05 Oct Economic Predictions for Every Region of the World
I get questions on a regular basis asking how I think countries like Australia, Russia, and Hong Kong are going to fare economically in light of everything that’s likely to transpire over the next several years. So in this blog, I’m going to go through the entire planet Earth. I can’t discuss every country, but I will go through every region of the planet and cover most of the bigger countries, and I’ll do the best I can to give you the details on where these countries are probably going.
-By Caleb Jones
Of course, I’m not a genius. I don’t have any secret information that you don’t have. I could be wrong about any of this; these are just strongly educated guesses. I have spent the past 15-20 years traveling the world and I’ve done a hell of a lot of research into geopolitics and macroeconomics, so I think I’m right about most of this — but I could be wrong.
Also, you can’t just say that a country is “rising” or “falling.” It’s a little more complicated than that. So for this blog, I’m going to classify every country or region into one of six categories.
Category 1 — Rising
This means I think this region is going to do well over the next several decades. I think things are going to improve economically, the standard of living will likely improve, and things will continue to get better.
Category 2 — Collapsing
This is the opposite of rising. These are countries that are going to get worse as time goes on. Some of these countries will be collapsing more slowly than others, and I’ll make that clear as we go along.
Category 3 — Maintaining
This means a country or region is going to continue as it has been — whatever that means in their case. If it’s been doing well, the good times will probably continue; if it’s doing badly, it will continue to do badly. Plus or minus a few factors, things likely won’t change much for these countries.
Category 4 — Stagnating
This is different from maintaining. This means the country is going to decline very slowly, but it will not collapse. My analogy is that it’ll float like a turd in a swimming pool. It won’t do well; it will decline to a moderate to low level and then sit there for the prolonged future.
Category 5 — Psycho
These countries are crazy. They’re up and down — they do well, then they do terribly, then they do great. In some cases, psycho countries are tough to pin down because the people or governments there are so irrational that it’s difficult to predict what will happen there.
Category 6 — Unknown
This means I just don’t know what’s going to happen there because I don’t have the data on this country or region at this time.
Okay, here we go…
North America
The United States: Collapsing
I’ve talked a lot about this already. The U.S. is screwed. It won’t collapse today or tomorrow, but it is going to happen within our lifetime. It has way too much debt, an overblown government, and an irrational citizenry. All three voting blocks — the progressive left, the corporatist left, and the Trump supporters — have embraced hard-core irrationality and various brands of authoritarianism. We’ve also seen a great deal of cultural collapse. I have already written about the collapse of the USA and the rest of the West and have many, many articles complete with stats and links at my blogs demonstrating this.
Canada: Collapsing
Canada is very different from the U.S. It’s not going to collapse nearly as fast as we will. In terms of the Collapsing Trifecta — the U.S., Canada, and Europe — Europe will collapse first, the U.S. will come second, and Canada will come third.
The Canadian banks and currency are very strong right now; there are plenty of things they do right. The problem is that Canada is one of the largest trading partners of the United States. Trading between our two countries has increased by triple-digit percentage points since the 90s because of things like NAFTA. So guess what happens when the U.S. collapses: Canada’s in big trouble.
The nature of their collapse will likely look different from that of the U.S., but Canada will collapse.
Mexico: Stagnating
Mexico is a little more complicated and harder to predict. I don’t think they’re going to collapse, and I don’t think they’re going to do well. It is possible that Mexico will maintain, but I honestly think they’re going to stagnate instead.
When the U.S. collapses, yes, Mexico will be affected, but Mexico is a very different economic animal than Canada. It’s not quite as first-world as Canada, so I don’t think the collapse of the Western world will affect them as badly as the rest of us, so my best guess is that they will simply stagnate.
Central America
Here we’ve got several countries that are doing badly and several that are doing OK. Panama is the bright, shining star of Central America; it’s going to maintain. It’s going to be very stable and could even rise at some point. I’m not quite so bullish as to say for sure that it’ll rise, but I am confident it will maintain.
Then you have some less-insane, less-mismanaged countries in Central America like Belize and Costa Rica. My best guess here is that they’ll stagnate or maintain — very hard to say.
The rest of Central America — Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador — these are literally some of the most dangerous countries in the world in terms of crime rates. I think they’re going to maintain, which in their case means they will continue to do badly.
South America
Colombia — Rising
Colombia is actually rising faster economically than most of Asia. They’re going to absolutely kick ass over the next several decades.
Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, and coastal countries like French Guiana — Psycho or Unknown
I don’t have a lot of data on these countries, and I haven’t visited them, so I can’t give you a strong indication of where they’re going to go. They’re not going to collapse, but they may bounce up and down a little.
Brazil, Bolivia, and Argentina — Psycho
These are the most psycho countries in the world. They are so psycho that they alternately do great and then do terrible; they’re great again, then they destroy their currency; then they’re good again, and then they have a military coup; and so on, seemingly forever. These countries are going to be psycho for the foreseeable future, which means they are very good for speculators and may be good for some very skilled business owners. Beyond that, you should be careful. You’re more than welcome to live there as an Alpha Male 2.0 if you have foreign income, but these are places that will continue to go up and down. In places like Brazil and Argentina, especially, you get the idea that they kind of like being crazy.
Paraguay will be very stable. It will not do well or do poorly, but it will continue to do what it’s doing. They’re one of those countries that wouldn’t even notice if the U.S. were to collapse tomorrow.
Chile — Maintaining
Ten or 15 years ago, I would have said Chile was rising, and it still could, but I think it’s more likely to maintain. Maybe you could consider them a midpoint between maintaining and rising — that’s entirely possible.
Uruguay — Stagnating
Uruguay might maintain, but at this point, I don’t think so. They were doing some great things five or 10 years ago, but now it looks like they’re doing all the wrong things. They’re not going to have problems or collapse. They’ll just float like a turd in the pool.
Europe
I’ve been accused in the past of oversimplifying and overgeneralizing when I say “Europe,” and that is a valid criticism. So in this blog, I cannot cover every single European country; there are between 40 and 50 countries over there, and I do not have the data to do a deep dive on all of them. I’m going to break Europe up into sub-regions and then generalize based on those.
