Current Events: Follow-up on Predictions from Previous Articles
This has been an eventful week for current events with a number of stories relevant to predictions from previous articles. I was somewhat skeptical about Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter in my previous article, Elon Musk’s Offer of Freedom through Benevolent Oligarchy. So far, Musk’s acquisition has been a huge victory for free speech but still faces hurdles. I don’t necessarily believe that Musk has ulterior motives. However, what matters is that he is not going to be able to run Twitter as a non-profit, and the loss of advertisers impacting revenue, may cause Musk to capitulate. Musk has blamed activist groups for pressuring advertisers in favor of censorship, but Musk has also suggested giving the civil rights community some say in content moderation. The new Twitter is not going to be a free for all, but overall will still be better than before.
Recently leaked documents exposed how Twitter worked with DHS to censor misinformation and hate speech, further showing how intertwined big tech and the State are. This should finally shut down any argument that the First Amendment does not apply to social media because they are “private companies.” Even the increasingly partisan and woke ACLU, is calling out the State for interference on behalf of censorship. Besides less censorship on Twitter, other changes include new factchecking by Musk that even factchecked Biden, mass layoffs of woke corporate leadership, which was the first ever “based” layoffs, in contrast with the woke layoffs at companies such as Twilio. Other changes include modifying Twitter’s algorithms to stop spamming feeds with recommendations for all kinds of random nonsense, a proposed edit button, adding a longform tweet feature, and a fee for blue check verification badges, which changes blue checks from a status symbol to a utility, and from a gatekeeping mechanism to a product.
Besides the political angle, the Twitter layoffs and likelihood of Musk relocating the Twitter HQ out of the Bay Area, will hasten the decline in Silicon Valley. Tech stocks crashing, such as Meta, and mass tech layoffs, signal a tech bubble crash, which could be worse than the 2000 Dot-Com crash. Tech used to be much stronger than brick and mortar industries but is actually one of the worst performing stocks, in contrast with commodities such as energy. Tech profits are especially impacted by high interest rates’ impacts on barrowing money, stock buybacks, add revenue, and on foreign markets.
My recent article on Bay Area demographics pointed out that mass tech layoffs may coincide a building boom, despite the recession. Besides all the various YIMBY housing bills signed into law, the big news in housing is the “builders remedy” loophole. Basically where a city’s zoning is temporarily suspended, and developers are given free reign, to build whatever they want, under the circumstances that a city fails to meet certain obligations for housing. This is the first time in California history that “Builders Remedy” has gone into effect and certain slow growth cities, such as Santa Monica and Beverly Hills, could see unprecedented building booms of high density development. While many LA County cities already missed their housing elements deadlines, Bay Area cities’ deadlines are early next year, and these cities will likely be impacted even more than SoCal. There are legitimate concerns about the legal precedent of suspending local control, but it will be interesting to see what happens when highly in demand cities suspend all zoning restrictions. Even with a bad economy, the demand is high enough for building booms in Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, San Francisco, and Silicon Valley cities, that have long restricted housing.
With so much rapid change and economic instability, it is hard to predict demographic trends for specific regions in California. There are stats on the demographics of the post pandemic exodus out of the Bay Area and of the residents who are planning to leave the region. The polling shows that it is the younger, non-White, and less affluent demographics, who are more likely to consider leaving. A lot of young White and Asian tech workers are leaving San Francisco due to remote work and urban blight, and a lot of the working class are also leaving the Bay Area, while older residents and affluent families in the suburbs, are more likely to stay put. However, senior citizens could be impacted by either rising inflation or a pension crisis linked to either a bond or stock market crash. Also remote work means people are selecting areas based upon demographic and personal preferences, which accelerates enclavism.
Source: The Economist
Recent fertility data shows fertility increasing the most among highly educated women and declining among those without college degrees. This further vindicates observations made in the Breeder Selection article, which references a very modest White fertility bump. I speculated that this was due to affluent White women disproportionately benefiting from remote work. Regardless of how much legitimacy one puts into “breeder selection theory,” there are signs of a reversal of the “Ideocracy” dysgenic trend, with remote work potentially having a huge impact on raising fertility for the upper middle class. While this aspect of remote work is good demographically, it is also exacerbating the inequality of social capital. US fertility has been remarkably stable since the pandemic and the recent data shows fertility increasing more among the native born rather than foreign born, despite the recent surge in immigration. Both Europe and Canada’s fertility have continued to decline, even in France which is furthest along in breeder selection. The economy is the most likely factor for Europe’s recent fertility decline.
