🚨 Breaking... 𝙁𝙤𝙧 𝙥𝙚𝙤𝙥𝙡𝙚 𝙖𝙨𝙠𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙬𝙝𝙮 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙨𝙚𝙚𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙈𝙞𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙖𝙧𝙮 𝙏𝙧𝙞𝙗𝙪𝙣𝙖𝙡𝙨. 𝙃𝙚𝙧𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙜𝙚𝙩 𝙖 𝙜𝙡𝙞𝙢𝙥𝙨𝙚 𝙞𝙣𝙩𝙤 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙤𝙣 𝙬𝙝𝙮 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙞𝙨 𝙗𝙚𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙧𝙤𝙡𝙡𝙚𝙙 𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙞𝙣 𝙖 𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙩𝙧𝙤𝙡𝙡𝙚𝙙 𝙢𝙖𝙣𝙣𝙚𝙧. 𝙏𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙩𝙧𝙮𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙤 𝙨𝙩𝙖𝙧𝙩 𝙖𝙣𝙮 𝙪𝙥𝙝𝙚𝙖𝙫𝙖𝙡 𝙗𝙚𝙘𝙖𝙪𝙨𝙚 𝙞𝙩 𝙬𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝙧𝙚𝙞𝙣𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙘𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙥𝙤𝙬𝙚𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙠𝙚𝙙 𝙨𝙤 𝙝𝙖𝙧𝙙 𝙩𝙤 𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙚 𝙞𝙣 𝙤𝙧𝙙𝙚𝙧 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙪𝙨 𝙩𝙤 𝙢𝙖𝙠𝙚 𝙞𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙛𝙖𝙧. 𝙋𝙚𝙤𝙥𝙡𝙚 𝙬𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙗𝙚 𝙖𝙗𝙡𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝙝𝙖𝙣𝙙𝙡𝙚 𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙩𝙮𝙥𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙞𝙣𝙛𝙤 𝙖𝙩 𝙤𝙣𝙘𝙚. Satanic Ritual Abuse Ped•phili▪️ 🩸drenchr•me Child Experiments E•ting Children Can you imagine if people found out their most beloved figures in the world participated in this? • Rapid exposure to horrifying truths could overwhelm individuals, leading to widespread anxiety, depression, and a sense of helplessness. This trauma could impact mental health on a massive scale. Especially considering billions of brainwashed people who will think the world is ending. • Such revelations could deepen existing divides within society, fostering distrust among communities. People may struggle to reconcile their beliefs about their favorite celebrities with the new information, leading to polarization. Which will play into their hatred of those they consider extremists. • A sudden upheaval of societal norms might provoke violent reactions from those who feel betrayed or threatened. This could lead to unrest, protests, or even riots, further destabilizing communities. Something the military do not have the resources to control while also trying to stop riots and the destruction of property. • If the public becomes fearful, it could be easier for certain groups to manipulate that fear to maintain control or push specific agendas, sustaining the status quo rather than dismantling it. Which will bring all of this back to square one. • Conversely, constant exposure to sensationalized news about these topics could lead to desensitization. People may become numb to the information, losing the capacity for empathy and urgency needed to address real issues. And this will no longer have the affect we fought so long for. And people will crash out. The best channel ever: https://t.me/BenjaminFulfordJ ✅️

New confessions of spy cell reveal US targeting of political reality in Yemen New confessions of spy cell reveal US targeting of political reality in Yemen SANA'A August 18. 2024 (Saba) - New confessions of the US-Israeli spy cell broadcast by the security services this evening revealed the extent of the American targeting of the political reality in Yemen before and during the youth revolution in 2011. The confessions included the American side's recruitment and polarization of party leaders, controlling the course of the elections, as well as fueling conflicts among parties, in addition to targeting the parliament and recruiting some of its members to work on implementing the American agenda. The confessions in this aspect also included the major American role in infiltrating the youth revolution, recruiting leaders in the arena, and supporting certain components to control the revolution. In this context, spy Shayef al-Hamdani explained that the democratic sector worked from the beginning to determine the president who manages Yemen by supporting the presidential elections and controlling the High Election Commission. The spy Abdul Moeen Azzan explained that the election program at the American Democratic Institute was run by a Yemeni expert named Murad Zafer, and it was apparent that the program would provide technical support to political parties regarding the elections, how to participate in the elections, target voters and others, and on the basis that it also provides technical support to the Supreme Elections and Referendum Commission. He pointed out that the election program was no different from other programs, as it had a hidden intelligence role, most notably attracting party leaders who were interested in the subject of elections, and most importantly, the institute and its successor the embassy and US intelligence were seeking through the program to obtain the electoral register of citizens, with the justification of seeking to automate the record, which was then paper. In the context of his confessions, spy Shayef al-Hamdani revealed that USAID in Yemen worked with the rest of the offices and attachés at the US embassy with the High Election Commission on the days of the presidential elections between Ali Abdul Allah Saleh and Faisal bin Shamlan. He acknowledged that he was part of a team consisting of various departments of the US embassy managed by "Brad Hansen", who assigned him to follow up on the Supreme Election Committee to find out that the election process is going according to what America wants and to see the progress of work and arrangements made by the committee and to go to the most prominent constituencies and electoral centers in terms of the number of voters, with a focus on the districts in which there is the public weight that will determine who will win the elections. He explained that "Brad Hansen" was assisting the High Election Commission and his administration was likely to win Ali Abdul Allah Saleh in the elections at the time. Recruitment of party leaders According to spy Abdul Moeen Azzan, he worked indirectly for US intelligence through Murad Zafer, who was then the director of programs and played a role in preparing Yemeni employees and preparing them to work later for US intelligence, as he gave him instructions on how to recruit, obtain information and establish relationships. The party platform, which was run by a Serbian woman named Saša Pšvić, ostensibly provided support to Yemeni political parties and leaders, when in fact it was working to attract party and political leaders and recruit them for US intelligence, he said, and also worked to convince the parties that the US embassy is the sponsor of the political process in Yemen and the arbitrator of political disagreement and conflict between the various parties. In turn, the spy Shayef Al-Hamdani said that support was provided to people in certain political parties to strengthen their parties, so everyone was seeking to please America in terms of building a relationship with it, and all parties and personalities were seeking to satisfy it, such as Dr. Yassin Saeed Noman, who was one of the closest confidants and friends of the US embassy, and Abdulmalik Al Mekhlafi from the Nasserite party. About the Islah Party, the spy Al-Hamdani explained that the meeting was taking place with the leader of the party, Abdul Wahab Al-Ansi, and others, but on the military side, there was an intimate relationship between Lieutenant General Ali Mohsen Al-Ahmar and the US Embassy, especially with Ambassador "Fire Stein", who frequented him a lot and had many joint visits between them. He stated that one of the most important goals sought by the embassy and the agency was to have an integral role between the various agencies of the embassy concerning the aspect of democracy and good governance until joint decisions were reached that