“I can’t wait for 2020 to be over!” is something I keep hearing over and over. To me, it’s like hearing people boarding the Titanic saying “I can’t wait for this ship to pull away from the dock and get under way!”
Why does anyone think that 2021 is going to be an improvement over 2020? I mean, think about it a minute….all the negative things that occurred in 2020? The consequences of those events will carry into or appear in 2021. 2021 is going to be full of unplanned, unintended, and unanticipated consequences of things that happened in 2020.
Lemme give you an example – Wuhan Flu erupts and Joe the waiter gets his hours cut or his job ‘temporarily’ eliminated. Ok, we can foresee that. And then Joe can’t pay his rent, but have no fear…government puts a moratorium on evictions. Joe is safe. But there’s further downstream consequences…Sally, the retired schoolteacher who owns the rental property that Joe is not paying rent on, counts on that rental income every month to supplement her small pension. And pay the property taxes on that rental. And the insurance. And now that Joe has a gov-issued free pass to squat there, Sally has to choose between eating and paying property taxes to avoid losing her rental property. Unintended consequences.
I think 2021 is going to be full of downstream consequences like that. People only look one or two, maybe three, steps downstream at what the consequences of some of these things will be. Look further and you’ll see that it takes time for the affects of those things to occur…and when will those affects finally start bubbling to the surface? 2021.
The original proverb goes something like this;
For want of a nail a horseshoe was lost,
for want of a horseshoe a horse went lame,
for want of a horse a rider never got through,
for want of a rider a message never arrived,
for want of a message an army was never sent,
for want of an army a battle was lost,
for want of a battle a war was lost,
for want of a war a kingdom fell,
and all for want of a nail.
The guy putting shoes on the horse probably never thinks that if he does his job incorrectly the kingdom will fall into ruin, after all its just a nail in a horseshoe. But…its an excellent example of how not thinking about the far reaching consequences of an action come back to bite you on the ass.
My point is: there is no, and I mean NO, indication that 2021 is going to be a welcome relief from 2020. Even with a vaccine, the damage that has been done socially, economically, politically, ideologically, and emotionally is already in play. Like an earthquake in the middle of the ocean, the tsunami has already started to head towards land. The fact that it doesnt strike right away doesn’t change the fact that it has already started. Same thing.
More worrisome are the people who think that once the calendar rolls over to 2021…whew!..we’re safe. These are the people who will be caught empty pantry, empty bank account, empty magazines, empty life when 2021 doubles down on the crap that 2020 started.
But…I could be wrong. Maybe everyone gets the vaccine, infection rates drop, businesses (the ones that survived) roar back and boundless opportunities present themselves. Might happen. But I’d rather prepare for the other alternative and be proven wrong, than not prepare because I believe in the rosy future and wind up shoplifting steaks to survive.
I hope you are wrong – but I don’t believe you are. Since I’m a finance sorta guy, I tend to view things from that perspective. We’ve debased our currency by almost 40% just since the start of this virus BS. People tell me it’s different this time, and the fundamentals no longer matter. Sigh… I’ve heard that tune before. Even if everyone goes right back to work and productivity soars, our standard of living will necessarily decline. Of course, we have a long way to go before we reach third-world sh*t-hole status. But, neither are our snowflakes robust enough to bear much adversity before folding. Yes CZ, 2021 and beyond will hold some interesting times for us.
Historically we get more prosperous as time passes. Humans are resilient. And govt ineptitude showed us something. Teachers showed us that they don’t work for students. Big cities showed us they don’t work well. A lot of things revealed themselves. Some people I know who implicitly trusted govt now see it as untrustworthy.
I think the future will be good.
Now add into CZ’s thoughts what the dims will try to do to us. That cannot be better for my country.
Everything always builds on the foundation of what came before it, good and bad.
the giant debt bubble has to pop sooner or later. A trillion here and a trillion there and pretty soon we’re talking real money. Don’t forget it was the rich republican CEO’s that outsourced a significant amount of our wealth to the chicoms.
When they found out Mexicans would work for $1 an hour they stampeded to Mexico. When they saw those crazy asians (crazians) would work for 30 cents an hour they shipped a bunch of business, and american jobs, there.
When it does implode I have a feeling it will make the great depression look not so great in comparison.