Scandinavia — Collapsing
They’ll collapse for a number of reasons. They have way too much debt; they’re running out of oil in the Norwegian sea; their voters have lost their minds; and so on.
Now, I will say that Scandinavia isn’t collapsing as quickly as Western Europe, the UK, Germany, etc., but they’re still going to collapse. Mark my words — it will happen within our lifetimes.
Western Europe — Collapsing
And it is collapsing faster than the United States. In terms of the Western world, it will be the first region to collapse. It’s in very, very big trouble. (If was a Western European I honestly would have already left several years ago.)
Eastern Europe — Collapsing or Stagnating depending on the country
This is where the conversation gets interesting. People come to me with a thousand excuses as to why Eastern Europe won’t collapse the way the rest of Europe will. Here’s the problem: Why did I say Canada is going to collapse? Because it’s a major trading partner of the U.S., and when the U.S. goes down, so will Canada.
Well, guess who Eastern Europe trade with? That’s right, the rest of Europe. So when Scandinavia and Western Europe go down, what’s going to happen to Eastern Europe? They will collapse or stagnate, depending on the country.
Now, I’ll be very clear about this. It will collapse, but it will not be as hard-hit as by the collapse as Western Europe. For example, if you live in Moldova, you won’t experience the pain of a collapse as badly as people in Germany will because you’re already lower on the economic totem pole. But don’t think for a moment that Eastern Europe will be just fine when the rest of Europe collapses; they’re still in Europe.
The Caucuses:
Armenia — Maintaining
Georgia — Maintaining
Azerbaijan — Stagnating
The future of these little countries is kind of complicated. Georgia is doing well, Armenia is doing some smart things, but Azerbaijan, not so much.
As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t love countries that border nations hostile to them, and Georgia shares a border with a country called Russia whose dictator likes to invade other countries whenever he feels like it. It’s possible Russia may invade Georgia at some point (some of you have pointed out that Russia already did invade Georgia in 2008), but barring that, I think Georgia will maintain.
The Middle East
Here’s where the real chaos is.
The basic overall statement here is that the Middle East is completely psycho with the exception of a few of the smaller, more organized nations — countries like Oman, the UAE, and Bahrain. These countries will maintain.
Outside of that, countries like Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iran, Israel, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan are psycho, and they have been psycho for all of human history. There are geopolitical experts who say the Middle East will always be psycho with the exception of those few I mentioned above. The general consensus is that the Middle East is destined to remain psycho forever, barring some radical change in the human condition.
Africa
Lots of countries in Africa — 54 or so altogether. First, I’m going to list the ones I think are rising.
Understand, I don’t mean they’ll rise the way Asia is rising. These African nations are going to rise slowly over many decades, in some cases. But I’m convinced they will rise for two reasons: first, they’re so low on the totem pole that the only place to go is up, and second, because of population growth in these areas.
If you look at population data, you will see that white people are dying off, but black people in Africa are reproducing like rabbits. This is going to result in a lot of explosive economic growth down the road, once business owners and corporations get into these areas and start exploiting them.
Likely Rising African countries: Morocco, Egypt, Nigeria, Guiana, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Seychelles, Namibia, and Botswana.
South Africa — Stagnating
South Africa is kind of part of the Western world, but I don’t think they’re going to collapse. They’ve done a lot of things wrong down there, but not enough to collapse their country. You could argue they may stagnate for a while and then start to rise on the tail end of Africa’s rise, but that would be a long, long time from now.
The entire rest of the African continent is psycho. It’s very hard to predict; it may just be psycho for the rest of eternity like the Middle East. It’s a very chaotic place outside of the areas I’ve already mentioned.
Central Asia
These are the -stans — Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and so on. I’m going to have to mark these unknown for now. My wild guess is that these countries will either maintain or slowly rise, but that is purely a guess on my part. I really don’t know.
I’ll be spending some time in these countries in the next two or three years, so maybe then I can get a little bit better idea about their economies and where they may be going. Landlocked countries are often at a disadvantage, but they may benefit from the rise of the rest of Asia and China’s amazing Belt and Road Initiative. We’ll just have to see.
Pakistan — Rising or Psycho
This is a country that straddles the fence between two possibilities. I really don’t know which one it will be yet. It’s very similar to Russia in that respect — they’ll either be up and down indefinitely or they’ll rise slowly.
India — Psycho
This is one of the most tragic countries in the world, in my opinion. They have a population of over one billion, and they have some of the smartest, hardest-working people in the entire world. There’s no reason India isn’t a massive superpower right now except for the fact that they’re addicted to bureaucracy and big government. They magnified the bureaucracy they got from the British and left themselves with this crazy country in which some people are doing very well, but there are still 500 million people who are so poor, they literally defecate in the streets. At one point, India made some of its own currency illegal, which shut down entire cities over there and caused all kinds of gridlock. They have a bizarre communications infrastructure that requires people to have a new cell phone every time they pass into a different region, they experience some strange sexual societal programming, their divorce rates are skyrocketing as they assume more Western attitudes, etc, etc.
I could go on and on but I think you get the point. As much as I like the Indians as a people, the country psycho in terms of how it’s running itself.
If they can get their heads out of their asses, India will rise faster than China. I just don’t see that happening though.
China — Rising
China will run the world in the 21st century. People love to dispute this, but they’re wrong. If you look at their economic growth rates, they have slowed, but they are still far beyond anything the U.S. is experiencing in terms of growth.
China will experience a lot of problems over the next few decades. They have a serious demographic problem (not enough women); they have the biggest real estate bubble in all of human history; and they have a goddamn authoritarian president who is appointed for life. They will experience a lot of problems on their way to number one, just as the United States did during its rise to prominence over its lifetime.
Bottom line: China will rise to number one (with a lot of problems) within our lifetimes.
Mongolia — Unknown
This one is almost impossible to predict right now. I just don’t know enough about its economic future to say anything about it.
