2023: A Retrospective
Winners, losers, and predictions for 2024.
Just as Erica was turning a corner and feeling better, I got hit with the ‘Rona. And when I get Covid, it absolutely knocks me out - we’re talking writhing in pain most of the day and night as my legs, hips, and lower back twist into gnarled knots and sleep becomes elusive. Luckily, it was only like this for a day (versus the first bout with Covid when I couldn’t move for three.) So this post is written through some Covid brain fog. Oh, and both kids have ear infections. I’d be mad, but it’s kind of the perfect send-off for a year that, if we’re being honest, I didn’t really love.
So it’s time to look back on 2023. Who were the winners and losers? And while we’re at it, let’s look forward to 2024. What do I think will happen? If I’m right - and global warming doesn’t make our planet unliveable by the time we do this next year - we’ll grade my predictions at the end of ‘24. If I’m wrong we’ll pretend we never did this.
2023 Winners
To be honest, the 2023 losers section was a lot easier to write. This past year was not an easy one, unless you were already within the top 1% of the wealth percentile in the US, in which case you saw your share of the pie continue to grow. Wealth inequality creates winners at the top, until it doesn’t. But this section isn’t about the late-stage capitalist landscape we find ourselves in, so let’s dig into 2023.
Aliens: Aliens had a moment this year. Congressional hearings in the US caused a stir when a retired Air Force intelligence officer claimed the armed forces branch has been in the alien business for decades. If that weren’t enough, the Mexican Congress hosted a not-super-sane person from Peru who claimed he had alien cadavers. Spoiler alert: he didn’t, but that didn’t stop aliens from getting a huge awareness boost from this guerilla PR campaign. Well done, aliens.
George Santos: You might think I’m crazy for this one being in the winner category, but zoom out for a second. An unsuccessful attention-seeking grifter with room temperature IQ gets some unnamed wealthy Republicans to back him for a Congressional seat, wins it and gets his name splashed all over headlines for months. It’s either an incredibly elaborate satire to hold a mirror up to the American electorate of how far Congress has fallen as an institution or Santos pulled off the ultimate grift. Either way, in his book he’s won.
Taylor Swift: I’m not a Swiftie, but her 2023 was undeniably that of a winner. A billion-dollar grossing tour, a Kelce brother on her arm, and a Fed paper about her. If I knew any TSwift lyrics, I’d end with a pithy one here, but I don’t, so shake it off.
This Does Not Bode Well: That’s right, this very newsletter is a winner in 2023. I may not get as much exposure as I did with my LinkedIn rants, but this publication has a solid core of engaged subscribers and I love the feedback and engagement TDBNW has received this year. Thank you all!
2023 Losers
It’s hard to pick losers from such an insane pile in 2023, but let’s give it a shot.
Accurate Information: This one has been on the decline as of late, but it certainly felt like 2023 was a particularly bad year for hard facts. The insane amount of misinformation around the Israel-Palestine conflict alone would make this the first loser of 2023, but add in younger generations’ susceptibility to fake news and a certain world superpower’s out-in-the-open psyop and you have a recipe where accurate information is much harder to come by.
Twitter/X/Whatever’s it’s called: Elon Musk was a 2023 loser before he told the very people whose money he needs for X advertising to go fuck themselves, but what I can’t understand is what Linda Yaccarino is doing over there and why she continues to defend Musk even when any sane individual can see the man is not well. My only thought is she’s just waiting on a golden parachute (if she’s waiting on vesting shares I have some bad news.) Twitter was a cesspool post-Trump’s election, but Musk found a way to make it worse. Woof.
Brexiteers: History will look at the potential apex of populist rhetoric being the exact opposite of reality through the lens of Brexit. The UK left the largest global trade bloc, re-ignited the debate about a hard border in Ireland, and in a bid to clamp down on immigration actually increased it 2X since before Brexit. But hey, at least they can have smaller wine bottles now. Well done, ya knobs.
Parents: Parents started the year with the tripledemic and are ending it with a resurgence of a new Covid strain, all while balancing RTO and paying half their paycheck for cartons of berries their kids eat in one sitting. The childcare crisis is real and not getting any better, so buckle up to also be losers in 2024, parents.
2024 Predictions
2024 is going to be a busy year across global geopolitics, American presidential politics, and business. And it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
Geopolitics: Things will remain unstable, especially with a contentious US presidential election looming with two very different candidates. Peace will continue to elude the Middle East until leaders serious about a two-state solution (maybe three-state?) gain power and start working in good faith. The Ukranian conflict could begin to unwind in 2024 with Putin beginning to realize how unwinnable his war is. The main fight will be over territory (including 2014’s annexation of Crimea.) Iran has two options going forward: continue to be a rogue state that gums up commerce in the Gulf, or put their big boy pants on and start contributing to the world again; the status quo isn’t sustainable for the regime and even other bullies in the region are going to tire of the Supreme Leader’s antics.