provide support or intelligence benefit for everything, by attracting these figures to work to create unrest between political parties, so that reform cannot tolerate the General People's Congress, and does not tolerate socialism for ideological reasons, so all parties were involved in conflicts at the behest of America. So that the political situation remains sleazy. According to the spy Azzan, there was a program that ostensibly sought to build the capacity of parties to be able to participate in elections and attract voters and others, but its real goal was to attract large political elites, especially those who refused to deal with the Americans at that period. He pointed out that the entry of the Institute at the end of the nineties coincided with the fall of the Soviet Union and the beginning of what was called the new world order "unipolar system" that Clinton was heralding. He pointed out that most of the Yemeni parties were nationalist, leftist, and Islamist, and all of them were not favored to work or cooperate with America, but the Democratic Institute played a role in attracting many of the leaders of these parties to work to support the American agenda, which enabled the US embassy to play a role larger than its size due to the different roles played by the programs of the Democratic Institute. The spy Azzan admitted that he worked as an assistant to the head of the parliament program at the institute, who was of Canadian nationality, in following up the sessions of the House of Representatives daily and making summaries, both from the news and later through journalists who were working inside the House and even from deputies. He indicated that he was communicating with MPs on behalf of the Canadian person to get the information he wanted. "During my work at the Democratic Institute within the parliamentary program, Murad Zafer, along with a Lebanese expert named Ali Shaheen, was studying mainly the emergence of the emerging movement at the time, the Ansar al-Allah movement, its movements, size, activity, and others, and they were very interested in it, and I also helped in the studies and reports they were preparing about the Ansar Allah movement at that time," he said. The spy Azzan pointed out that he was promoted to an official in the parliament program and continued to manage the program until mid-2009 when the program attracted a group of parliamentarians through a person named "Saad Eddin bin Talib", who was a member of parliament before joining the Institute, and he is a CIA and he attracted a group of deputies and made personal relations with them. He pointed out that the so-called student used to host parliamentarians in his house and exploit, as is the American method, the conflict between the authority and the opposition in promoting the role that America provides, whether to the authority by maintaining it in its hand, or to the opposition by helping it to reach power. The spy Azzan revealed that one of the intelligence works carried out by attracting parliamentarian "Abdul Moez Dibwan", through which he obtained a lot of information and sites, some of which were used in the oil side in Yemen and work for oil companies, explorations, and others. He explained that he was reporting directly to the head of the Yemen office within the administration of the Democratic Institute in Washington, "Katherine Miles," on the Yemeni parliament and its conditions, especially about the aspects of oil, exploration, and others. The role of the embassy in targeting parliament On the negative role of the US embassy in targeting the parliament, spy Abdul Qader Al-Saqqaf explained that the embassy was intensifying meetings with active members of parliament, establishing extensive relations with them, sending them to courses in America, visits to the US House of Representatives, and also within the international visitor program, which is a tourism program to strengthen relations with them. He pointed out that the embassy was keen on the presence of parliamentarians in the parties held annually as well as the parties held in foreign and Arab embassies, so that during these intensive meetings coordination with them regarding what is addressed in parliament, to pass what the Americans request concerning loans and the purchase of weapons, and any agreements in the field of security, counter-terrorism, economic fields and any projects in favor of the Americans, as well as obstructing projects that are not in the interest of the American side. He stated that one of the most prominent parliamentarians who had a strong relationship and communicated with the US embassy was "Sultan al-Barakani" and sometimes invited the political attaché at that time to attend the sessions as a guest of honor, and arranged many meetings. "Some mixed parliamentarians had an organization called Parliamentarians Against Corruption, including Sakhr al-Wajeeh, Muhammad Ali al-Shaddadi, and others, who were holding their meetings at al-Shadadi's house when the organization was in the process of being formed, and the political attaché of the US embassy attended these meetings," he said. Al-Saqqaf pointed out that meetings were also held between Mohamed Al-Hazmi of the Islah bloc and the political official at the US embassy in 2009 or 2010, as well as between Hashem Al-Ahmar at his home with the assistants of the political attaché. He pointed out that MP Othman Megally was preparing to meet with the US ambassador directly at the embassy headquarters, and there were meetings of the embassy with other members such as Shawqi Al-Qadi, who had an organization to train mosque preachers and had a relationship with the Media and Cultural Attaché in the Middle East Partnership Initiative "MEPI" department, where he used to get ideas and proposals on how to implement training courses for preachers and obtain financial grants to run this organization. He reported that the head of the Islah parliamentary bloc, Zaid al-Shami, and his deputy, Abdul Razzaq al-Hijri, had meetings with the political attaché at the headquarters of the Islah party on parliamentary and party matters. Intelligence work across organizations' projects The spy Hashem al-Wazir revealed that all USAID projects and any Western projects of the United Nations and other Western organizations have always come under the banner of providing aid to the country and the people, but they include a more important and dangerous hidden part related to intelligence work through these projects, regardless of their different fields. "For example, the NDI Institute is entrusted with the process of attracting VIPs, recruiting them, and linking them directly to the US embassy, specifically with the US ambassador and the deputy ambassador, so that they manage from them directly and provide information directly to the CIA, which is the most important department in the embassy and the most important US agency in formulating foreign policies," he said. "The institute was entrusted with the recruitment process, the departments of media figures, leaders of civil society organizations, women and youth, who were usually managed by American diplomats who are heads of departments concerned with these topics and provide information to them to be submitted directly to the CIA department at the embassy," he said. This spy explained that the RGP project had a similar work in providing networks of American labor in the various entities in which it worked under the name of capacity building, whether in the Presidency of the Republic, for example, or in the Prime Minister's Office by recruiting department managers, deputy directors, director of the Prime Minister's Office and spokesman for the Prime Minister's Office, who are linked to the project manager, who connects them directly to both the director of the agency and his deputy, who manage them for the CIA department through Take information from them directly. He explained that opposition political elites were also attracted by inviting them to various embassy meetings and parties, where most political figures used to come