I’ve wondered about your thoughts on this entire pandemic and political situation. Glad that you shown up again.
Totally agree. CZ has a great prospective on this “situation” that we find ourselves in now. Nothing extreme just the facts.
Hell, we have not even hit bottom yet, may be only half way there. The commercial real estate crash that is unavoidable, will crater with a thousand downstream affects, which in turn will feed the collapse even further. You best be saving every penny you can find.
Don’t save pennies (or dollars) — the coming crash is going to wipe out the value of the dollar. Put your money into things and places: supplies you need, precious metals, real estate. Actual physically existing objects instead of notional dollars in a bank or pieces of paper with numbers on them.
The government has been printing ever more paper money and pretending that passing it out is the solution. The reality of course is that when you do that, all you accomplish is to dilute the value of the existing money.
2021 and beyond are going to be hard on people who are on fixed incomes. Look no further than what happened in the USSR after their system imploded: millions of people on pensions were still getting their 500 (or whatever) rubles per month, but what had once paid for housing, power, food and vodka would now only buy them a sack of potatoes.
The kneejerk reaction to this will of course be to demand ‘adjustments’ to Social Security and other benefits. Which in turn will only make the problem worse.
CZ, I like the Todd Rundgren reference. If you like that type of good old timey music try listening to Foxes and Fossils version of Todd’s Love is the Answer video on youtube. It will blow you away. During these covid times a lot of artists are posting vid’s on youtube and are very entertaining.
I understand the concern about the clueless. I think it is mostly an expectations game. Part of the kick in the gonads of 2020 was all the plans that went down the tubes. I could create a long list of goals and plans that did not happen because of the pandemic. Plans and goals have been readjusted by a lot of people for 2021. Fewer disappointments in 2021, most likely, just because expectations have been lowered.
I agree too. How many times has it been said that ‘Things can’t get any worse’. Then things get worse than before.
Rule #1 in prepping – Life is full of surprises. This is why you try and prepare for those eventualities.
If you thought that 2020 was scary, 2021 will be a nightmare.
Jimbo,
#1–Not all CEO’s are rich Republicans.
#2– A hell of a lot of business went to other countries in order to get a business up and running. They could not do that here due to the overbearing EPA requirements and other state and federal hoops to jump thru.
Yes they got cheap labor which increased profits.
Unions probably bear some of the blame too
Not to mention a lot of our liberal ruler-elite class (Democrats and Republicans) that sold the country out to China in return for kickbacks of one variety or another. Cough, (Joe Biden) cough.
I think they decided several decades ago that in global competition over the long haul, China would win, and so they decided to be on the winning side, and went about structuring all our international trade such that the US and its working class were the sacrificial lambs. They sold us out for personal gain.
According to three top think tanks on economics the agenda that Bite me ran on will kill 17 million jobs in the first year of his stolen Presidency.
He plans to completely idle the petroleum industry that will see 6 million jobs evaporate.
Don’t know about the rest of the country but my area of Michigan is experiencing a major oil boom. I have 4 wells that have come online in the past year and a half just a couple miles to my east. And in this area the map showing leases is saturated with wells waiting to be drilled. The success rare is high. Out of five wells drilled 4 hit and are producing 6000 barrels a month.
Monkey Joe wants to take the prosperity of Trump and take us back to a time when we had to depend on nations who hate us for our energy. Of course we are at their mercy then instead of being masters of our own destiny. I have listened to these lying hack bastard politicians for forty years screaming about energy independence but doing nothing to achieve it. Now that we have it and are once again a net exporter of oil and natural gas they say it isn’t fair. Kiss my big white Irish American ass.
It’s either time to clean house in the Dysfunctional Cesspool and put both parties on notice. I believe it’s time to junk the GOP. The Gutless Old Progressive party. Time to take the Tea Party to the next and third level. The Tea Party became the Trump MAGA base and now it’s time to acknowledge the fact it’s a bonified political party with 75 million or more in its ranks. That’s more then the useless parties put together. Time for the corrupt China connected in both parties to be sent out to pasture.
