FORECASTS FOR 2023

Forecasts get a lot of attention around the beginning of the year. With every passing month, most people forget the predictions as they start focusing on the current and future challenges. As an economist and
academician, I too cannot avoid the temptations of looking into the future. The following is my set of forecasts. I guarantee 100% accuracy –with absolute modesty and with a smile.

1. The worldwide economic slowdown will continue through this year and that includes the top three economic epi-centers – the USA, China, and European Union.
2. The dollar will continue to be strong, not necessarily because the USA is doing better but because everyone else is doing worse.
3. Ukraine war will come to an end with Russia retaining Crimea and a small sliver of the former’s territory.
4. Economic refugees (officially seeking political asylum) will continue to stream through the most porous national border in the world –the southern states of the USA.
5. Football, the sport where people actually play with their feet, will continue to be the most played and watched sport in the world. Its popularity and TV broadcasts will go up in the United States, once they figure out how to insert commercials without losing the momentum of the game.
6. Technology, not China, will continue to take away jobs in the United States and will be the single important factor in closing the gap among countries and people.
7. Outsourcing to cheaper cost locations will continue –only Nearshoring (closer to home—for the USA it will be Mexico) will be the new trend. Globalization will be replaced by regionalization.
8. A version of covid will continue to plague the world in 2023. Annual updated covid vaccination will become the norm like flu vaccination.
9. Floods, extreme temperatures, hurricanes, and tsunamis/earthquakes will be more frequent with the world continuing to talk more and do less about environmental issues.
10. Human rights violations will continue in Myanmar, North Korea, Russia, and every other country which are ruled by autocrats.

Finally, the world will finally get tired of Harry and Meghan and their attempts to vilify the British Royal family and make money in the process. With every year his role as “Spare” (name of his book, signifying his position as second in line of succession) will further diminish. He is already relegated to No. 5 with Crown Prince William producing three kids.

Author: Faisal M. Rahman, Ph.D. is the Founding Dean and currently Professor at the Graham School of Management, Saint Xavier University, Chicago, IL

He is also the founder/principal of APAC group of healthcare companies and senior adviser in the M & A Division of DXTX Pain & Spine. His email – rahman@sxu.edu and fmr0007@gmail.com.