Five Future Headlines
Germany, France, Netherlands unite under new
coalition. Spain, Greece, Portugal, and Ireland call for aid.
The increasing instability of the Euro, caused
by fraud and financial mismanagement from various European countries will inevitably
cause the breakup of the European Union. The continent will undergo several
years of fiscal turmoil as they adapt to once again, having separate economic
systems. Countries such as Greece, Spain, Portugal, and Ireland who have the
worst government deficits, credit ratings, and unemployment levels will suffer
the worst of all. In order to whether the economic chaos, fiscally strong
countries like Germany, France and the Netherlands will unite to form a new
European Union and will adopt a common courtesy, without having to deal with
the broken political and economic systems of the various European countries
which are partially responsible for the majority of the current crisis.
United States of America adopts Chinese Yuan as
official currency
Similarly to the situation in Europe, the
United States is plagued by a large federal deficit, massive amounts of debt,
and high unemployment, all of which are the fallout of two very costly wars and
a Wall Street caused recession. As the nation
plunges further and further into debt, the cost of borrowing money will begin
to increase rapidly. It is likely that a future presidential administration,
either republican or democratic will attempt to solve this debt crisis by
printing large amounts of money, essentially devaluing the US currency and
making the 15 trillion dollars and counting owed by the government easy to pay
back. Unfortunately, this will wreak havoc on the savings of the American
people. As seen in Zimbabwe and post WWI Germany, the United States will go
into hyperinflation putting it’s people into a state of absolute poverty. To solve this crisis, the government will
adopt a stable and (becoming more) powerful currency. In this hypothetical
situation, that currency will be the Chinese Yuan.
Canadian technology giants Research in Motion
and Bombardier merge and expand.
Canada’s economy revolves heavily around the
primary industry, ie. Resource development. Since the majority of these
resources, such as coal, oil, potash, and iron ore are finite, and will
inevitably run out in the not so distant future. That means that in order to
remain a large player in the global financial system, Canada will have to
expand and capitalize on its research and development and manufacturing
sectors, much like Japan, Korea, and Germany. This means that Canadian
technology giants like Research in Motion and Bombardier, along with other new
companies that may emerge, will become much more prominent figures in Canada’s
economy.
Human population stabilized at 9.5 billion for
third year running
Many developing countries in the
world today have already seen drastic drops in their fertility rates due to
greater access to education for men, and more importantly, women. Women in
countries like Iran and India are now only having two to four children as
opposed to seven or more which was the norm not too many years ago. This, along
with better access to contraceptives, aging baby boomers, and China’s one child
policy indicate that the earth’s population will eventually stabilize. The UN
predicts the world’s population will reach 9 billion by 2050, and if trends of
reducing birth rates continue, it will probably stabilize shortly after that.
Last documented case of HIV/ AIDS recorded one
year ago to the day!
Scientists are already making huge strides in
finding treatments and preventative vaccines for HIV/ AIDS. As with many other
diseases which are now history, it is inevitably that a cure will somehow be
found. This, coupled with increased education on sexual health for women in
developing countries and access to contraceptives, will eventually cause
HIV/AIDS to go the way of smallpox.
