Let's go back to the OP. It causes me to pause a moment before I reply to a post of Ray's, who has been off-list for years. But when Ray was right, he was often quite right. His predictions below haven't completely come true, but he has actually come fairly close to the mark on many of them. Uncomfortably close.
beauanderos wrote:Where will we be at? A few of my thoughts, then please add your own.
My notations on his predictions are inserted...
beauanderos wrote:Social Security will still be around, but retirement age will be 70 (by then) and benefits slashed 50%. The purchasing power of that stipend in five years will
be one third of what it is today.
SS is still around, and the retirement age hasn't yet gotten to 70, but the government is pushing people to self-select to delay to 70. Ray is close to the mark on the loss of purchasing power of the stipend - inflation had been ramping up for years, and in 2021 it broke loose. I haven't done the calculation on loss of purchasing power, but if it hasn't lost 33% yet of the past 5 years, it won't be much longer.
beauanderos wrote:The gold-backed yuan being the world's currency reserve, silver will be at a more historically "normal" ratio to gold of 1:15. With gold at $5000 (yes, they'll
still be playing their suppression games, even at much higher levels) silver will be above $333.
He was too early for this prediction, though the initial stages of his prediction are starting to play out. Silver is still relatively depressed at about 75:1, but prices made the first step of a new bull in 2020 before taking a breather, and we may see the second stage ramp up soon. We know the Chinese want to be the dominant player, but they believe time is on their side, so they are in no hurry to push too early.
beauanderos wrote:The EU will have disbanded and Russia reacquired most of the former Soviet Union. The United States will be a shadow of what it is today. We'll have enough
problems within our own country fending off jihadists to worry about being the world's police any longer. Europe will not be a favored travel destination
The first nation to leave the EU occurred when the UK left, which stunned the EU supporters, and contrary to predictions from the left, the UK has continued to stand. The EU remains but is largely ineffective, and while it may remain a social club for awhile, it is bogged down in a bureaucratic morass of it's own making and has been unable to make any important decisions correctly or in a timely manner, and that will persist.
Russia started reacquiring former Soviet territory in 1999 using brutal but largely hidden tactics, and continued that for the next 20 years in small bites, so that prediction was a bit of a no-brainer. With Putin's bold (though completely illegal) move into Ukraine in 2022 they have pulled the hood off of their plan and it should now be obvious to all of Putin's larger intent.
With just 12 months under Biden the US has lost it's dominance and leadership. It's incredible how quickly you can gut a country when you are actively working to do it, and have the broad support of the major institutions to do the same. Yes, we have more than enough problems internally, but frankly most of them are self-created - nothing like shooting yourself in the foot while the world burns around you.
beauanderos wrote:Zika virus will spread across North America's temperate regions, slowing as it expands into colder climates, but still decimating the birth rate as mothers fear
pregnancies that increasingly lead to microcephalic babies. A virtual plague of biblical proportion of Guillain-Barre syndrome patients will swamp the health care
system. Travel restrictions will be strictly enforced when it is learned that Ebola is still spreading, and feared unstoppable.
Ray was a former firefighter and practicing RN, and well acquainted with health issues. He recognized pandemic as an issue, though he picked the wrong virus (but he knew there was one out there somewhere, if not zika). Even COVID may only be a precursor to what might come later, but the past two years have gone into history as a global health emergency with millions dead and (as or even more importantly) the response created a lost of liberties issue in how governments have responded to it, as it has brought out the totalitarian elements in every government.
beauanderos wrote:A few nukes by then? Who knows? Just what I've listed is depressing enough.
Nukes may be coming.
Ray, thanks for the predictions - I'm sorry to say that you were more right than wrong.
In the game of Woke, the goal posts can be moved at any moment, the penalties will apply retroactively and claims of fairness will always lose out to the perpetual right to claim offense.... Bret Stephens
The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it. George Orwell.
We can ignore reality, but we cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring reality. Ayn Rand.
