7 Global Predictions For 2025

The ongoing themes for 2025 concern economic and demographic forecasts in the US, Europe, and China, and peace in the Middle East and Ukraine.

Here’s how I think they will unfold.

1. No Economic Growth in the Eurozone

In 1946, the Marshal Plan was based on the need to rebuild Germany, the economic engine of the continent.

80 years later, the importance of the German economy didn’t change.

But a series of mismanagement and ill-suited decisions, especially regarding German energy policy, has led to the slow deindustrialization of the country as factories leave for more welcoming shores where energy is up to four times cheaper.

Subsistent inflation and high interest rates have further weighed on the economy which will likely enter a recession, luckily balanced out by the southern and Nordic countries.

A surprising factoid: Italy is now the fourth biggest exporter in the world.

Talk about a reversal!

2. End of Ukraine War

The period 2016–2020 was the only period since 2008 during which Russia didn’t try to grab land belonging to another country as, in Trump’s words, “Putin maybe believed 10%…that we would hit Moscow if they attacked Ukraine”.

Trump isn’t regarded as what one would traditionally call “a diplomat”, which, ironically, helped him get done as much foreign policy in his initial four years as it usually takes twenty to achieve (European NATO countries increased defense spending, negotiations with North Korea, tariffs on China, normalization between Israel, the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco, etc).

If he wants to end the Ukraine war, he will.

3. Fast Expansion of the American Economy

The American economy is about to enter an exceptionally productive period due to a one-in-a-lifetime conjunction of events:

Exceptional entrepreneurs: Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jensen Huang, Palmer Luckey, and many others have come together to support innovation and the rebirth of the American economy.

Cheap energy policy: The US is planning to build many more new nuclear power plants and keep its energy policy as is, a necessary condition for economic expansion.

Deregulation: the next administration may significantly deregulate, enabling further growth and inventions in the “world of atoms” rather than “the world of bits”.

Low tax burden: the next administration seems willing to considerably reduce government expenditures which will enable the country to decrease the tax burden, further fueling economic growth.

4. Some Sort of Troubles in the UK

The UK has been in a difficult position since Brexit.

The country has been struggling to import food and other fresh products due to the re-establishment of borders and customs.

Failure to crack down on illegal immigration while having imported a record number of extra-European workers lost the conservative party the premiership.

Since then, Labor has led some questionable policies, particularly in the realm of justice, freedom of speech, and basic rights.

First, the party gave criminal offenders an early prison release to jail those who shared memes and social media posts.

Second, it has stopped prosecuting criminals accused of violent or sex offenses, leading many to denounce the two-tier justice system.

Third, the government is attempting a farmland grab by means of a tax aimed at expropriating farmers.

Fourth, the police are now visiting people for “non-crime incidents” caused by social media posts.

Few people who don’t live in the UK realize how dire the situation is.

In a few years, purchasing power in the country will be lower than in Poland. The country has deindustrialized since Brexit and has among the highest energy prices in Europe which won’t help redevelop the economy.

The working-class towns of the North of England and Wales are already ripped with unemployment, drug consumption, and foreclosure.

And the most given name in 2023 was Muhammad.

Conclusion: the new policies of the labor government risk sending people either into aggraved desperation and drugs, or into riots.

5. Birthrates Even Lower

We don’t have time to explain why birthrates are so low so I’ll just predict that without a profound cultural and economic shift (the comeback of traditional gender polarisation, the promotion of the traditional family, the end of the real estate crisis, etc) which won’t likely happen because the only place this issue is talked about is Twitter, the birthrate will dip even lower.

6. OpenAI Reaches $1 Trillion in Valuation

We are probably not going to reach AGI any time soon because we have hit a ceiling on how good the models can be due to a lack of training data.

This means that the effort to improve models will be increasingly hard and with diminishing returns.

Yet, the models that we have now are good enough to launch AI agents, those autonomous bots that will act as your personal assistants.

I don't think we are near mass layoffs yet but I do think people will either be more productive or have more free time thanks to those agents.

I also think that the economic impact of AI agents will be big enough that OpenAI will reach $1 trillion in valuation by the end of 2025.

7. Musk’s Net Worth Reaches $500 Billion

Musk is particularly well-placed to see his net worth increase to $500 billion simply because his companies operate in high-growth sectors.

Tesla: Tesla is more than a car manufacturer and has become an energy and robotic company, as outlined in its staggering valuation.

SpaceX: SpaceX remains the undisputed leader in space exploration. Besides the contract it has with NASA, the company is also earning money with its satellite network Starlink which will soon become a complete telecommunication provider with phone network and Internet services.

xAi: no one is talking about xAi because, unlike ChatGPT or Claude, you need to access it through Twitter and it costs €20/month. But Musk nonetheless managed to build a super-computer in 19 days, a process normally taking…four years. Given that he has access to GPUs that everyone needs and has an unlimited mine of training data from Twitter, I think xAi will be the main engine of his fortune’s growth.

Conclusion

Yes, those predictions are basic and boring but that’s because the “normal world” became so.

A first version of this conclusion complained that all of the loopholes we used to exploit back in 2018 have now closed, including the economic ones.

This is how it read:

Besides the AI revolution, nothing is really happening anymore.

Did you see the movies that came out in 2024? All trash. No exciting music, no exciting TV shows, no exciting new artists. It’s like we’ve run out of new things to invent.

Trump is back like in 2016; so is Lindsey Vonn.

Traveling has become meh. All of the exciting destinations (Israel, Iran, Lebanon, Russia, Ukraine, Bielorussia) are locked down.

Everything is still super expensive.

All cities in Europe are overrun with people; it’s not possible to find an apartment at affordable prices; companies aren’t hiring; and all of the cute girls are either dating rich guys or doing OF.

Everyone knows everything now; everything has become too efficient. The spread closed.

Or…did it?

In reality, the world didn’t become more boring or more closed.

The bar to exploit the new loopholes is just higher.

Moving to Spain tomorrow won’t make you special like 10 years ago since everyone can easily move to Spain now.

Rather, you need to go to countries that are harder to move into if you hope to benefit from the foreigner effect.

There’s still great music and great movies to watch but they’re not made in your culture anymore so you have to search the internet in foreign languages to find them.

In the past, the loopholes were on the Internet that you used to escape the normal boring life; today, the loopholes are in life that you use to escape the boring Internet.

They’re just not as obvious as before.

Here are other smaller predictions to end this article:

China will not collapse (those saying so are silly) as it remains the largest exporter by far with a trade surplus of $500 billion.

The US is headed for a golden decade while France, Belgium, Germany, and the UK are headed for considerable impoverishment.

Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece, and Poland’s economies will grow, mainly benefitting from Germany’s deindustrialization.

Status quo in the Middle East. Israel will not allow the rebuilding of Gaza and will seek to move the people out of there. The US will lose interest in the region as it’s become costly. We’ll likely see Turkey and China play a bigger role as Russia and Iran are exhausted.

The price of chocolate will stabilize and the price of olive oil will decrease.

Inflation will remain at 2% in the Eurozone.

Violence and crimes will reach new records in France and Germany.

Europe will move further right politically, with serious violence expected circa 2035.