Introduction
Top events in 2015 that shaped the world and are very likely to continue doing so include the economic slowdown not just in China and India, but in most of the world outside the US. Globalization under the neoliberal model of development continued to devastate the middle class in 2015 as it has in the last three decades, especially in countries where monetarist austerity combined with neoliberal policies took effect. Combined with a fiscal structure that favors corporations and the wealthy, monetarism and neoliberal policies had the effect on a world scale of slowing consumption spending owing to downward pressure on wages, forcing some governments to increase capital spending, especially in the defense sector, to stimulate growth.
Capital goods spending trend will continue in 2016 in a number of developed countries trying to keep GDP growth steady against pressures of a declining world GDP in 2016. At the same time, because of monetarism (austerity) and economic stagnation in less advanced countries, the transfer of capital from the less advanced countries will continue toward the G-7, especially US, China, and Germany. Sociopolitical volatility as a result of downward socioeconomic mobilization in much of the world will entail more uprisings than in 2015, more “terrorist” activity, and greater tendency on the part of popular masses to look for political solutions in the extreme right wing political groups.