In a recent Substack article1 Adam Tooze, a financial crisis historian and director of the European Institute at Columbia University,2
reviews and explains what he calls the impending "polycrisis of doom" —
a perfect storm of global socioeconomic influences that signal trouble
ahead.
Big Picture Crisis Modeling
Using charts and "krisenbilder," i.e., "crisis pictures," Tooze
illustrates the many interconnected stress patterns at play on the
global scene. The first graphic below illustrated the situation as of
January 21, 2022.
The second graphic below shows the complexity caused by the Russia-Ukraine conflict as of February 24, 2022. As noted by Tooze:3
"What was once a relatively legible map has become a
tangled mess ... The war has had the impact it has because it has
exacerbated existing tensions. Food prices were already rising in 2021
and provoking warnings of a crisis to come.
Energy markets were stressed well before the war
broke out. Now both stressors are knotted together with the war. I have
highlighted in red what emerge as a series of macroscopic risks, all of
which may come to a head in the next 6-18 months."
Many Crises Are Hitting All at Once
As noted by Tooze, we now face a series of significant challenges,
and a) they're hitting us all at once, and b) several of them reinforce
and worsen each other. Also notable is the fact that there's great
uncertainty associated with some of them.
What might be the pandemic potential
of new COVID variants? Will the Russia-Ukraine conflict escalate into a
nuclear war? There's really no way to predict with any amount of
accuracy how those scenarios will play out. On the other hand, some of
these forces offset or ameliorate others but, again, it's hard to
predict the likelihood of them happening.
In the following chart, Tooze summarizes the major crisis points and
their likely influence on each other. Note he refers to these
interactions as "entirely provisional and highly debatable."
Indeed, some of his readers point out several additional influences
that could be added into the mix, such as the weaponization of the U.S.
dollar, the deplatforming of Russia from the SWIFT system, U.S. meddling
in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the push to expand NATO, allowing
health agencies to dictate economic policy and much more.
Still, Tooze's analysis — incomplete as it may be — can be useful for
those willing to ponder the potential ramifications of global
interactions that may be facing us over the next six to 18 months.
Predictions for 2023-2024
As explained by Tooze, "polycrisis" is not merely the presence of
several crises at once. Rather, it's "a situation ... where the whole is
even more dangerous than the sum of the parts."4
The reason why the whole ends up being more dangerous than any
combination of crises put together is the way they escalate, compound
and worsen each other in a symbiotic fashion. And, if Tooze is correct,
we may find ourselves smack-dab in the middle of this polycrisis
sometime in the next six to 18 months, or 2023 going into 2024. Tooze
explains:5
"What this matrix helps us to do is to distinguish
types of risk by the degree and type of their interconnectedness. The
risk of nuclear escalation stands out for the fact that it is not
significantly affected by any of the other risks.
It will be decided by the logic of the war and
decision-making in Moscow and Washington. A food crisis does not make a
nuclear escalation any more, or less likely. On the other hand, a
nuclear escalation would, to say the least, dramatically escalate
several of the other risks.
Continuing inflation will likely function as a driver
of several other risks, but those risks in turn (COVID, recession, EZ
sov debt crisis) will likely deescalate the risk of inflation.
I would not say that this is a forecast, but it does
bias me towards thinking that inflation will be transitory. Most of the
big shocks that we may expect, tend to be deflationary in their impact.
Conversely, a recession seems ever more likely in
part because the effect of most of the bad shocks we may expect — from
COVID, mounting inflation, or a fiscal deadlock in Congress — point in
that direction.
The obvious next step is to ask whether the feedback
loops in the matrix are positive or negative. So, for instance, a
recession makes a Eurozone sovereign debt crisis more likely, which in
turns would unleash serious deflationary pressures across Europe.
Conversely, inflation in fact seems self-calming. The
effects it produces tend rather the dampen inflation than to feed an
acceleration. At least as I have specified the matrix here.
A global hunger crisis seems alarmingly likely in
part because all the other major risks will exacerbate that problem. A
hunger crisis, however, will largely affect poor and powerless people in
low-income countries, so it is unlikely to feedback in exacerbating any
of the other major crises.
It is an effect of forces operating elsewhere, rather
than itself a driver of escalation. To this extent the matrix becomes a
way of charting the power hierarchy of uneven and combined development.
Some people receive shocks. Others dish them out."
Near-Term Outlook for the US Economy
In a July 1, 2022, Substack article,6
Tooze takes a deeper dive into the more near-term outlook for the
United States specifically. The Federal reserve is now tightening its
monetary policy "more steeply than at any time since the early 1980s,"
while inflation remains "stubbornly high" at the same time.
The question on everyone's mind is, are we in a recession, and might
it worsen into a depression? Recession is when a country experiences a
decline in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for two consecutive quarters,
while a depression is characterized by more long-term reductions in
economic activity.
