MMXXIII

Four greats – Pele, Barbara Walters, Benedict, Vivienne Westwood – left us just as we were preparing to slide into the new year, and one not-so-great (but arguably great to his fans) was arrested in Romania after a very public spat with a teenager.

What else will the year of our lord two thousand and twenty three bring? Despite our best efforts as prognosticators or futurists or crystal ball gazers, no one but said lord really knows.

I think we face a continuing war of attrition, uneven economic recovery (or schizophrenic economic conditions, depending on your perspective), growing rumbles of civic discontent and activity and worsening climate conditions.

Now that the depressing stuff is out of the way, I think we can look forward to probably ethically dubious but innovative advances in AI (RPA, especially), research and technological advances in energy, interesting moves in near shoring and re-shoring (also as it relates to chips), and a spate of creative/artistic output, which almost always happens during troubled times.

Thank you for continuing to be a reader! I’ll see you next week with a usual Monday briefing