to those occasions, and these figures were also sent in programs related to the exchange of visits with the United States. He pointed out that these visits were carried out by several personalities with political, economic, and social weight until the matter reached the level of judges who participated in the international visitor program. The minister confirmed that these people were closely connected to the cultural attaché and the US embassy in general and were a source of data and information, especially about the judiciary and law-making. Federalism is an American scheme for the division of Yemen In this context, the spy Hisham Al-Wazir explained that through his review of documents in the United States Agency for Development, he noticed that there were projects supported by the Ministry of Local Administration during the period in which the Agency was opened in 2004 to 2010, and coordination was at the highest level between the Agency and the Americans themselves and other donors, and the United Nations Development Program participated in this matter with the support of local councils and decentralization between the years 2005 to 2009 with the Ministry of Local Administration, and There is coordination at the highest level on this issue with the Germans through the German Development Agency, the British, the Dutch and the World Bank. He stressed that working on the issue of federalism in Yemen is a previous American work. He pointed out that during his work in the commercial department, he heard the US ambassador say that "the solution to the problems of Yemen is federalism," and when he joined the US Agency for Development, he heard the same words from his co-worker, Afrah Al-Zoba, who reported that she was informed in one of her visits to Washington that Yemen as a unified state will end and will not exist anymore and there will be a federal state divided into several sections. American targeting of the youth revolution In this aspect, spy Shayef Al-Hamdani revealed that when the youth revolution began in 2011, there was a hidden role for the US embassy in general, including the United States Agency for Development through the democracy and good governance sector, where some youth components were secretly supported to ensure building relationships with those who have a decision regarding the youth revolution. "I am talking about the leaders of this youth revolution, including Tawakkol Karman, who participated in the International Visitor Program through the United States Agency for Development, as well as Hossam Al-Sharjabi, Afrah Al-Zouba and Osama Al-Roaini, who had a prominent role in this context," he said. He pointed out that the aim is to form personalities with a future role in reaching the decision-making center and enabling the United States to control the decision through these people, and there was interest by the US embassy to control the revolution to keep the political, economic and social situation in Yemen under their control, so the focus was on the youth component as they are the largest segment in society. He pointed out that many personalities have reached prominent positions in the national dialogue, such as Osama Al-Roaini, Afrah Al-Zoba, Hossam Al-Sharjabi, and other young people who have reached government centers that can make decisions, such as Jalal Yaqoub, who also reached the position of Undersecretary of the Ministry of Finance. In the context, the spy Abdul Moeen Azzan also revealed the intelligence role assigned to him in 2011 during the protests in the squares, where civil society organizations present in the square or their representatives were contacted to obtain information about the square and any movements or orientations of young people and the various blocs within the square through these organizations that were partners of the so-called "MEPI", which in turn carried out activities inside the tents in the square. He explained that these organizations were receiving support and grants from the MEPI, which had relations and contacts with the various youth groups within the arena, and reports with all the information were submitted to Joan Cummins. Spy Mohamed al-Kharashi said groups were sent to monitor the squares and find out which prominent figures joined them daily, as well as the most prominent events, and worked to write them in a report and send them to the regional security officer immediately. Ali Mohsen's joining is a service to America According to spy Shayef al-Hamdani, the United States noticed that the revolution in Yemen began to take another dimension and worked to preserve its interests through the component of the Yemeni Congregation for Reform, so Ali Mohsen was instructed to announce his separation from the armed forces and join the youth revolution, as well as other figures from the Islah Party such as Hamid al-Ahmar and others to provide support and control over the youth revolution at the time for political goals that serve American interests. "Through my work during this period in the political attaché at the US embassy, it was clear that the American interventions led to the disruption of society and the creation of inter-conflict until we reached 2011, which witnessed a division in society, parties, and even within the framework of the ruling conference itself," he said. He pointed out that all this prepared for foreign interventions, which brought the idea of the Gulf initiative adopted by Saudi Arabia with the help of the five permanent members and other supporting countries that became called the "ten countries sponsoring the initiative", which led to the expansion of chaos. He pointed out that with the widening circle of chaos, the UN envoy was sent to save the national dialogue, which ultimately serves the interest of America through the so-called "Yemen regionalization project", which is part of the plan to fragment the country required. E.M https://www.saba.ye/en/news3360012.htm

The Age of Megathreats Nouriel RoubiniNov 4, 2022 op_roubini3_Getty Images_worlddisaster Getty Images NEW YORK – Severe megathreats are imperiling our future – not just our jobs, incomes, wealth, and the global economy, but also the relative peace, prosperity, and progress achieved over the past 75 years. Many of these threats were not even on our radar during the prosperous post-World War II era. I grew up in the Middle East and Europe from the late 1950s to the early 1980s, and I never worried about climate change potentially destroying the planet. Most of us had barely even heard of the problem, and greenhouse-gas emissions were still relatively low, compared to where they would soon be. Moreover, after the US-Soviet détente and US President Richard Nixon’s visit to China in the early 1970s, I never really worried about another war among great powers, let alone a nuclear one. The term “pandemic” didn’t register in my consciousness, either, because the last major one had been in 1918. And I didn’t fathom that artificial intelligence might someday destroy most jobs and render Homo sapiens obsolete, because those were the years of the long “AI winter.” Similarly, terms like “deglobalization” and “trade war” had no purchase during this period. Trade liberalization had been in full swing since the Great Depression, and it would soon lead to the hyper-globalization that began in the 1990s. Debt crises posed no threat, because private and public debt-to-GDP ratios were low in advanced economies and emerging markets, and growth was robust. No one had to worry about the massive build-up of implicit debt, in the form of unfunded liabilities from pay-as-you-go social security and health-care systems. The supply of young workers was rising, the share of the elderly was still low, and robust, mostly unrestricted immigration from the Global South to the North would continue to prop up the labor market in advanced economies. Against this backdrop, economic cycles were contained, and recessions were short and shallow, except for during the stagflationary decade of the 1970s; but even then, there were no debt crises in advanced