According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the U.S. was officially in recession as of February 2020.7,8 When the economy grew 5.7% in 2021, a rebound was declared,9
but then the GDP dropped again, first by an annual rate of 1.6% in the
first quarter of 2022, followed by a negative 2.1% in the second
quarter,10 which technically placed the U.S. in recession territory yet again.
Tooze notes that a majority of economists are optimistic and predict
only a mild and temporary recession to hit in 2023, but real-time
evidence doesn't look good. As of early July 2022, consumer spending,
domestic investments, mortgage applications, manufacturing and U.S.
railroad cyclical cargo loads are all declining, while inflation and
interest rates are rising.11,12
Consumer sentiment, an indication of people's confidence in the
economy and their willingness to spend, is also tanking at a record
rate.13 Tooze ends his review stating:
"All told, you might say that this is a gloomy
outlook. And there are those who are increasingly skeptical of the
possibility of a soft landing. But, it is surely far too early to tell.
If the aim of the game is to control inflation by
bringing about a slowdown, then the evidence we are seeing, so far, is
precisely what you would look for. What remains to be seen is how the
different recessionary forces interact, and whether they brew up into
really heavy weather."
Two Strategies to Strengthen Your Resilience
While we may not be able to accurately predict just how bad the
situation will get, it seems prudent to say that we're all facing some
hard times. One factor that Tooze does not include in any of his
analyses is the now-apparent fact that some of these crises are
intentionally manufactured, with the goal of breaking apart and
dismantling current systems in order to justify the introduction of
entirely new systems.
The financial system and the food system are two key examples where
intentional deconstruction appears to be taking place. Basically, what
the technocratic elitists who fancy themselves rulers of the world
intend to argue is that because the systems are no longer working, they
must be "built back better."
However, the new systems will in no way, shape or form benefit the
population at large. This is true globally, not just in the United
States. These new systems, delineated under the flag of The Great Reset,
are slave systems which, when networked together, will form a virtual
digital prison.
Every person on the planet will be under their collective thumb, as
the technocrats will own everything while the rest of humanity will be
allocated resources such as food and energy based on obedience criteria.
The good news is that more and more people are waking up to what this
"deep state" cabal is up to, and that's another wild card that can
upend things and, hopefully, lessen the impacts of some of these crises.
Two strategies that can strengthen individual and local resilience to
the stresses facing us are the creation of local food systems14 and the strengthening of neighborhood and community connections.
By building a strong local food system, you reduce food insecurity,
and by building a community network of specialists, you reduce the
effects of a crumbling financial system as you can simply barter goods
and services.
Social cohesion also offers many psychological benefits.15
Local food systems and community networks both also reduce individuals'
reliance on government handouts, and by extension, they're less likely
to be forced into these new Great Reset slave systems.
How to Build a Local Food System
As explained by Brian Williams, a former local food planner in Columbus, Ohio, in a 2017 StrongTown article,16
building a strong local food system goes beyond community gardens,
farmer's markets and community-supported agriculture (CSA) shares.
While these are valuable gateways, they don't go far enough. He
provides several excellent suggestions for those willing to spearhead a
local food movement in their own hometown, including the following.
Williams includes several other suggestions, which you can read through
in his article, but these are some of the central ones:17
• Secure local-purchasing commitments from schools, hospitals, colleges, restaurants, local grocers and other institutions — Such commitments are crucial for developing the necessary infrastructure for a strong local food market.
When you have demand from large institutions, you can then bring
farmers, food processors and distributors into a complete supply chain
network, as the contracts will be large enough to support everyone and
make the endeavor financially viable.
• Enlist support from existing food processors and distributors —
Many small-scale, family-run businesses struggle to make ends meet, and
may be more than willing to become part of your local network. Two key
components are slaughterhouses and trucking companies to distribute the
food from one place to another. But you also need food processors that
can wash, pack and dice or cut the food.
• Build a network of local farmers willing to collaborate — Individual farmers may not be able to meet the demands of large contracts, but pooling the output from several farms might.
• Build the economic infrastructure —
If certain services are not available, determine what's needed and put
out a call out to the community. You never know who might be willing to
start a company to fill a local need.
Keep in mind that financial productivity is key for making a local
food system work. Everyone involved must benefit financially, or the
system won't be sustainable. The good news is that a local network keeps
the money inside the community, and it's easier to stay financially
viable when nothing is being siphoned off to out-of-state players that
don't spend their earnings within your community.
• Build relationships with local
public health officials, economic development officials, legislative
representatives and bankers — As noted by Williams, "Public
health officials ... regulate local food-related businesses. If their
regulation seems too rigid or unrealistic, economic development experts
can help iron out the details and look for other opportunities.
Food banks already have trucks and are possible partners in
distribution challenges. Bankers have money to lend to farmers who want
to expand, distributors who need another truck, and processors that are
growing to meet demand."