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comments . . .
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22 Mar 2009
Jericoa | The end game has not been written yet, it is still in our hands.
Was it deliberate? On an individual basis no, but humanity as a collective given he way we behave it was (is) inevitable.
The list provided is a mixture of the driving forces behind it and the symptoms it is causing.
Jericoa
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22 Mar 2009
John Bray | Although it seems inconceivable that such a monumental cock-up could happen by accident, perhaps we shouldn't jump to the conclusion that it was done deliberately. Complete and utter incompetence may well have played a big part in this.
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22 Mar 2009
OldNick666 | It is an inevitable consequence of the opening up of trade with China and India. The West has been lazy and thought that the effects of the imbalance could be avoided by clever financial manipulation. All that the financial manipulation has done is to cause a temporary delay to the inevitable. It just means that the rebalancing happens very suddenly and will probably overshoot.
The endgame is that the West will be poorer that the East because of our disregard for sound education and training.
The message is :- The sooner you get used to the poverty the more contented you will be. A new mindset is required otherwise the futile civil unrest will make things worse by destroying the little real wealth that remains.
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22 Mar 2009
OldNick666 | If you call arrogance and blind optimism deliberate then yes, otherwise no.
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23 Mar 2009
Chris | I would call it culpable stupidity (and cupidity).
I don't think it was deliberate ("never assume malice where incompetence will do", although I don't rule it out completely), but I do think that the government and "Masters of the Universe" have been entirely self seeking and have failed to run the economy for the long-term good of the population, thinking only of what was in it for them and deliberately ignoring the consequences of their unfettered greed.
As for the endgame...worldwide economic collapse looks increasingly likely; as far as I can see it would only take one major economy to fail to start a domino effect.
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23 Mar 2009
fairlopian | I could attribute the bubble and crash to incompetence and greed, but the "recovery" betrays too much evidence of unseen hands pulling levers.
There are further questions of whether Bush, Bliar and Brown were merely incompetent, acting willingly on behalf of unseen powers or being manipulated.
There are sufficient trails to clandestine groups to suggest that they were serving other interests to those of their nations and electorates.
Whether there is also a human "master plan" behind this I'm not sure, but when we factor the increased surveillance powers of the State there is clearly an agenda that goes beyond what is visible on the surface.
I'm also convinced that an incoming Tory Government will do little more than change the wall-hangings.
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23 Mar 2009
kiki-dread | Actions speak louder than words. People should be judged on facts and evidence not hearsay. Start off with people who wanted war and tally up the death counts as well factoring in finance, politics, industries, resources etc.
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23 Mar 2009
Jambo | There clearly were conspiracies, the problem is as soon as a conspiracy stops being hidden it becomes boring.
Take for example the war in Iraq, the whitehouse clearly tried to connect Saddam to 9/11 long after it was known there was no link. I and everyone else saw this, we also saw polls of Americans with ~80% thinking there was a connection so the conspiracy worked.
But I do not buy the idea of wide ranging conspiracies to control money supply and create vast booms and busts & chaos. Contrary to popular belief these busts do not seem to favor rich bankers. Life did not go well for them in Nazi germany - chaos and collapse really favors no one.
I do suspect those in power have aims and objectives they dare not campaign too heavily on because it is not politically expedient - the EU is an obvious example. Database centralization is another. Maybe sometimes they even discuss how they can forward this agenda with other like minded people. Technically that could be seen as a conspiracy, personally I see it as inevitable in our current system.
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23 Mar 2009
Jambo | As to the OP and what the 'endgame' is.
The answer is no one knows for sure.
There are I think, a range of possibilities and they all depend on the behavior of many inter-related actors who have conflicting interests.
As someone said previously the Prisoners Dilema is a very good model for the decisions these actors have to make.
So, what has happened:
1) Economic might moved from consuming western nations to saving & exporting nations. These nations ended up sending their savings over to the west along with their products, we used the savings to buy the products. Visible in trade imbalances, savings rates.