economies, because debt ratios were low. The kind of financial cycles that lead to crises were contained not just in advanced economies but even in emerging markets, owing to the low leverage, low risk-taking, solid financial regulation, capital controls, and various forms of financial repression that prevailed during this period. The advanced economies were strong liberal democracies that were free of extreme partisan polarization. Populism and authoritarianism were confined to a benighted cohort of poorer countries. Goodbye to All That Fast-forward from this relatively “golden” period between 1945 and 1985 to late 2022, and you will immediately notice that we are awash in new, extreme megathreats that were not previously on anyone’s mind. The world has entered what I call a geopolitical depression, with (at least) four dangerous revisionist powers – China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea – challenging the economic, financial, security, and geopolitical order that the United States and its allies created after WWII. There is a sharply rising risk not only of war among great powers but of a nuclear conflict. In the coming year, Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine could escalate into an unconventional conflict that directly involves NATO. And Israel – and perhaps the US – may decide to launch strikes against Iran, which is on its way to building a nuclear bomb. Subscribe to PS Digital now to read all the latest insights from Nouriel Roubini. Digital subscribers enjoy access to every PS commentary, including those by Nouriel Roubini, plus our entire On Point suite of subscriber-exclusive content, including Longer Reads, Insider Interviews, Big Picture/Big Question, and Say More. For a limited time, save $15 with the code ROUBINI15. Subscribe Now With Chinese President Xi Jinping further consolidating his authoritarian rule, and with the US tightening its trade restrictions against China, the new Sino-American cold war is getting colder by the day. Worse, it could all too easily turn hot over the status of Taiwan, which Xi is committed to reuniting with the mainland, and which US President Joe Biden is apparently committed to defending. Meanwhile, nuclear-armed North Korea has once again been seeking attention by firing rockets over Japan and South Korea. Cyberwarfare occurs daily between these revisionist powers and the West, and many other countries have adopted a non-aligned posture toward Western-led sanctions regimes. From our contingent vantage point in the middle of all these events, we don’t yet know if World War III has already begun in Ukraine. That determination will be left to future historians – if there are any. Even discounting the threat of nuclear Armageddon, the risk of an environmental Apocalypse is becoming increasingly serious, especially given that most of the talk about net-zero and ESG (environment, social, and governance) investing is just greenwashing – or greenwishing. The new greenflation is already in full swing, because it turns out that amassing the metals needed for the energy transition requires a lot of expensive energy. There is also a growing risk of new pandemics that would be worse than biblical plagues, owing to the link between environmental destruction and zoonotic diseases. Wildlife, carrying dangerous pathogens, are coming into closer and more frequent contact with humans and livestock. That is why we have experienced more frequent and virulent pandemics and epidemics (HIV, SARS, MERS, swine flu, bird flu, Zika, Ebola, COVID-19) since the early 1980s. All the evidence suggests that this problem will become even worse in the future. Indeed, owing to the melting of Siberian permafrost, we may soon be confronting dangerous viruses and bacteria that have been locked away for millennia. Moreover, geopolitical conflicts and national-security concerns are fueling trade, financial, and technology wars, and accelerating the deglobalization process. The return of protectionism and the Sino-American decoupling will leave the global economy, supply chains, and markets more balkanized and fragmented. The buzzwords “friend-shoring” and “secure and fair trade” have replaced “offshoring” and “free trade.” But on the domestic front, advances in AI, robotics, and automation will destroy more and more jobs, even if policymakers build higher protectionist walls in an effort to fight the last war. By both restricting immigration and demanding more domestic production, aging advanced economies will create a stronger incentive for companies to adopt labor-saving technologies. While routine jobs are obviously at risk, so, too, are any cognitive jobs that can be unbundled into discrete tasks, and even many creative jobs. AI language models like GPT-3 can already write better than most humans and will almost certainly displace many jobs and sources of income. In due course, some scientists believe that Homo sapiens will be rendered entirely obsolete by the rise of artificial general intelligence or machine super-intelligence – though this is a highly contentious subject of debate. Thus, over time, economic malaise will deepen, inequality will rise even further, and more white- and blue-collar workers will be left behind. Hard Choices, Hard Landings The macroeconomic situation is no better. For the first time since the 1970s, we are facing high inflation and the prospect of a recession – stagflation. The increased inflation in advanced economies wasn’t “transitory.” It is persistent, driven by a combination of bad policies – excessively loose monetary, fiscal, and credit policies that were kept in place for too long – and bad luck. No one could have anticipated how much the initial COVID-19 shock would curtail the supply of goods and labor and create bottlenecks in global supply chains. The same goes for Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, which caused a sharp spike in energy, food, fertilizers, industrial metals, and other commodities. Meanwhile, China has continued its “zero-COVID” policy, which is creating additional supply bottlenecks. While both demand and supply factors were in the mix, it is now widely recognized that the supply factors have played an increasingly decisive role. This matters for the economic outlook, because supply-driven inflation is stagflationary and thus increases the risk that monetary-policy tightening will produce a hard landing (increased unemployment and potentially a recession). What will follow from the US Federal Reserve and other major central banks’ current tightening? Until recently, most central banks and most of Wall Street belonged to “Team Soft Landing.” But the consensus has rapidly shifted, with even Fed Chair Jerome Powell recognizing that a recession is possible, that a soft landing will be “very challenging,” and that everyone should prepare for some “pain” ahead. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s model shows a high probability of a hard landing, and the Bank of England has expressed similar views about the United Kingdom. Several prominent Wall Street institutions have also now made a recession their baseline scenario (the most likely outcome if all other variables are held constant). History, too, points to deeper problems ahead. For the past 60 years in the US, whenever inflation has been above 5% (it is above 8% today), and unemployment has been below 5% (it is now 3.5%), any attempt by the Fed to bring inflation down toward its 2% target has caused a recession. Thus, a hard landing is much more likely than a soft landing, both in the US and across most other advanced economies. Sticky Stagflation In addition to the short-term factors, negative supply shocks and demand factors in the medium term will cause inflation to persist. On the supply side, I count eleven negative supply shocks that will reduce potential growth and increase the costs of production. Among these is the backlash against hyper-globalization, which has been gaining momentum and creating opportunities for populist, nativist, and protectionist politicians, and growing public anger over stark income and wealth inequalities, which is leading to more policies to support workers and the “left behind.” However well-intentioned, such measures will contribute to a dangerous wage-price spiral. Other sources of persistent inflation include rising protectionism (from both the left and the right), which has restricted trade, impeded the movement of capital, and heightened political resistance to immigration, which in turn has put additional upward pressure on wages. National-security and strategic considerations have further restricted flows of technology, data, and talent, and new labor and environmental standards, as important as they may be, are hampering both trade and new construction. This balkanization of the global economy is deeply stagflationary, and it is coinciding with demographic aging, not just in developed countries but also in large emerging economies such as China. Because young people tend to produce and save more, whereas older people spend down their savings and require many more expensive services in health care and other sectors, this trend, too, will lead to higher prices and slower growth. Today’s geopolitical turmoil further complicates matters. The disruptions to trade and the spike in commodity prices following Russia’s invasion were not just a one-off phenomenon. The same threats to harvests and food shipments that arose in 2022 may well persist in 2023. Moreover, if China does finally end its zero-COVID policy and begin to restart its economy, a surge in demand for many commodities will add to the global inflationary pressures. There is also no end in sight for Sino-Western decoupling, which is accelerating across all dimensions of trade (goods, services, capital, labor, technology, data, and information). And, of course, Iran, North Korea, and other strategic rivals to the West could soon contribute in their own ways to the global havoc. Now that the US dollar has been fully weaponized for strategic and national-security purposes, its position as the main global reserve currency could eventually begin to decline, and a weaker dollar would of course add to inflationary pressures in the US. More broadly, a frictionless world trading system requires a frictionless financial system. But sweeping primary and secondary sanctions have thrown sand in what was once a well-oiled machine, massively increasing the transaction costs of trade. On top of it all, climate change, too, will create persistent stagflationary pressures. Droughts, heat waves, hurricanes, and other disasters are increasingly disrupting economic activity and threatening harvests (thus driving up food prices). At the same time, demands for decarbonization have led to underinvestment in fossil-fuel capacity before investment in renewables has reached the point where they can make up the difference. Today’s large energy-price spikes were inevitable. The increased likelihood of future pandemics also represents a persistent source of stagflation, especially considering how little has been done to prevent or prepare for the next one. The next contagious outbreak will lend further momentum to protectionist policies as countries rush to close borders and hoard critical supplies of food, medicines, and other essential goods. Finally, cyberwarfare remains an underappreciated threat to economic activity and even public safety. Firms and governments will either face more stagflationary disruptions to production, or they will have to spend a fortune on cybersecurity. Either way, costs will rise. The Worst of All Possible Economies When the recession comes, it will not be short and shallow but long and severe. Not only are we facing persistent short- and medium-term negative supply shocks, but we are also heading into the mother of all debt crises, owing to soaring private and public debt ratios over the last few decades. Low debt ratios spared us from that outcome in the 1970s. And though we certainly had debt crises following the 2008 crash – the result of excessive household, bank, and government debt – we also had deflation. It was a demand shock and a credit crunch that could be met with massive monetary, fiscal, and credit easing. Today, we are experiencing the worst elements of both the 1970s and 2008. Multiple, persistent negative supply shocks have coincided with debt ratios that are even higher than they were during the global financial crisis. These inflationary pressures are forcing central banks to tighten monetary policy even though we are heading into a recession. That makes the current situation fundamentally different from both the global financial crisis and the COVID-19 crisis. Everyone should be preparing for what may come to be remembered as the Great Stagflationary Debt Crisis. While central banks have been at pains to sound more hawkish, we should be skeptical of their professed willingness to fight inflation at any cost. Once they find themselves in a debt trap, they will have to blink. With debt ratios so high, fighting inflation will cause an economic and financial crash that will be deemed politically unacceptable. Major central banks will feel as though they have no choice but to backpedal, and inflation, the debasement of fiat currencies, boom-bust cycles, and financial crises will become even more severe and frequent. The inevitability of central banks wimping out was recently on display in the United Kingdom. Faced with the market reaction to the Truss government’s reckless fiscal stimulus, the BOE had to launch an emergency quantitative-easing (QE) program to buy up government bonds. That sad episode confirmed that in the UK, as in many other countries, monetary policy is increasingly subject to fiscal capture. Recall that a similar turnaround occurred in 2019, when the Fed, after previously signaling continued rate hikes and quantitative-tightening, stopped its QT program and started pursuing a mix of backdoor QE and policy-rate cuts at the first sign of mild financial pressures and a growth slowdown. Central banks will talk tough; but, in a world of excessive debt and risks of an economic and financial crash, there is good reason to doubt their willingness to do “whatever it takes” to return inflation to its target rate. With governments unable to reduce high debts and deficits by spending less or raising revenues, those that can borrow in their own currency will increasingly resort to the “inflation tax”: relying on unexpected price growth to wipe out long-term nominal liabilities at fixed interest rates. How will financial markets and prices of equities and bonds perform in the face of rising inflation and the return of stagflation? It is likely that, as in the stagflation of the 1970s, both components of any traditional asset portfolio will suffer, potentially incurring massive losses. Inflation is bad for bond portfolios, which will take losses as yields increase and prices fall, as well as for equities, whose valuations are hurt by rising interest rates. For the first time in decades, a 60/40 portfolio of equities and bonds suffered massive losses in 2022, because bond yields have surged while equities have gone into a bear market. By 1982, at the peak of the stagflation decade, the average S&P 500 firm’s price-to-earnings ratio was down to eight; today, it is closer to 20, which suggests that the bear market could end up being even more protracted and severe. Investors will need to find assets to hedge against inflation, political and geopolitical risks, and environmental damage: these include short-term government bonds and inflation-indexed bonds, gold and other precious metals, and real estate that is resilient to environmental damage. The Moment of Truth In any case, these megathreats will further contribute to rising income and wealth inequality, which has already been putting severe pressure on liberal democracies (as those left behind revolt against elites), and fueling the rise of radical and aggressive populist regimes. One can find right-wing manifestations of this trend in Russia, Turkey, Hungary, Italy, Sweden, the