Source: Center for Immigration Studies
A new Center for Immigration Studies report shows that immigration is increasing from most parts of the world, with the exception of Mexico. The biggest increase in immigration was from non-Mexican Latin America, and the data even shows a recent increase in immigration from Europe, which is likely due to Ukraine. Speculating immigration trends for this decade, non-Mexican parts of Latin America, especially Venezuela, will continue to increase. East Asian immigration is declining, South Asian immigration will likely increase, though tech layoffs could have an impact and expect more downscale South Asian and non-Indian South Asian immigration. Immigration will likely increase from Africa, the Middle East, Ukraine, and Russia, and possibly from the EU and UK, though modestly rather than a mass exodus. Specifically for California, immigration from Mexico and China, which have long been the largest immigrant groups will continue to decline, while most recent Latin American immigration is from groups that don’t have significant communities in California. Besides the high cost of living, this is why immigration to California has declined. New Latino immigrants to California in the 2020s will more likely be Guatemalan. South Asia, Afghanistan, Arab countries, Ukraine, and possibly Iran and Armenia, could see increasing immigration to California, depending upon geopolitics. Even though Brazil’s post-election civil unrest has de-escalated, if Brazil were to fall to civil war, there would be a massive refugees crisis, dwarfing the migrant crisis from Venezuela, due to Brazil’ massive population, including a White population of about 60-80 million.
The reason that civil war is possible in Brazil, besides an economic crisis, is because the nation’s elite are politically divided, which is not the case for America. Though class is the main divide in Brazil rather than race, NGOs are starting to import America’s racial politics. Both candidates, Lula and Bolsonaro, were deeply flawed, with Lula especially corrupt. The main reason that I am not a fan of Bolsonaro was that he was terrible for the rainforest, though he was better than America’s leadership in regards to direct stimulus payments during covid. Overall Bolsonaro was a staunch US ally, and friendly to corporate interests, but the visceral hatred against him from America’s political elite has more to do with what he symbolized as a “MAGA” ally.
Europe is facing both an energy crisis and soaring inflation, and likely a massive migrant crisis from Africa and the Middle East, due to a catastrophic famine, that will dwarf the migrant crisis of 2015. This is on top of the war in Ukraine, which could escalate this winter. Expect to see a rise in nationalism and populism, despite US influence strengthening over Europe. The UK has become a vassal state of the US, which explains why woke culture is much more extreme than in Continental Europe, where there are stronger opposition movements. Brexit deserves some blame for the UK’s economic crisis, as the UK financialized it’s economy, which suffered a blow from Brexit ending London’s role as Europe’s financial center. The US dollar strengthening was the final blow to Britain’s economy. Brexit voters were generally populist or even left on economics and restrictionist on immigration, but they got the opposite from the Tories, mass immigration, neoliberalism, and austerity. Brexit failed due to its reliance upon an electoral victory while having zero institutional power or political infrastructure. While Nigel Farage has been critical of the Tories, he deserves a lot of blame for Brexit’s failure and was well aware that Brexit could lead to a dramatic increase in non-European immigration.
The Supreme Court will soon likely ban affirmative action nationally. Even though affirmative action is anti-White, the ban could actually be worse for Whites if more universities rework their admissions process to maintain a balance between Asians and BIPOC, while giving Whites the shaft. I stand by my point from the article on University of California admissions that Whites are better off lobbying for quotas mandating equitable representation close to their proportions rather than colorblind meritocracy. It is more politically correct to talk about meritocracy and anti-Asian discrimination, though discussion of anti-Whiteness is starting to become normalized on the mainstream right. For instance Stephen Miller’s Pac, America First Legal’s, new commercial, which would have been unfathomable, even during the 2016 election. Since the affirmative action ban is viewed as a conservative victory, it will likely accelerate anti-White policies on the left. Regardless, Asian vs. BIPOC interests being at odds over affirmative action, as well as the anti-Black remarks from Latino LA City Councilmembers, and Kanye West’s and Kyrie Irving’s anti-Semitic remarks, show that the rainbow coalition is coming apart.