South Korea — Maintaining
South Korea is one of the four Asian Tigers, and it’s already on top of its game. When you’re at the top, it’s hard to go higher, so they’ll maintain their spot moving ahead into the future.
North Korea — Maintaining
Yes, they will maintain their current terrible condition. One thing about North Korea, though: It is entirely likely that within our lifetimes, someone will finally kill that guy and the country will open back up and reunify with South Korea. I think it’s only a matter of time, although it could be a hundred years from now.
But when Korea reunifies, that will represent the biggest economic opportunity in the world, perhaps in all of modern history.
Koreans are extremely intelligent, motivated, hard-working, organized people. When you have all that drive, capital, and enthusiasm from South Korea funneled into North Korea, you’re going to see an economic boom like you’ve never seen in your life.
Japan — Collapsing
It is the only country in all of Asia that is collapsing. In a few decades, there will be no Japan. They’re not having enough babies, they’ve been in a zombie economy state for 25 years, their stock market peaked then, and the only thing the government seems to know how to do is either print more money or raise taxes.
As I’ve mentioned previously, Japan is a failure on a civilizational level. It’s sad and painful to watch, similar to my feelings about India.
Taiwan — Maintaining
Just like South Korea, it will maintain its spot. I wouldn’t live in Taiwan, just like I wouldn’t live in South Korea, because I don’t like to live in countries that border hostile neighbors. There are just too many Chinese missiles pointed at Taiwan for my taste, but in terms of economics, Taiwan will maintain.
Hong Kong — Maintaining
I get a lot of questions about Hong Kong; I expected China to put its foot on Hong Kong’s neck sometime around 2030, but I was 10 years off because they started doing that last year.
Although I have Hong Kong down as maintaining, I think eventually it will very slowly begin to collapse. It’s going to take a very long time for that to happen. For the time being, there won’t be any radical changes there, especially for an Alpha Male 2.0, if you choose to live there.
But Hong Kong has definitely peaked, and now they’re slowly coming down the other side. It’s not going to collapse “soon” like the rest of the West.
Southeast Asia — Rising
As I’ve said before, this is the greatest growth region in the entire world. With the possible exception of the Philippines, just about every country in southeast Asia is rising fast and hard-core! It’s a sharp upward movement. This region is on its way up — Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, and even Bangladesh, most likely.
Some of these will, of course, rise faster than others, and some of them will likely experience growth that is quite slow, but they’re all on their way up.
Singapore — Maintaining
Singapore won’t rise because it’s already basically in the top spot, and it’s hard to go anywhere from there, but it will continue to do well.
Indonesia — Rising (slowly)
This will happen very, very slowly, and mostly, it’s going to benefit from the economic activity of southeast Asia to its north.
The Philippines — Maintaining or Stagnating
I’m leaning toward stagnating for the Philippines; they’re fantastic people, but they’re a little psycho, so this one is harder to call.
Australia and New Zealand — Stagnate
These two are the quintessential examples of countries that are stagnating. These are the only two countries in the Western world that will not collapse, and there are two reasons for this. First, they don’t have the debt the rest of the Western world has, and second, they’re going to benefit from the rise of Asia and Southeast Asia. There’s a lot of Chinese and Southeast Asian money in Oceania, so they’re not going to collapse, but they’re not going to do well, either.
Russia — Psycho or Rising (slowly)
Russia really is a coin toss. I’ve said this before, and I’m happy to double down on it now. I don’t know which direction they’ll go, but they will either go psycho or rise very slowly.
Russia has a lot going for it — a lot of natural resources, the military might of a superpower, and so on — but unfortunately, it’s hopelessly mismanaged. Putin runs Moscow and St. Petersburg, but not much else. Corruption is everywhere. It’s a culture with a lot of darkness, unfortunately; I’ve talked before about dating Russian women. Overall, Russia probably has more pros and more cons, in terms of sheer numbers, than any other country I can think of. It has a lot of both, which is why it’s so difficult to predict.
Conclusion
What I’ve discussed here is the state of the world from a macroeconomic perspective. What I have not talked about here is whether or not you should live in any particular place. As an Alpha Male 2.0 with location independent income, you can live in all kinds of places that might be psycho, stagnating, or even collapsing, and still be OK if you know what you’re doing.
So I’m not really talking about the best places to live; I did another video about that recently, and you can check that out if you like.
Leave your comment below, but be sure to follow the Five Simple Rules.
Eric Smith
Posted at 04:50 pm, 5th October 2020That would be really fucking cool. Better than TV or Movies.
Stephen
Posted at 08:09 pm, 5th October 2020I don’t like the idea of investing in China, because they are essentially at war with their customers. It’s bad business to be so predatory that you get a bad reputation. It worked for a while and they got a tremendous growth spurt out of it. But eventually (looks like starting in 2016) you get into a dog fight that limits any upside.
The backlash against China will benefit countries like Viet Nam. That is where I’ll be investing instead.
As for where to live, security has to be the number one priority. It’s like a tax. What good are low taxes if you have to spend a lot of man hours, mental energy and money protecting yourself and your property. Penny wise pound foolish. As someone with portable income, I’ll be wintering in warm places and summering in temperate ones. But the number one criteria is that I don’t have to worry about personal protection beyond common sense.
You didn’t mention Iceland. Supposed to have beautiful, sex positive women. Places like Canada and Scandinavian may be beautiful to spend a few months of the year. Who cares what the currency/economy is doing if your income comes from somewhere else?
Caleb Jones
Posted at 08:27 pm, 5th October 2020Yup. If I could only invest in either China or Vietnam I would instantly choose Vietnam, no quesiton about it.
In my view that’s the number two priority. The number one priority is whether or not you like the place.
If currency/economy is the only negative factor, correct. The problem is that sometimes declining economic factors actually make living conditions less favorable. Sometimes, but not always.
Example: As I just told someone on YouTube, I would NEVER live full-time in ANY city in California even if zero percent of my income came from the USA or anywhere near it because the declining economics of that region have indeed made it a less nice place to live.