US (under Donald Trump), post-Brexit Britain, and many other countries; and left-wing manifestations in Argentina, Venezuela, Peru, Mexico, Colombia, Chile, and now Brazil (which has just replaced a right-wing populist with a left-wing one). And, of course, Xi’s authoritarian stranglehold has given the lie to the old idea that Western engagement with a fast-growing China would ineluctably lead that country to open itself up even more to markets and, eventually, to democratic processes. Under Xi, China shows every sign of becoming more closed off, and more aggressive on geopolitical, security, and economic matters. How did it come to this? Part of the problem is that we have long had our heads stuck in the sand. Now, we need to make up for lost time. Without decisive action, we will be heading into a period that is less like the four decades after WWII than like the three decades between 1914 and 1945. That period gave us World War I; the Spanish flu pandemic; the 1929 Wall Street crash; the Great Depression; massive trade and currency wars; inflation, hyperinflation, and deflation; financial and debt crises, leading to massive meltdowns and defaults; and the rise of authoritarian militarist regimes in Italy, Germany, Japan, Spain, and elsewhere, culminating in WWII and the Holocaust. In this new world, the relative peace, prosperity, and rising global welfare that we have taken for granted will be gone; most of it already is. If we don’t stop the multi-track slow-motion train wreck that is threatening the global economy and our planet at large, we will be lucky to have only a repeat of the stagflationary 1970s. Far more likely is an echo of the 1930s and the 1940s, only now with all the massive disruptions from climate change added to the mix. Avoiding a dystopian scenario will not be easy. While there are potential solutions to each megathreat, most are costly in the short run and will deliver benefits only over the long run. Many also require technological innovations that are not yet available or in place, starting with those needed to halt or reverse climate change. Complicating matters further, today’s megathreats are interconnected, and therefore best addressed in a systematic and coherent fashion. Domestic leadership, in both the private and public sector, and international cooperation among great powers is necessary to prevent the coming Apocalypse. Yet there are many domestic and international obstacles standing in the way of policies that would allow for a less dystopian (though still contested and conflictual) future. Thus, while a less bleak scenario is obviously desirable, a clear-headed analysis indicates that dystopia is much more likely than a happier outcome. The years and decades ahead will be marked by a stagflationary debt crisis and related megathreats – war, pandemics, climate change, disruptive AI, and deglobalization – all of which will be bad for jobs, economies, markets, peace, and prosperity.

The Age of Megathreats Nouriel RoubiniNov 4, 2022 op_roubini3_Getty Images_worlddisaster Getty Images NEW YORK – Severe megathreats are imperiling our future – not just our jobs, incomes, wealth, and the global economy, but also the relative peace, prosperity, and progress achieved over the past 75 years. Many of these threats were not even on our radar during the prosperous post-World War II era. I grew up in the Middle East and Europe from the late 1950s to the early 1980s, and I never worried about climate change potentially destroying the planet. Most of us had barely even heard of the problem, and greenhouse-gas emissions were still relatively low, compared to where they would soon be. Moreover, after the US-Soviet détente and US President Richard Nixon’s visit to China in the early 1970s, I never really worried about another war among great powers, let alone a nuclear one. The term “pandemic” didn’t register in my consciousness, either, because the last major one had been in 1918. And I didn’t fathom that artificial intelligence might someday destroy most jobs and render Homo sapiens obsolete, because those were the years of the long “AI winter.” Similarly, terms like “deglobalization” and “trade war” had no purchase during this period. Trade liberalization had been in full swing since the Great Depression, and it would soon lead to the hyper-globalization that began in the 1990s. Debt crises posed no threat, because private and public debt-to-GDP ratios were low in advanced economies and emerging markets, and growth was robust. No one had to worry about the massive build-up of implicit debt, in the form of unfunded liabilities from pay-as-you-go social security and health-care systems. The supply of young workers was rising, the share of the elderly was still low, and robust, mostly unrestricted immigration from the Global South to the North would continue to prop up the labor market in advanced economies. Against this backdrop, economic cycles were contained, and recessions were short and shallow, except for during the stagflationary decade of the 1970s; but even then, there were no debt crises in advanced economies, because debt ratios were low. The kind of financial cycles that lead to crises were contained not just in advanced economies but even in emerging markets, owing to the low leverage, low risk-taking, solid financial regulation, capital controls, and various forms of financial repression that prevailed during this period. The advanced economies were strong liberal democracies that were free of extreme partisan polarization. Populism and authoritarianism were confined to a benighted cohort of poorer countries. Goodbye to All That Fast-forward from this relatively “golden” period between 1945 and 1985 to late 2022, and you will immediately notice that we are awash in new, extreme megathreats that were not previously on anyone’s mind. The world has entered what I call a geopolitical depression, with (at least) four dangerous revisionist powers – China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea – challenging the economic, financial, security, and geopolitical order that the United States and its allies created after WWII. There is a sharply rising risk not only of war among great powers but of a nuclear conflict. In the coming year, Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine could escalate into an unconventional conflict that directly involves NATO. And Israel – and perhaps the US – may decide to launch strikes against Iran, which is on its way to building a nuclear bomb. Subscribe to PS Digital now to read all the latest insights from Nouriel Roubini. Digital subscribers enjoy access to every PS commentary, including those by Nouriel Roubini, plus our entire On Point suite of subscriber-exclusive content, including Longer Reads, Insider Interviews, Big Picture/Big Question, and Say More. For a limited time, save $15 with the code ROUBINI15. Subscribe Now With Chinese President Xi Jinping further consolidating his authoritarian rule, and with the US tightening its trade restrictions against China, the new Sino-American cold war is getting colder by the day. Worse, it could all too easily turn hot over the status of Taiwan, which Xi is committed to reuniting with the mainland, and which US President Joe Biden is apparently committed to defending. Meanwhile, nuclear-armed North Korea has once again been seeking attention by firing rockets over Japan and South Korea. Cyberwarfare occurs daily between these revisionist powers and the West, and many other countries have adopted a non-aligned posture toward Western-led sanctions regimes. From our contingent vantage point in the middle of all these events, we don’t yet know if World War III has already begun in Ukraine. That determination will be left to future historians – if there are any. Even discounting the threat of nuclear Armageddon, the risk of an environmental Apocalypse is becoming increasingly serious, especially given that most of the talk about net-zero and ESG (environment, social, and governance) investing is just greenwashing – or greenwishing. The