican candidates who ran for House, Senate, governor, secretary of state and attorney general this year and didn’t accept the legitimacy of the 2020 election.” We know politicians are in the business of getting elected, but it is still disturbing that they are this morally flexible. If they have to be this morally flexible to get elected, then we have a system that is selecting the most morally flexible among us to lead us.
• Inflation – 9.1%. We know, we know.
• The Republican margin in the House – 9. Lower than expected for a mid-term election year, still probably enough to stand in the way of much legislative progress over the next two years. It’s amazing to me how quickly we swing back and forth from doom and gloom sentiments about one party or the other. They seem relatively evenly balanced, and the one thing that is certain is that the two of them together are dominant and creating a very effective barrier to major new parties or ideas breaking in.

Lawfare – “The Year that Was (2022)”

Coverage of what some people call “the blob”, also known as the military-industrial-intelligence complex.

• January 6 – the trials and the committee; the Mar-A-Lago raid and investigation
• “climate security” – in my view, the article somewhat misses the mark on the coming storm of drought, famine, sea level rise, migration and geopolitical instability the world may be in for. Then again, the article is a look back, not a look ahead.
• The Ukraine war of course, and more broadly the U.S., NATO and Russia. Also the U.S. and China, of course. “Great Power Competition” seems to be a theme.
• “massive protests in Sri Lanka, Iran, China, Peru, and elsewhere”. I admit, I forgot about Sri Lanka and I don’t understand the situation in Peru. And where exactly is “elsewhere”?
• “Cyber” – a noun or an adjective? The important geostrategic conclusion is that it used to be adjective, but it has become a noun now and there is no turning back. Microsoft is an “integral player in Ukraine’s cyber defense.” (but that was an adjective right?)
• Social media and content moderation. I just find it hard to get too excited about this. I still see the garbage on social media as more of a mirror of the garbage in our society than a cause of it. I am open to evolving my views on this. But one thing I never want is for my access to the world’s information on the internet to be curtailed.
• The Supreme Court – overtly political, ideological, biased, and corrupt. Those are my words. Lawfare’s words are “high profile cases underlined the reality that justices are deciding cases largely on ideological lines. With a conservative majority on the bench, decisions led to an erosion of the powers of the administrative state and a decline in civil rights protections in cases where national security was at issue.”

Not mentioned – the ongoing grisly wars in Myanmar, Yemen, and various countries in Africa I am embarrassed I can’t name (Ethiopia?). Some new JFK-related files showing pretty clearly the CIA lied about its connections to Lee Harvey Oswald. Nuclear proliferation? The ethnic cleansing in Xinxiang province of China – does the U.S. press not mention this because we realize it would be hypocritical given our immense prison population, Guantanamo Bay, etc.? No, that can’t be it.

Project Syndicate – “Commentators’ Predictions for 2023”

• Protests in Iran will continue, but the government will hang on. More broadly, the U.S. will focus on “great power competition” and neglect the greater Middle East. Turkey will have an important election in 2023.
• “We are entering an era of high and rising debt, precarious jobs, a crisis of care, inflation, climate change, and food insecurity…” “Many scenarios that once seemed unlikely are becoming increasingly plausible, such as famine, sharply increasing poverty, mass displacements of people, cascading sovereign debt defaults, widespread energy shortages, and recurrent global health-induced disruption. All represent tragic reversals of progress.” (these are different commentators – please see the article for attributions.)
• One thing everybody seems to agree on is that climate change is a big deal and in 2023 the world will continue…talking about it. Green energy technology and adoption will continue to accelerate regardless of government inaction, though.
• Most people think Covid will continue to wind down in 2023.
• Central banks may abandon their 2% inflation targets and settle for something higher if it means economies are growing.
• Nobody wants to go out on a limb and predict that the Ukraine conflict will wind down in 2023.