Sure, sometimes the economics are 100% separate from the living conditions… but sometimes they are not. And other times they aren’t right now, but they will later (some collapsing or stagnating countries). (Can you imagine anyone living in 1950s Chicago or Portland ever imagining violent political civil unrest lasting months and months on end in their cities? And would this civil unrest be happening like this if every American was making $80,000 a year and paying 10% in taxes?)
Stephen
Posted at 09:37 pm, 5th October 2020You are right. I was too simplistic. CA is an IQ test. Housing in the major cities is so expensive $100k doesn’t give you a good lifestyle. No amount of money is a good lifestyle if you have to deal with their freeway traffic on a regular basis.
The 40 million people there are just nuts, except for maybe a few in small towns and rural areas. But let’s agree to be quiet about this because we don’t want them waking up and ruining everything else.
AlphaOmega
Posted at 01:39 am, 6th October 2020Yes they will be affected when US goes down but if they reorient themselves fast it can go quite well. I also expect a lot of successful and smart westerners to go there, in fact that is already happening and they are very happy there.
And yet you do it again. I find it interesting that you make a separation of Scandinavia from countries like Germany / UK / France in terms of geopolitics/economics but then you completely ignore other regions. You do not mention south Europe / midditeranean at all, so I am not sure if you bump this together with Western Europe or simply forgot about countries like Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece, to me these together are a region of their own in terms of culture, politics, economics. You also do not mention central europe at all. Do you consider this part of western europe or eastern europe? or both? where is the division? If so is Greece eastern europe also? Also, finland is not Scandinavia, but it is nordics strictly speaking, geopolitically and economically its quite similar but the strong proximity and influence of Russia changes things a bit.
To me in terms of politics, culture, economics I see the current situation like this:
Nordic countries – collapsing (Scandinavia + Finland)
Western europe – collapsing (France, Germany, UK, Benelux, possibly plus Ireland, a bit of special case in my view)
Southern europe – collapsing / stagnating (Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Malta, Cyprus, possibly some of the ex-yugoslavia countries)
Central europe – stagnating/maintaining/rising slowly (Switzerland (possibly in western europe), Austria (possibly in western europe), parts of forer yugoslavia (possibly in south europe), Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary)
Eastern Europe – maintaining/rising slowly (Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, Ukraine, Belarus, baltic countries (possibly part of nordics))
Caucasian countries (not really europe in my view) – rising (Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan (agree this one isnt doing well unlike the other two)
I have visited some of these countries and spoken to people from there and there is a huge difference between the southern and northern stans. The northern are mote like Russia but much more stable and actually rising economics and standard of living, the southern are very primitive countries with not much going on or outlook for development. I find Alamaty in Kazakstan a very good option to live part of the year. I also think there are a lot of investment opportunities in Kazakstan. The women there are reasonably good looking and quite easy. The demographics are about 1/5 – 1/4 Russsian looking and the rest asian looking. Both groups are about equally nice and and easy to date in my short experience of being there. If you are a westerner the asian looking ones especially are an easy game. The climate is extremely continental so I would avoid the summer and winter. Springs and autumns are very pleasant.
This is a wild card, it could also be very messy, I feel you will really need to know what to invest in. Looking back in time such events in history always look like they were amazing investment opportunities but people looking at that ignore all those companies that failed or had money stolen from of which there are huge amounts during such times. You will really need to be careful and know what to invest in.
This is probably the fastest growing region in the world right now with some of the best investment opportunities. From what I hear the big cities are very livable and up to western standards, but I haven’t been in these places myself.
To me the reason for all of Japan’s issues is the outdated traditional work ethic they are so proud of. If they can get rid of that it will fix the rest but I do not see that happening. Still I think if you dont mind the high cost of living its a very pleasant place to live provided you have your own location independent income.
Neil
Posted at 05:16 am, 6th October 2020Its the age thing more than most. The marriage/birthdate has fallen off a cliff. Young guys aren’t interested in sex so that compounds things even more. The army have had to raise the age limit as not enough young people are available to sign up.
I would have thought could take decades after reunification. I’ve read a couple of books by N Korean defectors who said how it took about five years to just be able to do stuff like take a train, buy a present felt normal. One guy went to buy rice in a supermarket & had a breakdown as they couldn’t comprehend that there could be so many different types! I’d have thought the economic burden on South Korea to take care of so many refugees would hammer their economy before it got better?!
JJ
Posted at 08:37 am, 6th October 2020For Norway I suggest you google Norwegian Sovereign index fund before saying anything else.
Caleb Jones
Posted at 09:46 am, 6th October 2020Haha, correction; the majority of the 328 million people in the USA are nuts.
There’s an odd post-Trump narrative that implies that all the crazy people in the USA are in California. Wrongo! Surprise! It’s the entire country!
This kind of parsing would require a deeper drive on Europe specifically, and that’s not what this article is about. This article is about the entire world, not Europe, meaning I am forced to generalize in some respects. If that offends you then tough shit.
More importantly: Notice I never get worked up when someone generalizes about Americans (which happens all the time). Outcome independence.
I’ve seen some documentaries on that and it was very interesting. N. Korean defectors terrified that Kim Jong Un could read their minds so they had to be careful what to think and so forth.
Yes, any reunification would be extremely painful and difficult, but in the end I’m still betting there would be a massive economic boom and that such a boom would happen sooner than people expect. (Though as always, I could be wrong.)
Lazy Blitz, a Storm of Openers!
Posted at 12:17 pm, 6th October 2020Dude I am a big fan of your work really.
But you were so wrong about sars-cov-2 back in March 2020 that I have a really hard time reading or listening anything you said since then. No matter if what you say now is valid or not my brain can’t focus anymore on your productions as it feels like you may not know what you’re talking about, especially things related to the pandemic. I think in general you know what your doing with your businesses and your woman life but your understanding of science is clearly very limited, and so is your understanding of this pandemic and its consequences.