2) Thanks to this system the west consumed on over-drive and the rest produced on over-drive, we started to hit the limits of resource consumption and thus prices started to rise. Visible in the spike in commodity prices when Oil was over 150$.
3) Due to poor regulation loans were made to those who could not hope to pay and thanks to the rising cost of living from 2) these all blew up in spectacular form. As the debts collapsed people and banks found they had less money than they thought, triggering deflation. Visible in bank bonus & repossession rates.
4) Due to 3) & 2) the economy started contracting, this fueled expectations it would contract thus making it shrink even faster (markets efficiently doing their jobs and predicting the future). Visible in profit warnings, companies going bust etc.
SO, thats where we are now. As to the future there seem to be two broad themes. The optimistic scenario aka the MSM & Gov scenario A) and the pessimistic internet kook doomer scenario B).
In A) the Gov through bailouts and low interest rates cull the deflation caused by 3). Demand destruction causes production destruction which solves 2). The rest decide that they quite liked the old order of the west spending their savings to pay for it's consumption as it keeps those in power in luxury so keep on sending us their savings to spend. That solves 1). The old order is restored and growth starts from a slightly lower level at the same pace. Many people may die in the developing countries but they aren't us so we don't care.
In B) The rest refuse to keep sending us their savings. Governments with large debts already (ie most of the west) thus are trapped between bailout and cause currency devaluation and thus stagflation or don't bail and suffer plain old deflation. Western standards of living plummet (see argentina). Whilst this is happening the rest eventually manage to 'de-couple' from our economies and start consuming their own and each others products. Assuming war doesn't break out by this point as the west starts to stage an economic recovery we run smack bang back into the resource limits 2) and the wheels fall off.
As such it is clear there are several key decisions that will decide the outcome,
Biggest is the transfer of savings from the productive nations to the west. If the Dollar, Euro and Pound continue to fall against commodities to the point that we no longer have a trade deficit, we'll know the jigs up.
Pass that hurdle and it's the bailouts, if they get them wrong we'll have either continued deflation or massive inflation.
Then there's peak resources waiting in the wings - fail to tackle sustainable consumption and we'll just run bang splat into this in any recovery.
Of course at any time some nation may decide it can do better going to war and lo, chaos.
And should we dodge all of those bullets, we've still got global warming to contend with.
SO, what's the end game, well I am quite certain it lies somewhere between a recovery early 2010 taking us back to the status quo and a nuclear holocaust that ends all life on earth.
:D
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24 Mar 2009
kiki-dread | I was thinking there are only a small number of beneficiaries that profited from the businesses of war(s) at the loss to the rest of mankind.
It seems America will recover from large debts quicker than the UK will, due to its size. Maybe the UK could be sold and bought by the US like they have done with several of our companies / industries.
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24 Mar 2009
kiki-dread | It seems we have been following the wrong path to our destiny.
Politicians by nature hijack crises for their own political agenda's.
Businesses aggressively compete for profits by neglecting to offer value for services.
Business models do not accumulate small risks into overall positions and fail to cover the total global levels and volumes of risk.
Individuals have wasted money and borrowed for material goods and are unprepared for reductions in income.
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24 Mar 2009
Jericoa | Janbo,
WOW, and WOW again and indeed thrice said WOW!
In my (humble) opinion your post here nailed it in the most concise, reasoned out and (relatively)easily understandable way. Deserves a wider audience I think. I will be passing it onto my work collegues anyway as a start.
On a similar theme (although its approach will be significantly different) the next draft of the viral e-mail is ready for comment (sat with John Bray at the moment).
I have tried to include as many of your comments as I can and made it look like a typical 'harmless viral' e-mail circular so hopefully it will reach more people, idealy I would hope everybody would be prepared to read and understand janbo's post, but I am a realist....
The two are not unrelated though, I am hoping the 'viral e-mail' will inspire people to think about what they can do such that if the ' recovery in 2010 scenario is right then at least it is moderated and with a view to at least phasing that system out before we run out of commodities to feed it...
I will need some help at some point however with the final presentation and formatting at some point.
Great post janbo..I am going to read it again now...
