2024 Year In Review
Grading last year's predictions and looking ahead to 2025.
Last year we took a look at 2023 in retrospect and made some predictions about 2024. While the marks aren’t great, let’s dive into how those predictions turned out and what the newsletter thinks might happen in 2025.
First, a Thank You
This newsletter continues to gain subscribers (though at a slightly slower pace than when it first started) and I continue to enjoy the feedback I get from it. I hope 2025 sees some major growth events come out of this as the reach continues its slow, but steady, growth online and in the industry.
Thank you all for reading and subscribing and engaging with this newsletter, which is truly a labor of love. If you like it, let me know! And if it’s falling short somewhere, also reach out - while a lot of this is screaming into the void, it also has expanded by perspective on a lot of things. Let’s make 2025 another great year for the newsletter!
Second, the Predictions
I’ve copied last year’s predictions so you don’t have to go back and read them. Not into politics? Skip straight to the Economy section and miss the ravings of a mad man.
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.
2024 Grade: C
Not a great show from the newsletter. Peace did not settle in the Middle East, but that’s an evergreen statement so not a lot of points can go towards the grade there. Israel expanded their war to two fronts, while taking advantage of unrest in Syria (not quite a third front, but when the world shrugged at the destruction of Gaza and incursions into Lebanon, no one really batted an eye when tanks entered Golan Heights.) Netanyahu’s strategy of worsening military pain in the region to further put off his corruption trial has come to an end, and all he got for it was some war crime charges on top of it all. Also, somehow the Irish caught a stray.
Iran definitively did not put their big boy pants on, but suffered relatively little consequence for it. The Syrian offensive that toppled Assad likely has them rethinking a lot, but then again I’m not sure the Iranian leadership actually making the decisions is an intellectual powerhouse, so it’s unclear what positive outcomes will come from their having a think on it.
Russia didn’t wind down in Ukraine, but they certainly have not been winning. Ukranian incursions into Russian territory showed vulnerabilities previously unheard of in Putin’s regime. The Russian economy is in shambles, Putin is locking down the internet, and the West is providing better weaponry to Ukraine. Trump’s election will hamper the war effort there and Europe will need to step up (if they can continue their razor-thin rejection of the kind of right-wing populism that the US has fallen victim to.)
2025 Prediction: Expect an unstable Syria to have Israel focus there, trying to expand as much into Golan Heights as possible under the guise of national security, now that Gaza is in utter ruins and Lebanon is under cease fire. Netanyahu will be out by the end of the year, potentially in a domestic jail cell but he will not answer to the Hague for his actions. Hamas is dead (thankfully), but will be replaced by something very similar given that the underlying issues that have foundationally destabilized the region were not addressed. Ask the US and the current Afghan administration how a military war on an ideology goes (spoiler alert: not well.)
Iran and Russia will continue to act as petulant children, but with diminished power as Russia’s economic descent swiftly continues and they can no longer help fund and arm the temper tantrums in the region.
What is clear is that civilians - Israeli, Palestinian, Lebanese, Syrian, Iranian, Ukranian, Russian - will continue to needlessly suffer as leaders continue to make decisions with their populace used as pawns in a power game that has tortured the region for decades. If you’re a student of history, this is the unfortunate reality throughout most of our species on the globe.
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.
2024 Grade: D-
The only reason I’m not giving myself an F here is that, as predicted, the Democrats also lost both houses of Congress in elections they should have won. Trump pulled out an extremely slight win over a discombobulated Democratic establishment that waited too long to pull Uncle Joe out of the race, who spoke to an imaginary center-right electorate, and could not figure out how to connect with the working class. Trump’s recent “admission” that grocery prices will, in fact, not be going down once he takes office is no surprise to those who understand basic economics. But when demagoguery takes over in a personality cult, reality is but of minor concern.
The political violence that has increased has not taken one political side or another as it has historically. The Trump assassination attempt in Pennsylvania was conducted by a registered Republican and the UHC shooter was an Ayn Rand fan but also aligned with Ted Kacynski on some philosophical points. Are we seeing the emergence of a centrist kind of political violence?
2025 Predictions: Some, but not all, of the room temperature IQ cabinet picks Trump has put forth will be confirmed. Musk and Trump will eventually have a public falling out, Zuckerberg will replace Musk as the preferred tech sycophant for the administration, and chaos will reign in Washington for 2025. Nothing will get done (especially if the Republicans can’t elect a speaker), insane executive orders will be issued but will be blocked by lower courts who will need to send things to a Supreme Court that, while insanely corrupt, still need to be the adults in the room for the most part (and they will play this role in 2025.) Democratic institutions will hang on by a threadbare string, but a black swan even during the year could hasten their decline in America, leading to upheaval not seen since the 1860s. Hopefully we avoid that scenario.
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.
2024 Grade: B+
Honestly, not bad here for the newsletter. Rate cuts happened, stocks hit record highs, and the Fed is still trying to land the plane without ruining the economy in the short term. The economic crises on the backburner of the stove didn’t bubble over, but they also had to contend with an election season that was wild and mostly personality-based as opposed to policy-based. Other than inflation - an issue resolved by the Fed for the most part - nothing was really weaponized as talking points.