Your videos when you’re using the black background are visually much more pleasing by the way, keep it up 🙂
CrabRangoon
Posted at 02:51 pm, 6th October 2020@Larry Blitz
“But you were so wrong about sars-cov-2 back in March 2020 that I have a really hard time reading or listening anything you said since then”
In regards to this, I’d say just about EVERYONE was wrong about how insane this rona thing would get. It’s also been very over-hyped and used as a political pawn in this country and others. Not to say it isn’t serious or real, but it’s not the bubonic plague or even close. I myself had it, as well as a few others I know and it was nothing more than a bad cold. It was all mismanaged from day 1 and continues to be.
Also, just in my lifetime, we’ve seen other potential “pandemics” such as SARS, MERS, Swine Flu, Zika, West Nile just to name a few and they all just burned out without much incident, without lockdowns or any major economic impacts. The assumption here was that it would be a similar thing back in the early stages.
No one is Nostradamus here-we work with the best info we have at the time. No one could have predicted the length and breadth of this situation given what we’d seen in the past. I myself thought this would all be over by June, sort of like cold/flu season. No one alive today has experienced anything close to this in the Western world.
Caleb Jones
Posted at 03:35 pm, 6th October 2020I’m not sure what you read, but I was correct on literally everything I said regarding coronoavirus (there weren’t going to be millions dead, there wasn’t going to be 30% unemployment, hospitals all over the country wouldn’t run out of ventilators, actually getting the virus and having any real health problems was a 2% Rule situation, etc, etc) minus one incorrect sentence in my first article I admitted just a week or two after I said it.
I have not made or pronounced any actual predictions regarding the pandemic whatsoever since the two articles I wrote about Covid way back in March, two articles my audience asked me to write (otherwise I would not have written them). Again, I’m not sure whose blog you’re reading.
Kris
Posted at 11:12 pm, 6th October 2020BD, you say Canada can not make it without USA as its main market? But still China will rule? How will that work when Chinas markets collapse? The global economy is interconnected, so one collapsed country will affect others. This you have not adressed in your text.
Collapse is a strong word to use, countries like Somalia are fully collapsed with no functional banking, economy or security. In Europe we recently had Spain and Greece “collapse” but they still are no way near the situation in Somalia. More detailed analysis on how the collapses would unfold would be interesting. I will start: Sweden. The Governements money for wellfare will run out. This because large influx of third world migrants. Security will collapse because of third world klans and criminals. Politics will collapse because of distrust, short range solutions, political correctness and yes; third world clans infililtration of governement institutions (already happening).
Redbaron
Posted at 05:08 am, 7th October 2020My biggest concern with Colombia is that its geographically next to the psychotic political influential sphere of Brazil and Venezuela. So you could have a number of things happen that could cause the Colombians to do a complete 180 on all of the economic progress they’ve made.
China — Rising
China’s demographic problem stems far beyond not having enough women; their society is aging, which has the potential slow down growth rates below what they are now. The only way I see this being fixed is if there’s some event (probably the end of a major war) that sparks a Chinese baby boom in the near future.
I’m more optimistic on this one – I would put India as slowly rising Psycho. Their poverty rates are dropping and they do have a rapidly growing middle class (which is expected to outnumber China’s in the 2030s), though those trends aren’t progressing as fast as they would without all the government red tape. I’d say India is about 15-20 years behind China in economic development; I attribute that to India beginning its economic liberalization 13 years after China began theirs and the slower rollback of government red tape (and yes the government goes backwards from time to time). That said, they’re geographically close to the rapidly growing political influential sphere that is China and southeast Asia and will probably receive shepherding from these countries (just like China is doing with Africa right now) over time; Even people as stubborn as the Indians can’t stick to big government forever as they watch their Asian brothers getting ahead and will have to eventually learn from them. Socially, India is living in the dark ages but the younger generations are slowly starting to become enlightened thanks to smartphones, social media, and India’s societal problems becoming more obvious to them. If India is to grow rapidly in the future, that growth will most likely be driven by the younger generations of Indians.
Caleb Jones
Posted at 05:10 am, 7th October 2020China does not rely on the USA the way Canada does. And yes, China will suffer greatly when the West collapses; it’s one of the many problems I alluded to they will have on their way to number one.
It’s odd that a lot of people don’t understand this. If a major civilization collapses and all countries in the world suffer badly, the number one country collapses, the number two country survives albeit very wounded, who’s in charge? Number two.
In a world of blind men the one-eyed man is king.
Addressed in objection #6 here and in this video here.
Already did that here and here.
I pretty much implied that in the video. They could be totally psycho but slowly rising anyway. Possible.
I disagree. I think you underestimate how irrationally stubborn Indians living in India can be. I have been legitimately shocked at what these guys have done, said, and/or justified. (Indians living outside of India tend to be much better.)
That’s possible but people have been saying exactly that about Iran for decades and it’s still Iran. Again, I think you’re underestimating people’s irrationality.
Wired For Success
Posted at 01:24 pm, 7th October 2020SE Asia seems to be the go-to place in the coming decades. Can’t wait till this Covid-19 shit is over so travel can be fully unrestricted.
And speaking of Covid, what are your thoughts on Trump getting Covid recently?
With how freaking unhinged the intolerant left became when news broke a few days ago all over social media combined with the left letting the domestic terrorist group Black Lives Matter run amok this summer and really, the modern left in general pissing every normal person off in just about every way in the past few years, I personally think Trump’s re-election is nearly guaranteed at this point!
Caleb Jones
Posted at 02:18 pm, 7th October 2020Off-topic. And I don’t give a shit about our latest buffoon president.
(I’m outta here in February, and honestly, since around June of this year I no longer consider myself an American.)
Incognito
Posted at 05:46 pm, 7th October 2020Iran is a funny case. In terms of human resources, it’s actually very strong. It has a large, educated middle class, many of them English speaking, many of whom have good connections with the diaspora. The people aren’t even that fanatically religious, on the whole. They have a long history of secular government. They hate being described as middle east, they think of themselves as central Asian, more like the Turks than the Arabs. Shame about their insane government. Even so, I’d relate their chances in a post petrol economy as a lot higher than any Arab country.
