After every major pandemic, there is social unrest…
“So when our Sickness, and our Poverty Had greater wants than we could well supply; Strict Orders did but more enrage our grief, And hinder in accomplishing relief.”
That’s how the British poet George Wither explained a spreading rebellion against social-distancing rules. Seeing quarantines and lockdowns as unfair and tyrannical punishments, people were taking to the streets. The year was 1625, the place was London, the disease was plague.
…The peasant revolt in the 1300s, the civil unrest in the 1600s and the civil disobedience in the 1900s. The strict measures required to snuff out pandemics always makes the lives of the poorest unliveable, we haven’t seen the economic whiplash of Covid yet, especially amongst small business owners and those who were already vulnerable.
The desperate and newly desperate will swell globally and cause enormous cultural friction.
These waves of social disruption will reverberate around a rapidly warming planet. Here are some offerings on predictions for next year.
GLOBAL
Trump & Georgia – All eyes will still be on Trump all January as the final days in the Bunker start to play out for him. Is Trump a craven coward who is pulling one last scam to shake down his followers for hundreds of millions or is he really a full blown sociopath who will launch a military strike against China or Iran? If the Dems can win Georgia they finally take control of the Senate and they will have actual power, the Corporations will not like that.
China – Their Wolf Diplomacy to whip up nationalistic fervour is masking a fear of internal revolt. Expect China to violently take Hong Kong, sabre rattle over Taiwan and threaten anyone in the West who says otherwise to send a domestic and international message of brutal strength.
Covid – It will continue to disrupt enormously. The issues of rolling out this vaccine to everyone will be a huge challenge that will need to become an annual ritual requiring 75% to gain herd immunity. The logistics of that are huge and we will be lucky to reach 75% globally by the end of 2022, so the economic damage won’t really start healing for another 2 years.
Putinless Russia? Recent rumours of his demise were apparently over stated but a Putinless Russia would create an enormous power vacuum at a time of high instability.
Climate Crisis & Social Unrest – The economic stresses of Covid alongside more climate extremes will see a wave of famines in 2021.
There will be pressures caused by mass migration into Western countries who will already be grappling with intense social economic frictions, expect one of Biden’s first challenges to be a wave of climate refugees crossing the Southern Border.
The venal excesses of Wall Street Billionaires and their never ending wealth gains will cause enormous social distortions and lead to economic radicalisation.
Social Media disinformation will continue to polarise debate and create alternate realities.
DOMESTIC
Unemployment, poverty, homelessness and inequality to rise – We are expecting 70 000 more people on welfare, joblessness to spike and with those pressures, homelessness will rise as inequality deepens. 22 000 are on social housing waiting lists, 1 in 5 children are in poverty and property speculators are driving generations out of home ownership.
Crime Wave – The 501s now have their supply chains for South American Cartel meth established alongside a stand over regime on the domestic gangs. Expect more brain haemorrhages as older meth users smoke purer and cheaper meth and an explosion of violent crime aimed against Dairies and Bottle Stores as desperate users try to rob for cash. Guns are pouring into the country because of the meth trade. This alongside the economic fall out of the pandemic will see a crime wave across the country which will give National their first chance to play the law and order card. There is also growing extremism from prisoners who have served long sentences without any rehabilitation.
Ihumātao whiplash – The deal at Ihumātao is going to spark a serious of similar occupations around the country as other Māori rise up against unjust previous agreements.
Free Speech implosion – The Hate Speech legislation has the potential of igniting a debate the Left aren’t ready to argue convincingly. The backlash by the woke in social media feeds will have people fearing less for minorities exposed to hate speech and fear more being accused of hate speech.
Radicalisation & Polarisation – With all the economic stresses and ease of disinformation, expect radicalisation and polarisation to build, not dissipate.
Climate Crisis – We will face droughts, cyclones, forest fires and extreme rainfall events. The damages will mount alarmingly. Labour and the Greens will push for recommendations early in the year for emission cut backs and the Agricultural Lobby will faint at any mention of methane inclusion. Water reforms will keep David Parker too busy to do anything else.
Labour & Jacinda – Jacinda will increasingly be called on by global partners to front and lead more geopolitical fronts. Labour’s Caucus will baulk at the lack of actual transformative change and start to agitate for far more than Grant wants to pay for.
National – Will continue to wander for 40 days and 40 nights in the desert. Judith will use the crime wave to promise public floggings, but National are too deeply dysfunctional to offer a credible alternative.