2025 Prediction: The Fed’s job will get a lot harder with potential tariffs and mass deportations - two huge inflation catalysts that, if enacted in the way Trump wants, will make post-Covid inflation look tame. Trump and JPow will have a war of words, but I’m not sure Trump will actually try to unseat money printer Powell (nor does he have the authority to.) Beyond that, too much is unclear at this point to make any solid predictions so I’m hedging hard.
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.)
2024 Grade: B-
Rate cuts happened, but the surge in employment expected off of them hasn’t materialized, prompting some to wonder out loud about a white-collar recession. Unionization didn’t really take off and wage growth was flat against inflation, as expected. RTO’s stalemate we broken by the Seattle surprise, which spells darker storm clouds for 2025. Publicis did not increase their RTO allocation, but in a move I can only describe as a way to avoid paying me, my betting partner switched jobs so I won’t be collecting that $100 (and if we’re being honest, it was more of a gentleman’s bet anyway.)
2025 Prediction: The Omnicom-IPG merger will go through, but the overall landscape won’t change too much. Lower central bank rates might spur more M&A, but further consolidation in the advertising space will occur within - not across - holdcos (outside of a few key tech purchases in 2025.) Unionization will grind to a halt and real wage growth might actually decrease if tariffs and deportations happen on a large scale. RTO battles will re-engage thanks to Amazon and their ilk, and if a recession occurs employers will regain the upper hand in the labor market (which feels relatively evenly split from a leverage standpoint today.) Google will get broken up, but Zuck will suck up to the new administration enough to avoid DOJ action for Meta. The TikTok ban will reach 11th hour negotiations and be called off after a series of concessions are made by the tech giant.
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.
2024 Grade: C+
The Celtics won, but what an easy prediction that was. Jaylen Brown - not Derrick White - won Finals MVP. In the hip hop world everyone cleared the deck for Kendrick as he was a steam locomotive that no one wanted to get in front of (outside of the courts, of course.) The Northeast Regional continues to be a choo-choo of chaos as Amtrak drags its feet on seat assignment, furthering the gap between the American rail experience and everywhere else in the world. Trayvis didn’t do much and the Chiefs are 15-1, so TDNBW is down bad on that one. Bluesky - an alternative of mostly whiny liberals to X’s overt right-wing xenophobia - didn’t really take off in a way to overshadow Tik Tok.
2025 Prediction: The Celts will repeat their championship run and hang banner 19. Lakers fans will find ways to whine about it while ignoring that their coach is a glorified podcaster and Bronny is inexplicably getting minutes. I maintain the Pusha T album of the year prediction (even if it’s as a member of Clipse), as I have a feeling he shelved himself watching Drake get demolished this year (following Napoleon’s advice of “never interrupt when your enemy is making a mistake.”) Drake will release an album, but it won’t do numbers and his career decline will officially begin. Rail service and public transit will get worse in America in 2025 as federal help will not be forthcoming. Increased class consciousness post-UHC shooting and a bad year for weather events thanks to climate change will lead to increased grassroots organization, but won’t bear fruit until later in the decade. The meme industrial complex will be a bright spot in an otherwise culturally bleak year.
Grab Bag Sections
WTF Time: We say this every year, but man did 2024 fly by. I often jokingly quote Matthew McConoghey’s brilliant portrayal of Rust Cohle when he paraphrases Nietzch’s idea of eternal recurrence by saying “Time is a flat circle” as a partial non-sequitur in conversations (it gets a laugh about 50% of the time, but hey - that’s showbiz.) But as the world becomes more and more chaotic on a macro level (and my kids get older and it also gets more chaotic on a micro level), the idea of history repeating itself becomes a lot more appropriate.
We’ve spoken in this newsletter about chaos and the complexity technology surrounding it creates. As a cisgendered white male on the wrong side of his 30s, my interest in history has only grown and I read about times like the American Civil War, or the battle against the Nazis and global fascism in the mid-20th century and I think “Damn, it must have been terrifying to live through that time.”
Then I open a news app and wonder where my sense of existential dread is coming from. I do admit I am much more worried about a second Trump presidency than I was about the first - it felt like our democratic institutions were barely able to contain him and his ilk. He’s now surrounded by objectively worse people and seems to have less to lose.
But then I think back to the 1860s or the 1940s and think - shit, if humanity can survive those times in our history when the world simply felt like it was going to end, then we have a fighting chance despite a ground war in Europe, Middle Eastern tensions as high as they’ve ever been, right-wing populism on a tear globally, and an America on the cusp of - not irrelevance, but an impertinence no one alive today has really seen of our American experiment.
I’ll be honest, this isn’t the post I set out to write. I wanted it to be more lighthearted, and its first draft felt so bleak that I left it for a week and came back to it. Transparently, the post is largely unchanged from that first draft. I’ll blame the cynicism on having kids growing up in a world I’m severely concerned will not be a better place than it was for me and my peers growing up. If, in fact, time is a flat circle then maybe we just need to get through some dark times to the other side of prosperity and a resurgent America - this time without things like a Jim Crow era or Allen Dulles overthrowing half of Latin America. A man can still dream, can’t he?
End of Year Survey: Instead of diving into an album this week, let’s end the year with a survey. Seven questions, some multiple choice, some open-ended, all anonymous. I’d love to hear from you, dear reader, as the year comes to a close. Make me laugh, make me cry - just make me feel something.
Thanks again for an amazing year - see you in 2025!