Erin
Posted at 10:15 am, 8th October 2020Canada and Mexico, need more looking into-
Canada is very unstable vs usa.
Why?
No property rights- it’s a subsidiary of the UK- so UK goes broke, the creditors can come for the land and assets of Canada.
No real government- The parliament is even set up to defer to the queen- we have a lieutenant governor, a rep of the queen- and can dissolve parliament.
More debt per capita vs usa- Tons of debt provincially vs Calif. No manufacturing, oil resources are shut down by the government.
No gold.
Many looser provinces- Only 3 provinces support the nation, Ontario, Alberta and BC. Alberta is oil revenue- and they shut that down for carbon. Speaking of carbon, a second carbon tax coming. Banks can do a cyprus style bail in. Banks are highly leveraged- they are a paper tiger.
Mexico- most of the GDP is dependent on Mexicans living in America to send back money.
Iceland- very interesting country. told bankers to take a hike in 2008.
Kris
Posted at 12:22 pm, 8th October 2020BD, Thanks for replying. Great to hear you clarify. Now, you are moving out of USA because of “government intrusion” (in your life) and the cure is to move to Shanghai, HK or Singapore? Those places have some very repressive governments! How will you cope personally living there with the government surveillance that you would have to live under?
Caleb Jones
Posted at 01:08 pm, 8th October 2020No, incorrect.
No, incorrect.
Read this and this and this and this.
You really need to do some more reading on my blogs.
Jordan
Posted at 04:09 pm, 8th October 2020I always love reading your business articles!
I agree with you on North Korea. I remember reading an article years ago about how their economy was slowly, slowly opening and how there was a little trade going on.
Russia is a sold argument for the field of epigenetics. Therapists could make a killing in that country if they wanted to. I figure that would also apply to the other “psycho” countries in the world as well. Therapists Without Borders, if you will.
Also, why is the Middle East predicted to be eternally psycho? Mind you, I’m not well-versed in Middle Eastern history outside of the War on Terror. I’m sure Radical Islam is only part of that. I understand if you can’t answer this question in a single comment, but could you at least point me to a couple of resources to check out?
Caleb Jones
Posted at 05:53 pm, 8th October 2020To be clear, I don’t predict this; others have that I have read. I racked my brain trying to remember some names but the only one I can remember is Richard Maybury and most of his stuff is behind paywalls. If I remember more names I’ll post them. I’ve heard this theory from at least three different people.
My prediction is: Most of the Middle East will indeed be psycho until technology is invented that completely changes the human condition, which will happen but I don’t know when (25 years? 75 years? 100 years? Don’t know).
Daniel
Posted at 06:47 pm, 8th October 2020Hi Blackdragon,
I really enjoy your posts but let me tell you something: I was born in Colombia and I live in Bogotá, I also have lived in North America, Mexico and Europe. Perhaps if you are a foreigner and want to expat here with some dollar or euro savings or income it could be rising, perhaps some good vacations, good drugs and good women, but this place is just a fucking shit hole
And you’d better learn how to fight with knives, they fucking kill you on the street to steal your cellphone. It is just a fucking joke and it will never kick ass. Stagnating, Psycho, Shithole would be better.
Caleb Jones
Posted at 08:28 pm, 8th October 2020Exactly my point. I’m talking more about Westerners moving to Colombia than location-dependent Colombians who already live in Colombia and rely on Colombian income.
I often hear the same thing from Argentinians: “Don’t move here! It’s awful here!!!” Yeah, it’s awful for you, but not for the location-independent Western Alpha Male 2.0 who moves there.
Lazy Blitz, a Storm of Openers!
Posted at 05:31 am, 9th October 2020If you go back in the comments the article in March, I reference a very public study that appeared prominently in mainstream media and that was used by all countries leaders in their decisions, even incompetent Trump was aware of it and did comment on it when asked by a journalist at a press conference. This study predicted exactly what is happening and provided several mitigating scenarios in term of social distancing.
Here is the post in March:
https://alphamale20.com/2020/03/09/the-deal-with-this-stupid-coronavirus/
And here is an extract of my comment back then:
This part of the comment was ignored by BD. Same goes whenever anyone brings up the environment on this platform, or BD reaction is that it’s “nerd” or “environmental extremism”. When people say no one could have predicted, I believe this boils down to a limited intuition of what is the exponential function. People may have some theoretical understanding of what it is, but they fail to see and really feel or fully understand it when such a progression appears in the real world. Clearly from the begining back in February just the asymptiomatic contagious cases and up to 14days contagiousness and the estimated Ro: it was a severe problem, a reciepy disaster, a clear geometrical/exponential progression that would require important and coordinated measures to curb and most probably create severe economical impact on a global scale. Thankfully it’s mostly old people who die, but problem is very few countries have been able to deal properly with the epidemic. And the study I reffered to already gave a taste for that and clearly stated how long it would stay problematic (basically until an efficient and safe vaccine unless all countries do what Thailand did and we don’t even understand fully what they did right). Same goes for the environnement, people, including our host BD don’t understand the exponential function applies in this real life problem. Funny enough he knows and have an excellent feel for it in the case of compound interests. But talk about the environment and no he doesn’t see any exponential progression, thus no sence of any urgency. Exact same attitude as he was back in March with covid-19: he didn’t see how important the impact.
Aside from these details, I reiterate: I am a big fan of BD’s content, I highly recommend the unchained man and the ultimate open relationship manual to anyone. And I do apply a lot of the advices in my lifestyle. I haven’t read the open marriage manual because I am not interested in OLTR or marriage, I am the type who prefers only FBs and MLTRs, but I am sure anyone interested in pair bonding with a woman should buy this book, anyways BD no question asked refund guarantee is real and legit if for whatever reason you don’t get any value from the book.
As for my personal situation, I earn less than 75kUSD per year so I guess I am not full alpha 2.0, aside from that I pretty much follow all what BD is explaining and it’s great.