Jericoa
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24 Mar 2009
OldNick666 | I have been warning about China on various blogs for some time. Try this for something rather more erudite than my gut feelings.
http://cynicuseconomicus.blogspot.com/2009/03/economics-and-power-loss-of-us-power.html
I guess this is too scary for most people to believe. Just carry on rearranging the deck chairs and you will be happy for a little longer.
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24 Mar 2009
Jericoa | Old nick,
I lived in China for 5 years, they just see it as playing the same game the USA have done for years.
You say chinas record on human right and tibet
They say Guantanomo bay, torture flights and the invasion of Iraq.
Are they really so different?
Also note the west would never be in this position in terms of being hugely endebted to china if it were not for our own insatiable greed for the products they produce, most of which we dont need and could not afford.
I would say.
1) Are we just kidding ourselves taking the moral high ground with respect to our own global behaviour?
2) Did we not bring this upon ourselves by our own greed and delusion of superiority?
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24 Mar 2009
kiki-dread | in the real world any such agenda would have been discussed and agreed before release before the conference already
.. (as a financial and technical analyst I affirm all systems are shit).
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24 Mar 2009
John Bray | Like Nick (and many others) I have tried to inform people that China will hold all the cards when the next hand is dealt. No conspiracy theory is needed here - they've just outsmarted the West. But as Jericoa points out the "delusion of superiority" won't let the West accept this. I only lived there for a year but it was long enough for me to realise that being different is not the same as being inferior.
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24 Mar 2009
John Bray | PS to above: Cynicus Economicus is a genius!
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24 Mar 2009
Jericoa | John,
He is too level headed and measured to be a genius :).
Very good though, nothing in there of great surprise just well presented and thought out. I don't know where these people get the time!
I totally agree with the China comments overall, I guess I just do not fear them as others seem to, I really dont see them as being any less responsible a global player than the USA has been or the UK before. Its just like changing the wallpaper of global power players as far as I am concerned. They are not irresponsible, they are very shrewd and they do respect those whom they think have earned it.
Change is scary I suppose, it is easier for me to be less worried about it because i lived there and interacted with them for a descent length of time.
As far as I am aware I was not brainwashed while I was there and left here as a sleeping mole to placate the masses..
But there again..how would I know!!
Jericoa
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24 Mar 2009
OldNick666 | Jericoa says :- "they are very shrewd and they do respect those whom they think have earned it."
From my rather limited view I have always been amazed at what the West has given to China and received almost nothing in return. I admire the shrewd way they have absorbed our technology and have been embarrassed at the dumb way we have been so ready to give. I am sure that they do not respect us for it.
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24 Mar 2009
OldNick666 | Jericoa,
You talk of delusion. The human condition is that those who are normal are deluded and those who are not deluded are depressed.
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24 Mar 2009
Jericoa | Old nick,
True, they respect us for what we still have despite our stupidity is probably a better way of putting it. What they dont have is the huge innovation that comes fom the west, that comes from ahigher degree of freedom, which they may or may not understand, but there is only one way to get that is=f they want it..otherwise they will always be playing catch up or, more accurately 'copy cat' with technology..
Once they understand the freedom thing they will really clean up.. but at which point what do we have to be worried about ?
Dont get me wrong I am not singing thier praises, rather offering a reminder that the most powerful wright the history of the time, consequently we are led to believe the west comprises the great and the good. I just dont think we are all that different.
In terms of delusion it is a medical fact that I belong to the depressed brigade and I have the drugs to prove it...which help a lot ..as does this place and the BBC blogs for some reason.
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24 Mar 2009
kiki-dread | Freedom Death Dance
everybody wants happiness
everybody wants peace of mind
but I've really got news for you
there no amount of dancing we can do
that will ban the bomb or feed the starving children
no amount of dancing is going to make us free
to bring justice and equality to you and me
gather round the riots children everyone wants to dance
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25 Mar 2009
Jericoa | kiki
''no amount of dancing is going to make us free''
Obviously they had never heard of Caipoeira.
Jericoa
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