US Politics: Congress will continue to be a joke, and with the chambers split even less will get done than usual before a large election. Biden will win against Trump by a thinner margin than any serious nation should tolerate, setting off another round of whining by 45’s supporters of a stolen election. Democrats will find a way to lose very winnable elections at the House and Senate levels, setting up old man Biden for a frustrating second term. Right-wing violence will increase in America, but nowhere near the levels we saw in the 90s. It will be a disappointing year for all except the most extreme on both sides of the aisle.
Economy: The global recession we were warned about never materialized this year and - dare we say - the Fed will accomplish their soft landing in 2024, opening up the possibility of rate cuts and stonks to the moon. Simmering issues in the background (the childcare crisis in America, student loan debt, vehicle financing defaults) will come to the fore and likely be weaponized by both parties without actually working to fix them in a major election year, but they will still have real-world consequences on the macroeconomic environment in the States.
Business: If you haven’t used AI yet in your job, you will in 2024 (and if you don’t, you should be concerned because you’re falling behind.) With the clouds of global recession receding and the possibility of rate cuts in 2024, businesses will be back to spending cash again but the labor shortage will quickly come back and with US net migration rates continuing to fall there will be no fix in the near-term. Whether this translates to wage growth, however, will remain to be seen and likely will not occur in 2024 but could set up for 2025. In that vein, unionization will continue to be top of mind but no meaningful gains in unionization will occur in the year - maybe 2025 depending on the outcome of the presidential election (succesful unionization drives in 2025 will catalyze real wage growth, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves.) RTO will remain in stalemate following its initial Battle of the Marne this year, so start digging those trenches. (Financial Disclosure: This author has $100 riding on Publicis Groupe not increasing its RTO allocation from its current 3 days per week, regardless of the complex rules put behind those 3 days.)
Culture: The Celtics will finally win the NBA championship with Jayson Tatum at the helm (though Derrick White will be Finals MVP.) Pusha T will have the rap album of the year. Amtrak will finally begin to offer assigned seats on the Northeast Regional, putting an end to the mad dash at various city stations for a seat on the train. Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce will get married - and divorced - in 2024. There’ll be a new social media platform that puts TikTok to shame, but it will be unclear if it’s run by a rogue state or just a cabal of tech entrepreneurs.
Grab Bag Sections
WTF Amazon: When you want to send bad news but avoid pain delivering it (a red flag in and of itself as you’re not doing the right thing, but satisfying an ego need), you try to send it at a time that the recipient won’t see it immediately. So when I got an email from Amazon at 10:36pm on Wednesday, I figured it wasn’t good.
And I was right. Amazon Prime Video is now going to be showing ads on their content, unless you want to pay more than the $140/year you already pay for Amazon Prime (or if you’re doing it a la carte, it’s $9/month.) They claim it’s so they can “continue investing in compelling content and keep increasing that investment over a long period of time.” Why don’t they just do what the Amazon retail business does and raid the AWS coffers for this as opposed to put it on the consumer?
I’ll never go back to cable because it’s an absolute racket, but the streaming companies all raising their prices around the same time - not to mention the M&A occuring in the space - means it’s going to be just as bad of a deal as cable very soon. This is why we can’t have nice things.
Album of the Week: You might know him from Jadakiss's "Why," or from Nappy Roots's "Po Folks" (don't worry, Watermelon, Chicken and Grits will be an AOTW soon enough), but Anthony Hamilton is a force in his own right.
Comin' From Where I'm From came out in 2003, but I was so deep into the Aftermath/Murder Inc. feud at that point (quick shoutout to the Downtown Crossing jewelry store that sold the bootleg CDs in the back!) that I didn't pick this album up until I was a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed senior analyst at Digitas nearly a decade later on the finserve account that we don't talk about.
With Jermaine Dupri's production and Hamilton's smooth Carolina vocals, this album just works. It's the South's answer to Jaheim's Jersey single "Put That Woman First," which had the R&B scene on absolute fire in the early 2000s (don't worry, Still Ghetto is also slated as an anticipated AOTW.)
Hamilton's pain on "Charlene" is palpable. His guarded optimism on "Better Days" comes through the headphones. The vibes on "Float" are immaculate. You could do a lot worse than this album on shuffle.
Quote of the Week: “Get it all on record now - get the films - get the witnesses - because somewhere down the road of history some bastard will get up and say that this never happened.” - Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower after liberating Nazi camps, predicting the rise of Mel Gibson and 20% of Gen Z
Welcome to 2024. See you next week!