I date multiple FBs and MLTRs, I am location independent since 2013 but this year and most probably 2021 nomadism is just not feasible in my usual locations: twice my trips to Thailand have been cancelled, I basically cannot go back there. I am in the Philippines which is my main base: but if I go out of the country I cannot come back and I probably cannot come back in 2021 either. If I go back in my own country in Europe, my options are extremely limited as to where I can go next, and frankly I am not interested in any of the handful of open countries right now.
I am still seeing 4 different women regularly, but dating where I am has been drastically transformed by the pandemic and as a result it’s much lore difficult to update my rotation with new women, I also lost all of the women I was the most interested in of those I was dating especially my favourites from the very many late 2019 early 2020 first dates. So all this effort basically vanished in smoke when the lockdown started, and never recovered since it’s been relaxed.
I have durably lost 1/3 of my income due to the pandemic.
Aside from all that, my main hobby (free diving) was just forbidden to practice during lockdown and still now is so much more complicated and hassle since special passes are required each time and have to be booked long in advance which is impractical since the activity is very weather sensitive. Or else would require multydays trips to other provinces instead of simply a 1h ride that I could hop in at the last minute for a half day activity and back at my place same day.
2020 is by far the shittiest year I have experienced since 2010 and I haven’t been contaminated but the covid-19 pandemic has already severely impacted my lifestyle.
Exactly: I can’t properly read your blogs since then. My mind just zones out after a few lines if ever I try to. Same goes with your videos. This is a feeling, not a rational argument that what you said since then was incorrect. Your persistence in not acknowledging the big picture impact of this pandemic only reinforces this feeling in me. But hey, it’s just my feeling!
BlueJay
Posted at 02:26 pm, 9th October 2020I moved to the US thinking it’s the land of sugar and honey. While I enjoyed the past 11 years of my life in this country, I don’t think I want to stay anymore. Trump vs. Biden! Insane taxes in California, protests on the streets, high ASD women ( least of my concerns). I’ve been thinking about this for a year now and really don’t know if I even want to apply for US Citizenship. I don’t know what country I should move to given that my own country, Iran is fucked up big time. I am thinking getting a Vanuatu passport and then dividing my time between different countries.
Caleb Jones
Posted at 04:40 pm, 9th October 2020In the last 3-4 years I’ve started to hear this from US immigrants for the first time in my life. It says something.
(And no, you don’t want American citizenship. It’s simply a license to tax your ass for the rest of your life even if you don’t live in the USA and rule over where you’re allowed to bank regardless of where you live in the world.)
Lazy Blitz, a Storm of Openers!
Posted at 10:00 pm, 11th October 2020Aaaannnnnnddddd, just a few days after my little rant here guess what: the city is starting to reinstate severe restrictions of freedom again, that we had during the first lockdown for the sake of social distancing, such as 19:00-05:00 curfew, liquor ban, etc… etc… EXACTLY as PREDICTED in the SCIENTIFIC study that I linked in the thread back in March 2020, and that was prominently exposed in mainstream media and explained to elected leaders everywhere. So really, that wasn’t super hard to know the impact of this pandemic. You guys who say that it was impossible to predict how long it will last are just in DENIAL since the beginning and don’t want to accept the factual reality that was exposed in great detail since the very begining. In case you were really slow in the brain and still didn’t understand how serious and quick the lockdown measures had to be in Wuhan as soon as January, and it wasn’t even enough to avoid spreading it everywhere.
Sure this isn’t a cataclysmic catastrophy that is going to wipe out humanity, that would be really silly to think that. But without our modern advances in medicine and equipments, which are limited in availability, this virus is equal or worse than the H1N1 strain that caused the 1918 flu pandemic. And it’s more easy to spread and sneaky due to up to 14 days or more incubation and asymptomatic carriers and spreaders.
Freevoulous
Posted at 01:31 am, 12th October 2020Should that not apply to just about every country? Especially ones that would be otherwise stagnating, and/or suffer from insufficient birthrates, etc.
Once we have things like a new biotech revolution, Artificial Intelligence, workable nanotechnology, or humanlike robots, most of the problems You wrote about would go away (often to be replaced by a new problem).
Caleb Jones
Posted at 12:06 pm, 12th October 2020No because not every country is Psycho.
That would depend on the specific problem that country had and the specific thing that was invented.
Correct. The more relevant quesiton to you as a man is if these things will be ever invented, will be invented in your lifetime, and if they are, how long will it take, and how much personal damage are you willing to suffer and for how long (decades?) while waiting for them to arrive.
(I ain’t waiting for shit.)
ace
Posted at 12:10 pm, 12th October 2020“Most of the Middle East will indeed be psycho until technology is invented that completely changes the human condition,”
Nah, in ancient times the same was said of Europe..nothing but squalor and maurauding bands of barbarians….and then things changed. Cultural and even as some suggest genetic changes due to Religion: Christianity…literacy..
Middle East will change as the psycho religion changes and women’s rights increases.
Sphere
Posted at 02:44 am, 13th October 2020Caleb, you mentioned that you are not an expert on this subject. Fair enough. But you also mentioned that your post/video was inspired by a few experts. But would you mind naming them? That would be of value to your readers.
On a personal note I can get on board with both your and Andrew Henderson’s suggested countries to spend time in as a lifestyle choice and enjoy both of your ramblings about various topics, but I wouldn’t call either of you experts when it comes to geopolitical forecasting. I wouldn’t call Robert Kiyosaki an expert on the subject of whether and how the US and the dollar is going go collapse or not either, he being a big influence on Andrew. They are more like motivational speakers to me.
An intriguing guy I think well worth listening to is Peter Zeihan. He has some pretty bold predictions though. If you do a site search for Peter Zeihan on calebjonesblog.com you see @David already recommended him to you two times by now. As you can see some of Peter’s predictions match yours (or Andrew’s), but with some notable differences: https://zeihan.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/global-stability-map.jpg. One of his favorite bold prediction is Alberta secedes from Canada and joins the US as its 51th richest state, to stop being Canada’s top tax payer.