Greens – Will increasingly look like they are propping up mediocrity and tepid nothingness. Won’t be able to help themselves over the Hate Speech legislation. Members will get increasingly frustrated by the lack of anything meaningful.
ACT – Will manipulate the Free Speech debate and continue to cannibalise National vote. Will crack 10%.
Māori Party – Have so many targets to shoot at, will continue to hold the Government’s feet to the fire.
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The coalition of the willing, the ‘dutiful children’ of the British Empire now transformed into a pseudo-fascist states, will increase their military spending, at the expense of health services, social needs and environmental needs , and look for new wars to start. Indeed, with everything falling apart at home, the ‘need’ for an overseas enemy will become greater. And the gigantic propaganda machine that keep neoliberal governments in power will go into hyperdrive. John Pilger’s excellent commentary in the matter highlights how:
‘In the midst of the greatest health emergency in modern times, with more than 4 million surgical procedures delayed by the National Health Service, Johnson has announced a record increase of £16.5 billion in so-called defence spending – a figure that would restore the under-resourced NHS many times over.
But these billions are not for defence. Britain has no enemies other than those within who betray the trust of its ordinary people, its nurses and doctors, its carers, elderly, homeless and youth, as successive neo-liberal governments have done, Conservative and Labour.’
‘Perhaps the most striking omission at the Staffordshire war memorial is an acknowledgement of the million Iraqis whose lives and country were destroyed by the illegal invasion of Blair and Bush in 2003.
ORB, a member of the British Polling Council, put the figure at 1.2 million. In 2013, the ComRes organisation asked a cross-section of the British public how many Iraqis had died in the invasion. A majority said fewer than 10,000.
How is such a lethal silence sustained in a sophisticated society? My answer is that propaganda is far more effective in societies that regard themselves as free than in dictatorships and autocracies. I include censorship by omission.
Our propaganda industries – both political and cultural, including most of the media – are the most powerful, ubiquitous and refined on earth. Big lies can be repeated incessantly in comforting, credible BBC voices. Omissions are no problem.’
and:
‘The defamation of all things Russian, not least the historical truth that the Red Army largely won the Second World War, is percolated into public consciousness. The Russians are of “no interest”, except as demons.
China, also a nuclear power, is the brunt of unrelenting provocation, with American strategic bombers and drones constantly probing its territorial space and – hooray – HMS Queen Elizabeth, Britain’s £3billion aircraft carrier, soon to sail 6,500 miles to enforce “freedom of navigation” within sight of the Chinese mainland.
Some 400 American bases encircle China, “rather like a noose”, a former Pentagon planner said to me. They extend all the way from Australia, though the Pacific to southern and northern Asia and across Eurasia.
In South Korea, a missile system known as Terminal High Altitude Air Defense, or THAAD, is aimed point-blank at China across the narrow East China Sea. Imagine Chinese missiles in Mexico or Canada or off the coast of California.’
and:
‘Take your pick among the legion of Russia and China bashers and promoters of fiction such as Russiagate. My personal Oscar goes to Peter Hartcher of the Sydney Morning Herald,whose unrelenting rousing drivel about the “existential threat” (of China/Russia, mostly China) was illustrated by a smiling Scott Morrison, the PR man who is Australia’s prime minister, dressed like Churchill, V for Victory sign and all. “Not since the 1930s ….” the pair of them intoned. Ad nauseum.
Covid has provided cover for this pandemic of propaganda. In July, Morrison took his cue from Trump and announced that Australia, which has no enemies, would spend A$270 billion on provoking one, including missiles that could reach China.
That China’s purchase of Australia’s minerals and agriculture effectively underwrote the Australian economy was “of no interest” to the government in Canberra.
The Australian media cheered almost as one, delivering a shower of abuse at China. Thousands of Chinese students, who had guaranteed the gross salaries of Australian vice-chancellors, were advised by their government to go elsewhere. Chinese-Australians were bad-mouthed and deliverymen were assaulted. Colonial racism is never hard to revive.
Some years ago, I interviewed the former head of the CIA in Latin America, Duane Claridge. In a few refreshingly honest words, he summed up “Western” foreign policy as it is ordained and directed by Washington.
The super-power, he said, could do what it wanted where it wanted whenever its “strategic interests” dictated. His words were: “Get used to it, world.”
The whole article is well worth reading.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/12/15/the-most-lethal-virus-is-not-covid-it-is-war/
So, as the world descends into economic, social and environmental chaos, we can feel reassured that our international security is being attended to.
Where does NZ fit into this puzzle of military madness? Presumably we also will decide to increase spending on military equipment and personnel; go to play our part in the defence of dysfunctional economic arrangements and dysfunctional social arrangements.