The mid-term elections will further solidify political realignments. Though the Sailer Strategy, of the White vote consolidating in the GOP, didn’t pan out, rather a top down coalition of upper class Whites and Asians and lower class Blacks in the Democratic Party, and the GOP becoming a middling coalition, including both Whites and Hispanics. Also middle class suburban White women, who turned on Trump, are returning to the GOP. Overall the GOP appears to be polling much better than I anticipated in my article critical of GOP populism, where I predicted that the GOP will win the House by a narrow margin and the Senate a tossup. The GOP will likely win the House by more significant margins and win the Senate. Blake Masters, who is the candidate most associated with national populism, was previously trailing in the polls, and now has a good chance at winning. Democrats are running on culture war issues such as abortion, racism, and Jan 6th, and fear mongering about “the end of democracy,” while Republicans have the advantage of running on practical issue, such as crime, the economy, and inflation.
Regardless, the GOP victory won’t make that much of a difference and will function as a safety valve rather than a serious threat to power. The GOP has no coherent platform or ideology rather than just running on the other team sucking, which is enough for this election. The GOP victory is good, as far as gridlock, which is actually the best case political scenario. Liberals will react hysterically to loosing, much like they did with Musk’s takeover of Twitter, and liberals deserve to be politically humiliated for conspiring with corporate interests to gaslight and censor. Though Biden and the Democrats have ended up becoming accidental accelerationists.
People speculate about various dystopian scenarios ranging from civil war to a 1984 technocracy. There won’t be another Gettysburg but there could be a further increase in civil unrest and political violence, basically civil strife like in Northern Ireland, along with further bifurcation between red and blue states. There won’t be a 1984 techno-dystopia but expect more lawfare, especially in reaction to the right’s electoral victory. While elites are still fairly unanimous, long term elite overproduction and the White upper class starting to feel the impacts of anti-White discrimination, could test elite cohesion.
In regards to the economic crisis, the GOP might end up implementing austerity to deal with inflation. The GOP would be better off just letting the Democrats take the blame for the economy. Inflation is a tax on the poor and middle class, while high interest rates impact the assets of the wealthy more. There are calls on Fed chair, Jerome Powell, to pivot, which would repeat the mistake of the Fed in the 70s, and could lead to hyper-inflation. It has been clear since the pandemic that an economic crash is inevitable, yet there is so much propaganda to downplay the severity of the crisis. Not just those with motives such as Democratic partisans or shills for the stock markets, but those who should know better, who are saying that inflation is transitory, and that there is just going to be a short mild recession, and an economic recovery soon. Even Elon Musk, who is more truthful about the economy than other elites, recently said that the recession will be over by spring of 2024, which is absurd considering that interest rates will have to be high for several years for inflation to come down.
Unemployment rates are low for now, though the stats are most likely “baked,” to exclude those who have given up on searching for jobs and counting people working extra jobs as new jobs. Layoffs have disproportionately impacted white collar workers, rather than blue collar and service sector workers. While demographics could be a factor for the labor shortage benefiting younger workers, low unemployment is likely just temporary, due to the pandemic stimulus bubble. Mass layoffs will likely accelerate next year. While financial Youtubers talking about a Depression sounds like clickbait, all the data points to economic catastrophe, either long-term stagflation or a deflationary crash. Perhaps 70s stagflation plus a housing foreclosure and stock market crash like 08, plus there won’t be bailouts like the 08 crash without causing hyperinflation. High interest rates will make it more expensive to pay off debt, including credit card debt, which is increasing due to inflation. High interest rates also make it much more costly to pay off the national debt, which could spiral into either a debt crisis or hyper-inflation. Between the stock market crash, soaring inflation, civil unrest, political polarization, the migrant crisis, risk of mass starvation globally, the energy crisis, and wars abroad, the world will go through a chaotic next several years.