158. Predictions for 2025 and checking in on 2024 predictions

This week let’s reminisce on the official Progressive Pockets predictions for 2024 and make some new predictions for 2025.

In the meantime, please reach out with topics you’d like to hear covered this year on the show!

ICYMI another episode you might enjoy:
Episode#123 Poor People’s Campaign

Connect With Genet “GG” Gimja:
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Transcript

Welcome to Progressive Pockets! I go by GG, that’s short for Genet Gimja. This is a show about money and power and specifically our money and our power. Our power to change things around us by flexing our wallets. I’m talking about where we bank, where we shop, where we donate, where we invest. We’ve been led to believe that billionaires are the only one whose money has any influence and frankly, I don’t buy it.

So here at Progressive Pockets, you can come back every week for practical suggestions you can take on that very day to bring you one step closer to living out your values with your wallet.

The best episode topics come from your suggestions, so please email me progressive pockets at gmail dot com anytime and share what you’d like to hear more about.

Kicking off a new year, it has become a bit of a tradition to make predictions for the year. So let’s do that today, and actually maybe before we jump into those it would be fun to go back through what the predictions were for 2024 to see how accurate those predictions ended up being.

Ok so it looks these were the predictions from last year:

One of the predictions was that electric vehicles and to a much smaller degree solar panels would dominate the discussion when it comes to socially responsible shopping, which would represent a shift from the prior year or two where the conversation had been mostly on sustainable fashion. You know, I do think that happened. I think we had some challenging conversations in 2024 about the holistic environmental impact of electric vehicles, especially when we consider manufacturing processes including the mining of precious metals for the batteries and the human and environmental impact of that. I don’t think there was a lot of discussion on solar panels in 2024.
Ok another prediction was that Americans would donate a little less in 2024 due to how uncertain people were feeling about the economy. I haven’t seen the numbers for 2024 yet, but I still think that’s likely. I also predicted that Jeff Bezos would finally start doing some meaningful work with his foundation. I’m not sure I would say he’s there yet. Yes he has a commitment to give more, and he’s outline some of his key interests such as the environment and education and job training, but I don’t think we can in good faith say he’s really stepped into that power this year.
I predicted that despite the legislative battles that socially responsible investing would continue to grow in popularity in 2024 and that the big firms would be tripping over themselves to create more products to meet this demand and this absolutely happened. Socially responsible investments are incredibly popular with investors.

So not too bad. I think that my predictions were a little more accurate for 2024 than they had been for 2023 LOL.

So what are some predictions for 2025?

Well, we’re sort of in a weird place politically in America right now. Some portion of the population seems to feel vindicated by the last big election and there’s another portion of our population that seems confused and tired. Of course we still have our activists and community leaders who are still bringing the energy and the vision to their work, but for the most part it feels like everyone is in a posture of processing what is next for our country and what our roles might be in it.

So with that being the case, I do think charitable giving will be back up in 2025 as people roll up their sleeves to help with things that maybe the government won’t be prioritizing in the near future.

One thing I have wanted for a long time is more regulation on donor advised funds, or DAFs, this is where wealthy people can park their money, get their tax deduction and then take their time while they decide where to actually donate the money. A big problem with DAFs is that wealthy people aren’t actually required to give that money away, it can just sit in that parking lot indefinitely. And that’s what most wealthy people are doing. They are parking it indefinitely. I was really hoping that we’d get more regulation to force them to drain down those accounts, even if we started gradually by saying they only had to give away let’s say 25% of their accounts every year, basically some percentage that would outpace the growth of those accounts, because here’s the thing, most DAFs are invested, so they are growing. The money is growing and not being given away. Unfortunately, I do not think we will get that much needed regulation in 2025.

In 2025, I think the fight against socially responsible investing will come back up. President Biden used his first veto to protect this type of investing and I think those attacks are going to come right back up in 2025. Last time, the battle was mostly about the ability of fund managers to take into consideration environmental, social and regulatory issues. I think this time we will see attempts to restrict that and I think those fights may be successful. That being said, we know just how popular socially responsible investing really is, so I will be interested to see how the government balances what it wants with what the people want.

In 2024 we saw some lawsuits springing up against grant programs designed to benefit black, indigenous, and latine entrepreneurs and I think we will see more of that in 2025. It is depressing to think about that. At the same time, I am looking forward to the creativity in the resistance. It’s just not possible to stop the resistance. There will always be those among us who will fight for the oppressed, so I look forward to seeing what the new techniques are coming out of this upcoming time period. 

And I think I’ll end today with that being my final prediction that I’ll share today. I think there’s going to be some creative innovations in the resistance. I believe new paths will emerge to create more space at the table for everyone. That has been the arc of history and I believe that will continue.

If you have more time today, here’s another episode to check out that is Episode 123 which is called Poor People’s Campaign. It is about the new movement that is picking up where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr left off.

Mention the newsletter and what additional info I will include there.

Ok so it’s time for whole new year of episodes! I’d love to hear what you’re thinking about these days, so send an email to progressive pockets at gmail dot com. I’d love to hear what you want to hear.

Let’s end with a quote…
“I am not interested in picking up crumbs of compassion thrown from the table of someone who considers himself my master. I want the full menu of rights.”
That’s from Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Let’s talk again soon!