Btw. we are now at blackdragonblog.com and you put up the same video and text on calebjonesblog.com, both sites having separate conversations about the same topic in the comments. A little confusing from someone teaching professional business blogging. I don’t doubt the profitability of your business, just seems a confusing practice to me. blackdragonblog.com has the more comments so I joined the conversation over here.
How about you interviewing Peter Zeihan? As I recall correctly the one guest interview you ever did was with Tom Torero, but that one on a different subject. If you go on YouTube you can see Peter mostly talks at conferences of big corporations dealing with raw materials, agriculture, things like that. He recently did an interview with business, crypto, and investment podcaster, Anthony Pompliano. That was a pretty good interview, considering that discussion was intended more for the general public than institutions. But I wonder what Peter had to say to your audience. Maybe this could be a win-win as you could introduce them to Peter’s work, maybe they could buy his books (he has some highly rated books) while Peter could give them a new perspective. I bet Peter is a little bored with the quarantine, just like everyone. Even if you can’t do the interview at least your ramblings would be much more interesting were they informed by experts like Peter.
Now to debate with two of your calls in your post/video. First, Australia and China. You simply took an economist’s view and said China is growing by this number every year, hence it must overtake the United States. Of course there is a clear limit of such simplistic economists’ thinking @David already pointed out when he recommended Peter’s work to you. A geopolitical forecaster of course has a much more sophisticated toolbox than an economist, the latter seeing everything as a nail as he only has a hammer. But I wanted to focus on Australia. You predicted China to rise, and Australia has the raw minerals to feed China. So if China is on the rise (in your view, not in the view of Peter Zeihan or me), Australia, their raw material supplier should be on the rise as well, right? Sure, Australia has crazy left wing tendencies, just like every other mineral rich country from Venezuela to Norway. If you are a mineral rich country you are going to end up with left wing policies, these things go hand in hand. Norway indeed is doing pretty well for a left wing country if you ask any European, or geopolitical expert. I understand as a location independent entrepreneur you watch for different metrics of a country to the person who doesn’t intend leaving it. And that’s the majority of the population.
The other country I wanted to call out on is your prediction about Russia. As I remember you mentioned in the video the declining population of Europe, hence it’s on the decline. But you somehow missed the fact that if Europe is on the decline regarding to its population, Russia has the same problem, but on steroids. Its population disappears at a much faster rate than Europe’s and who want to immigrate to Russia when you can go to Europe and other places, too? You rightly called out that Putin has not much power outside of Moscow and Saint Petersburg, the power is with local oligarchs. The fear is which non-state actors get the nukes and other weapons once Russia disintegrates. The pension age of Russia is 60 for men but their life expectancy was only 59 a few years ago. In a few years there isn’t going to be enough competent people to run the infrastructure and military equipment. Dangerous stuff. Definitely not a 50% rising star wildcard, definitely 100% psycho. The fact the US is becoming a natural gas exporter with a competitive offer on the international scene doesn’t help Russia’s economy based on exporting the same stuff either. Nor do the effects of the permanent recession we are living in on the price Russia can ask for its natural resources.
Oh. And you missed the fact of China’s demographics problem, because of their failed one-child policy. Somewhat relevant to The Blackdragon Blog may be the Chinese man playing serenade in a Siberian city for the Russian ladies. Scroll down for his photo: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3832111/They-want-brides-white-skin-blue-eyes-Rich-Chinese-businessmen-pay-thousands-pounds-wife-tours-Siberia-shortage-women-country.html with the caption ‘Not everyone can afford a costly single’s tour and one Chinese man is shown on a video playing a doleful saxophone tune in Russia to try and attract women.’
I end here, I’m rambling too much.
Caleb Jones
Posted at 11:19 am, 13th October 2020Most of the data wasn’t from individuals that I can name but simply facts I’ve looked up in various places, including Wikipedia, as well as my own experiences traveling abroad. But if you want a few names here’s a few: Jim Rogers, Doug Casey, Andrew Henderson, Simon Black, Richard Maybury, Jack Perkowski, Martin Jacques, and a bunch of others I can’t think of at the moment.
I explained this several weeks ago; this is a temporary measure until my main new site is up which will replace all of these blogs. Just wait a little while and that problem will solve itself.
No promises but I’m happy to look into it. (I have a feeling you might be him. That’s usually how these “recommendations” work.)
Incorrect. That is not my view. Read this.
I didn’t miss it. I just didn’t say it. This is not a deep dive on Russia. Regardless, correct. That’s why there’s a least a 50% chance Russia is fucked long-term, as I said.
I have brought up that problem many, many times in my past articles regarding China. Please read the comment I made above where this video is not meant to be a deep-dive on any one country or region; it’s a world overview. A deep dive on China has already been done, many times, at my other blog.
Heh. You said it, not me.
Stephen
Posted at 02:32 pm, 13th October 2020After 9/11 a lot of foreigners were saying this. The social dynamics became very weird for them, everybody staring, acting suspicious, etc…
I’m actually positive on investing in Russia. All the Russia phobia has depressed their market for non rational, emotional reasons. Russian science is very good. They aren’t bogged down with promoting people who wouldn’t qualify except for affirmative action. They also haven’t destroyed themselves (yet) with silly notions about gender preferences, or everybody being born a racist.
Duke
Posted at 06:46 pm, 13th October 2020I hope everything is okay. I noticed there wasn’t a blog post this Monday. Maybe you’re changing days. Or this has something to do with the release of the new thing you’re doing.
Anyway, good luck. I can’t wait to see the next phase. I wonder how many subscribers you would have had if you started ten, or even five years ago!
You could easily just do the videos you already have as articles, and pick up lots of subscribers and customers with minimal work.
Caleb Jones
Posted at 10:11 pm, 13th October 2020Not changing days but yes it’s related to all the work we’re doing behind the scenes. Article goes up tomorrow. (Video is already up at YouTube; the one about “The Wall.”)
I don’t understand. I did start ten years ago. 11 years ago in fact. Maybe you’re talking about YouTube.
I’ve thought about it. One blog article per week is probably okay sufficient though.