And not to put to fine of a point on it. The return of $5 a gallon and higher gasoline and diesel fuel is lead pipe cinch. Bite Me has indicated that he intends to nominate for Secretary of Energy Sister Jennifer Granholm of the Holy Sisters of Money Laundering. The former governor of my State. She is corrupt and pays off her donors with contracts for projects that are not needed nor wanted. Like the new State Police Headquarters building in Lansing. Her top donor got that contract. Another who fattened her war chest with money was contracted to pave Interstate 69 from the state line to Lansing. The work was so shoddy it had to completely be redone a year later. The contract called for 11 inches of concrete. He installed 8.
Is she actually qualified for this job. According to Monkey Joe she will be historic. I’d rather she be competent. Which she isn’t. He wanted a woman, the very first one in that position. Big deal. Under Granholm she bullied the three leading energy providers in Michigan to start using wind and solar that would make up 20% of their energy production by 2032. The program has been a disaster. The ugly as Hillary wind turbines blot the horizon. And Michigan is the cloudiest state in the Union. We are like Germany. Solar won’t work here any better then it worked in Germany.
If the Holy Mole is an example of his Cabinet you will see the largest assemblage of incompetent idiots in one place in history.
Mayor Pete as Transportation Sec? Last I heard that work doesn’t even drive a car. From where I sit. His appointments are either Kenyan retreads or appointed because it will gain Monkey Joe points for being stylish. That’s my generations term for PC.
And today we find out that our current Granholm clone has allowed Consumers Power to raise our electric prices 12% starting next month. This after an increase in natural gas prices this year of 6%. Wretched Gretchen Whitless has thrown tens of thousands out if work here. We are on the threshold of winter. Great job Gert. I’m sure your grandfather Joseph Dishugvili would be very proud of you.
And to top it off we have found out that the same voter fraud apparatus used in the attempted steal of the 2020 election was employed here in Michigan in 2018. So it appears Gert Whitless, Dam Buster Dana Nessel and the very corrupt Secretarty of State Jensen may all be illegitimate. Stealing the elections for the offices they now squat in. Benson is a alumni of the George Soros Secretary of State Project.
One UIC (unintended consequence) I noticed yesterday– motor oil on sale. MUCH bigger discounts than usual. When I thought about it, people are not going in to work. They are driving so much less that auto insurance companies got ahead of the issue and refunded premiums based on reduced miles driven. Reduced miles means fewer oil changes. Fewer oil changes means more motor oil in wholesale and retail streams goes unsold. It means that all the quick change places must be suffering. Those are usually mom and pop franchises, locally owned and operated, and usually financed with loans. One chain here in Houston is running radio ads that you can stay in your car the whole time, so people can come in without worry about covid. That right there is a HUGE change in the way those shops do business.
Fewer tires worn out… wipers, etc. Changes to used car values down the road when we won’t expect 12K miles / year as “normal” use. For that matter, who’s gonna buy a new car when they aren’t in it 2 hours a day commuting?
Fewer new clothes for school kids needed if your kids are ‘remote learners’. Fewer ‘back to school’ supplies needed if you’re at home.
I bet the small companies that provide coffee and breakroom services to businesses are hurting. Ditto for lunch trucks. Catering business has to be WAY down. Copier and printer service businesses are likely slow too. Fewer lost work days taking kids to the Doctor might balance out something in the grand scheme of things but it won’t help much locally.
We’ve already seen the changes wrought by people pooping at home instead of work on the TP supply, what about electricity and sewage usage patterns? My tenants don’t need a programmable thermostat any more because they are home all day, every day. I locked my T stat on one temp long ago, but now millions of people have done the same. I’m pretty sure there have been large scale changes in electricity demand patterns. Certainly home networking and internet access has undergone a HUGE shift in usage patterns. I wouldn’t want to be on a shared pipe like cable and trying to work from home, and all the video conferencing demands upload capacity as well as down… those lopsided plans will probably go away, or shift to a niche market.
Yeah, lots of changes underway that will only accelerate into 2021, and we’ve only begun to see the shifts in businesses that fail or thrive.
n
You’re an optimist!
You think there will open stores where you can shoplift a steak!
Of course.
I think Americans in particular tend to be optimists, it’s in our DNA, because historically things have gotten somewhat better year after year…. Also 2020 has sucked ass so bad we just don’t want to believe this with continue into the new year.