Although most of the horrendous year 2020 is over, forecasts for the remaining part of it and the year 2021 continue to excite the public. The year 2020 is definitely something to remember for all mankind. What is 2021 going to be like? Are there any chances for the new year to get even worse?
Experts believe that the year 2021 may bring a whole bunch of unpleasant surprises. They, in particular, may include the following:
The list continues with "traditional" large-scale earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, man-made disasters, local wars, revolutions and economic crises - everything that usually happens all the time, but in 2020, due to the general decline in human activity, it began to happen less often.
Deutsche Bank analysts, for example, expect that the era of globalization that began in 1980 will be replaced by an era of global unrest. In addition, the confrontation between the United States and China is going to exacerbate even further.
China's GDP in the second quarter increased by 3.2 percent. USA's GDP for the same period fell by a record of 9.5 percent.
At the same time, the global debt will continue growing, countries will be increasingly distributing "helicopter money," and the age of politicians will decrease.
On a more positive note, the world will see a major technological breakthrough, despite the fact that the IMF earlier predicted a major global economic decline since the Great Depression.
According to the World Bank, the number of people living in extreme poverty may increase to 60 million. Undernourishment and hunger may reach "biblical scale" that will affect as many as 265 million people around the world. First and foremost, it goes about African states (a half of the African population suffers from undernourishment), the Middle East and Asia (43 million people), and Latin American countries (18.5 million people).
The year 2020 marked the appearance of a few new trends. According to Norwegian telecommunications company Telenor, the most important ones of them are:
Food and digital environments will also change. According to Pew Research, the virtual world will become commonplace in a couple of decades, video and voice messages will completely replace text messages, while cryptocurrencies will make a third of the global population independent.