From The Ramparts

2022 Predictions

2022 Predictions

Junious Ricardo Stanton

            By looking at past trends, patterns and experiences we can fairly accurately predict what we will see and experience in the coming year. The past two years have witnessed the spread of “novel coronaviruses” and a single minded focus on vaccines as the only way to halt their spread. Based upon our experiences the last two years we can reasonably surmise a continuation of the campaign of fear porn, hyperbole and exaggeration about the virus and a incessant push to inoculate all 7.9 people on the planet will continue into 2022. Why? So Big Pharma can rake in even more money than they did in 2021! Prior to SARS-COV-2 the pharmaceutical industry was held in extremely low esteem by most Americans due to price gauging, price fixing scandals, the opioid crisis and their lobbying on legislators at the expense of the public. https://news.gallup.com/poll/266060/big-pharma-sinks-bottom-industry-rankings.aspx           

Along came COVID and boom their profits and PR changed overnight! “Before the COVID-19 pandemic, a ‘baseline’ 32% of the U.S. public had a positive opinion of the pharmaceutical industry, but even at that 53% recorded in the summer, it’s still flying relatively high. Since the start of last year, pharma has in fact seen the biggest gains of any sector in Harris' routine polls. Its slide throughout the year however may be indicative of a trend for 2022; new boosters and antivirals are incoming, but it’s likely that pharma won’t be getting the high-end and mainly positive media coverage it was in early 2021, so it could drop further. This is especially true when we start to see the major profits coming in for the likes of Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech, which could reach more than $100 billion collectively in sales by this time next year, when you factor in boosters and a new drug from Pfizer. What looks like wartime profiteering, and with around the half the world (mainly the poorer half) still struggling to gain access to their first shots, let alone boosters, don't be surprised if its reputation starts to come back to baseline.” 2022 forecast: Marketing COVID vaccines and drugs, and how pharma not brands, are taking center stage by Ben Adams https://www.fiercepharma.com/marketing/year-ahead-2022-marketing-covid-vaccines-and-drugs-and-how-pharma-not-brands-took-center (underline emphasis is mine

Prediction: the price gauging by Pfizer, Moderna and J&J in particular and Big Pharma in general will continue into 2022 and beyond. These inoculations can not, will not eradicate COVID, the fear porn and hysteria will continue. The media will continue to suppress the fact Coronaviruses mutate which is why vaccines can not and will never eradicate them! Look for the Pi, Rho, Sigma Tau variants in 2022.

             We are being lied to; it is not supply chain disruptions causing escalating prices, it is the increased money in circulation which is devaluing the currency whereby the increase in the money supply lessens the purchasing power of the dollars in existence. Inflation is actually caused when the Federal Reserve Bank (a consortium of privately owned banks) increases the money supply in circulation!  “Inflation, economically speaking, is an increase in the supply of currency. That may or may not lead to an increase in consumer prices, depending on the quantity of inflation, but prices will increase relative to what they would have been… Really poor people do not have wealth, by definition. They spend what they earn quickly, before it has been debased by much. So inflation does little more than keep them poor. Those who inflation really hurts are those who save, who keep currency for a rainy day. Who have balances at banks, or in insurance policies, or other things with a static value in currency.” Is currency debasement the real cause of inflation  https://www.quora.com/Is-currency-debasement-the-real-cause-of-inflation?share=1 

Inflation harms the middle class, the working poor and poor people the most. “One of the issues regarding poverty and inflation is that high inflation has a disproportionately large negative effect on those struggling with poverty. Inflation inequality describes the disparities between the effects inflation has on middle and upper-class people and lower-class people. There are multiple reasons why inflation affects people with lower incomes more than those with higher incomes. One of the main reasons has to do with the types of jobs these two types of people have. Lower-income people often don’t have much opportunity to negotiate their wages. When prices rise, wages for these individuals tend to stay stagnant for a while. Consequently, their purchasing power plummets. Higher-income people, on the other hand, tend to have jobs with inflation-adjusted benefits. When inflation occurs, these benefits limit the decrease in the individuals’ purchasing powers. This disparity is why during inflationary periods, income gaps widen.” The link between poverty and inflation https://borgenproject.org/poverty-and-inflation/

            We need to understand what inflation is and how it is caused. “Between December 2019 and August 2021, the U.S. money supply, measured by M2, grew by $5.5 trillion, a stunning 35.7% increase in only a year and a half, driven primarily by the Fed’s purchases of Treasury’s and mortgage-backed securities. In light of anticipated Federal Reserve tapering, we estimate that by the end of 2024 the money supply will grow another $5.1 trillion. Out of the total $10.6 trillion in new money, real GDP growth will drain roughly $1.4 trillion. Another $1 trillion will flow down the money demand drain. Since the amount of money flowing into the bathtub far exceeds the two outflows, the excess money in the tub—around $8.2 trillion—will hit the inflation overflow drain. The huge monetary expansion—$5.5 trillion already in the bathtub—is starting to reach the overflow. Persistent, not transitory, inflation will be with us for the next two to three years.”  The Money Bathtub Is Overflowing by John Greenwood and Steve H. Hanke https://www.wsj.com/articles/monetary-bathtub-overflowing-inflation-drain-transitory-11634847429 (underlined emphasis is mine.)

            Prediction: This inflationary spiral will continue; be prepared for a continued rising cost of living! Use these trends/predictions to improve your health, strengthen your immune system and figure out how you can personally lessen your economic uncertainty of 2022.

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posted by Junious Ricardo Stanton @ 10:14 AM