new greenflation is already in full swing, because it turns out that amassing the metals needed for the energy transition requires a lot of expensive energy. There is also a growing risk of new pandemics that would be worse than biblical plagues, owing to the link between environmental destruction and zoonotic diseases. Wildlife, carrying dangerous pathogens, are coming into closer and more frequent contact with humans and livestock. That is why we have experienced more frequent and virulent pandemics and epidemics (HIV, SARS, MERS, swine flu, bird flu, Zika, Ebola, COVID-19) since the early 1980s. All the evidence suggests that this problem will become even worse in the future. Indeed, owing to the melting of Siberian permafrost, we may soon be confronting dangerous viruses and bacteria that have been locked away for millennia. Moreover, geopolitical conflicts and national-security concerns are fueling trade, financial, and technology wars, and accelerating the deglobalization process. The return of protectionism and the Sino-American decoupling will leave the global economy, supply chains, and markets more balkanized and fragmented. The buzzwords “friend-shoring” and “secure and fair trade” have replaced “offshoring” and “free trade.” But on the domestic front, advances in AI, robotics, and automation will destroy more and more jobs, even if policymakers build higher protectionist walls in an effort to fight the last war. By both restricting immigration and demanding more domestic production, aging advanced economies will create a stronger incentive for companies to adopt labor-saving technologies. While routine jobs are obviously at risk, so, too, are any cognitive jobs that can be unbundled into discrete tasks, and even many creative jobs. AI language models like GPT-3 can already write better than most humans and will almost certainly displace many jobs and sources of income. In due course, some scientists believe that Homo sapiens will be rendered entirely obsolete by the rise of artificial general intelligence or machine super-intelligence – though this is a highly contentious subject of debate. Thus, over time, economic malaise will deepen, inequality will rise even further, and more white- and blue-collar workers will be left behind. Hard Choices, Hard Landings The macroeconomic situation is no better. For the first time since the 1970s, we are facing high inflation and the prospect of a recession – stagflation. The increased inflation in advanced economies wasn’t “transitory.” It is persistent, driven by a combination of bad policies – excessively loose monetary, fiscal, and credit policies that were kept in place for too long – and bad luck. No one could have anticipated how much the initial COVID-19 shock would curtail the supply of goods and labor and create bottlenecks in global supply chains. The same goes for Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, which caused a sharp spike in energy, food, fertilizers, industrial metals, and other commodities. Meanwhile, China has continued its “zero-COVID” policy, which is creating additional supply bottlenecks. While both demand and supply factors were in the mix, it is now widely recognized that the supply factors have played an increasingly decisive role. This matters for the economic outlook, because supply-driven inflation is stagflationary and thus increases the risk that monetary-policy tightening will produce a hard landing (increased unemployment and potentially a recession). What will follow from the US Federal Reserve and other major central banks’ current tightening? Until recently, most central banks and most of Wall Street belonged to “Team Soft Landing.” But the consensus has rapidly shifted, with even Fed Chair Jerome Powell recognizing that a recession is possible, that a soft landing will be “very challenging,” and that everyone should prepare for some “pain” ahead. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s model shows a high probability of a hard landing, and the Bank of England has expressed similar views about the United Kingdom. Several prominent Wall Street institutions have also now made a recession their baseline scenario (the most likely outcome if all other variables are held constant). History, too, points to deeper problems ahead. For the past 60 years in the US, whenever inflation has been above 5% (it is above 8% today), and unemployment has been below 5% (it is now 3.5%), any attempt by the Fed to bring inflation down toward its 2% target has caused a recession. Thus, a hard landing is much more likely than a soft landing, both in the US and across most other advanced economies. Sticky Stagflation In addition to the short-term factors, negative supply shocks and demand factors in the medium term will cause inflation to persist. On the supply side, I count eleven negative supply shocks that will reduce potential growth and increase the costs of production. Among these is the backlash against hyper-globalization, which has been gaining momentum and creating opportunities for populist, nativist, and protectionist politicians, and growing public anger over stark income and wealth inequalities, which is leading to more policies to support workers and the “left behind.” However well-intentioned, such measures will contribute to a dangerous wage-price spiral. Other sources of persistent inflation include rising protectionism (from both the left and the right), which has restricted trade, impeded the movement of capital, and heightened political resistance to immigration, which in turn has put additional upward pressure on wages. National-security and strategic considerations have further restricted flows of technology, data, and talent, and new labor and environmental standards, as important as they may be, are hampering both trade and new construction. This balkanization of the global economy is deeply stagflationary, and it is coinciding with demographic aging, not just in developed countries but also in large emerging economies such as China. Because young people tend to produce and save more, whereas older people spend down their savings and require many more expensive services in health care and other sectors, this trend, too, will lead to higher prices and slower growth. Today’s geopolitical turmoil further complicates matters. The disruptions to trade and the spike in commodity prices following Russia’s invasion were not just a one-off phenomenon. The same threats to harvests and food shipments that arose in 2022 may well persist in 2023. Moreover, if China does finally end its zero-COVID policy and begin to restart its economy, a surge in demand for many commodities will add to the global inflationary pressures. There is also no end in sight for Sino-Western decoupling, which is accelerating across all dimensions of trade (goods, services, capital, labor, technology, data, and information). And, of course, Iran, North Korea, and other strategic rivals to the West could soon contribute in their own ways to the global havoc. Now that the US dollar has been fully weaponized for strategic and national-security purposes, its position as the main global reserve currency could eventually begin to decline, and a weaker dollar would of course add to inflationary pressures in the US. More broadly, a frictionless world trading system requires a frictionless financial system. But sweeping primary and secondary sanctions have thrown sand in what was once a well-oiled machine, massively increasing the transaction costs of trade. On top of it all, climate change, too, will create persistent stagflationary pressures. Droughts, heat waves, hurricanes, and other disasters are increasingly disrupting economic activity and threatening harvests (thus driving up food prices). At the same time, demands for decarbonization have led to underinvestment in fossil-fuel capacity before investment in renewables has reached the point where they can make up the difference. Today’s large energy-price spikes were inevitable. The increased likelihood of future pandemics also represents a persistent source of stagflation, especially considering how little has been done to prevent or prepare for the next one. The next contagious outbreak will lend further momentum to protectionist policies as countries rush to close borders and hoard critical supplies of food, medicines, and other essential goods. Finally, cyberwarfare remains an underappreciated threat to economic activity and even public safety. Firms and governments will either face more stagflationary disruptions to production, or they will have to spend a fortune on cybersecurity. Either way, costs will rise. The Worst of All Possible Economies When the recession comes, it will not be short and shallow but long and severe. Not only are we facing persistent short- and medium-term negative supply shocks, but we are also heading into the mother of all debt crises, owing to soaring private and public debt ratios over the last few decades. Low debt ratios spared us from that outcome in the 1970s. And though we certainly had debt crises following the 2008 crash – the result of excessive household, bank, and government debt – we also had deflation. It was a demand shock and a credit crunch that could be met with massive monetary, fiscal, and credit easing. Today, we are experiencing the worst elements of both the 1970s and 2008. Multiple, persistent negative supply shocks have coincided with debt ratios that are even higher than they were during the global financial crisis. These inflationary pressures are forcing central banks to tighten monetary policy even though we are heading into a recession. That makes the current situation fundamentally different from both the global financial crisis and the COVID-19 crisis. Everyone should be preparing for what may come to be remembered as the Great Stagflationary Debt Crisis. While central banks have been at pains to sound more hawkish, we should be skeptical of their professed willingness to fight inflation at any cost. Once they find themselves in a debt trap, they will have to blink. With debt ratios so high, fighting inflation will cause an economic and financial crash that will be deemed politically unacceptable. Major central banks will feel as though they have no choice but to backpedal, and inflation, the debasement of fiat currencies, boom-bust cycles, and financial crises will become even more severe and frequent. The inevitability of central banks wimping out was recently on display in the United Kingdom. Faced with the market reaction to the Truss government’s reckless fiscal stimulus, the BOE had to launch an emergency quantitative-easing (QE) program to buy up government bonds. That sad episode confirmed that in the UK, as in many other countries, monetary policy is increasingly subject to fiscal capture. Recall that a similar turnaround occurred in 2019, when the Fed, after previously signaling continued rate hikes and quantitative-tightening, stopped its QT program and started pursuing a mix of backdoor QE and policy-rate cuts at the first sign of mild financial pressures and a growth slowdown. Central banks will talk tough; but, in a world of excessive debt and risks of an economic and financial crash, there is good reason to doubt their willingness to do “whatever it takes” to return inflation to its target rate. With governments unable to reduce high debts and deficits by spending less or raising revenues, those that can borrow in their own currency will increasingly resort to the “inflation tax”: relying on unexpected price growth to wipe out long-term nominal liabilities at fixed interest rates. How will financial markets and prices of equities and bonds perform in the face of rising inflation and the return of stagflation? It is likely that, as in the stagflation of the 1970s, both components of any traditional asset portfolio will suffer, potentially incurring massive losses. Inflation is bad for bond portfolios, which will take losses as yields increase and prices fall, as well as for equities, whose valuations are hurt by rising interest rates. For the first time in decades, a 60/40 portfolio of equities and bonds suffered massive losses in 2022, because bond yields have surged while equities have gone into a bear market. By 1982, at the peak of the stagflation decade, the average S&P 500 firm’s price-to-earnings ratio was down to eight; today, it is closer to 20, which suggests that the bear market could end up being even more protracted and severe. Investors will need to find assets to hedge against inflation, political and geopolitical risks, and environmental damage: these include short-term government bonds and inflation-indexed bonds, gold and other precious metals, and real estate that is resilient to environmental damage. The Moment of Truth In any case, these megathreats will further contribute to rising income and wealth inequality, which has already been putting severe pressure on liberal democracies (as those left behind revolt against elites), and fueling the rise of radical and aggressive populist regimes. One can find right-wing manifestations of this trend in Russia, Turkey, Hungary, Italy, Sweden, the US (under Donald Trump), post-Brexit Britain, and many other countries; and left-wing manifestations in Argentina, Venezuela, Peru, Mexico, Colombia, Chile, and now Brazil (which has just replaced a right-wing populist with a left-wing one). And, of course, Xi’s authoritarian stranglehold has given the lie to the old idea that Western engagement with a fast-growing China would ineluctably lead that country to open itself up even more to markets and, eventually, to democratic processes. Under Xi, China shows every sign of becoming more closed off, and more aggressive on geopolitical, security, and economic matters. How did it come to this? Part of the problem is that we have long had our heads stuck in the sand. Now, we need to make up for lost time. Without decisive action, we will be heading into a period that is less like the four decades after WWII than like the three decades between 1914 and 1945. That period gave us World War I; the Spanish flu pandemic; the 1929 Wall Street crash; the Great Depression; massive trade and currency wars; inflation, hyperinflation, and deflation; financial and debt crises, leading to massive meltdowns and defaults; and the rise of authoritarian militarist regimes in Italy, Germany, Japan, Spain, and elsewhere, culminating in WWII and the Holocaust. In this new world, the relative peace, prosperity, and rising global welfare that we have taken for granted will be gone; most of it already is. If we don’t stop the multi-track slow-motion train wreck that is threatening the global economy and our planet at large, we will be lucky to have only a repeat of the stagflationary 1970s. Far more likely is an echo of the 1930s and the 1940s, only now with all the massive disruptions from climate change added to the mix. Avoiding a dystopian scenario will not be easy. While there are potential solutions to each megathreat, most are costly in the short run and will deliver benefits only over the long run. Many also require technological innovations that are not yet available or in place, starting with those needed to halt or reverse climate change. Complicating matters further, today’s megathreats are interconnected, and therefore best addressed in a systematic and coherent fashion. Domestic leadership, in both the private and public sector, and international cooperation among great powers is necessary to prevent the coming Apocalypse. Yet there are many domestic and international obstacles standing in the way of policies that would allow for a less dystopian (though still contested and conflictual) future. Thus, while a less bleak scenario is obviously desirable, a clear-headed analysis indicates that dystopia is much more likely than a happier outcome. The years and decades ahead will be marked by a stagflationary debt crisis and related megathreats – war, pandemics, climate change, disruptive AI, and deglobalization – all of which will be bad for jobs, economies, markets, peace, and prosperity.