Meanwhile, as you say Martyn, everything that matters will be made worse.
If 2020 wasn’t bad enough you promise a shit sandwich for 2021! I can’t argue with most of that sadly. Ironically the Blairite’s biggest challenges ahead.
So, it is Seasonal Greetings all round and NOT a happy New Year!
It really is getting down to socialism vs social collapse worldwide. And here, socialism NZ style vs Blair Lite and dying globalism. The main political struggle for just under 3 years, has to be a movement to retire neoliberalism in 2023.
The Daily Blog’s esteemed Editor is now totally in tune with the requirements of the times with a Fortress New Zealand approach. The world is burning, and the answer for us is not international travel and trade.
I think there will be lots of unrest, here and internationally.
Poverty is not going away, to our shame. The Greens have been speaking out about it for years. Labour always talks about creating more income equality. And it never improves.
How is it, that, while our borders are closed and strictly controlled at the ports and airports, more meth and guns are pouring into NZ?
” If the Dems can win Georgia they finally take control of the Senate and they will have actual power, the Corporations will not like that ”
Bomber Bernie did not get the nomination for that very reason.
Biden and Harris have corporate backing after all the Democrats like Labour here turned to the dark side thirty or more years ago.
Biden will be as useless as Adern but without a majority of members that Labour has got here ( not that it makes a damn bit of difference ) Biden is an establishment nominee and was bought some time back.
Wall st and the inherent cruelty and corruption that is America is as strong as ever and will outlast this pandemic.
Alternative leaders of America and NZ are Trump and Collins, both with Narcissistic personality disorder, both useless and both pathological liars.
There’s great beauty in simplicity.
When people who are lawyers, politicians, journalists, real estate agents, bankers etc make a beautifully simple thing an ugly tangled writhing sack of lies and logical fallacies by wielding secret agendas and manipulations we should know by now that the truth that lies within the simple things which when understood would make the aforementioned professional liars live’s less profitable.
Complications are a great place to hide lies and plots and schemes.
Beautiful simple AO/NZ has been buried under complications.
We AO/NZ’ers should simply close our borders and boot out the banksters. Then we should write off all mortgage debt to everyone because that’s the simplest solution to the brooding building nightmare than comes to you in your slumber.
And how simple would that be to do?
How about we just do it. Then it’s done. And what might happen then? Fuck all would be my guess.
We’d have more money and more time and no poverty and no poverty related dysfunctions for a start.
We’re being bled out by a complicated framework of lies buried under secrets and sly, sketchy, wink-wink nose-tap deals.
But that’s all. Real, actual, proper issues barely exist for us AO/NZ’ers. We’re fine. We literally have nothing to worry about. We’re constantly told we do, but we don’t. Look around for Christ’s sake. What’s wrong with what we’ve got? We’ve got so much of everything that it’s almost beyond comprehension. And yet we think we’re fucked simply because we’re told we should think that.
Well, I think we should start thinking differently. I.e. We’re perhaps not that fucked at all? OMFG!? WTF? Really ??? etc.
I’ve been lucky. I’ve been able to travel around AO/NZ extensively. I’ve flown into our beautiful AO/NZ’s most special little places in helicopters, I’ve flown over the country hundreds of times, I’ve driven up, down and across our large and beautiful islands and I write that to make a point. But also because I’m awesome!
My point is that I have a very good spacial map of AO/NZ in my brain.
And what do I see? I see bullshit.
But I also see a huge garden with vast fresh water holdings ( Lakes ) perfectly placed about as if by grand design. I see glorious Co2 sequestering/oxygen giving forests. You been to South Westland? Don’t go there. Nothing to see there.
I also see small, mad, colourless little towns within which people are caged then exploited. Funny little Auckland with it’s prancing nouveau riche who are able to buy anything with a credit card except Class Dahlings.
I see smaller towns still where people are losing their minds to frantic, hive mentality dictums driven by greed which say we must this and that when really? No we don’t. Fuck off!
I see our farmers so boldly exploited that I can’t find words that say it better. They, like the rest of us have an abuser-worship psychological dysfunction that’s quite likely literally actually built into their DNA.
Cows as an example.
Cows are massive fucking things and are built like brick shit houses and some even have horns. They could, if they had a mind to, gang up on their abusers and crush them flat in the milking shed then rip out the fences and make a run for it into the bush where they could disappear like the Moose did in South Westland where you should not bother going because, as I’ve already written, there’s nothing to see there. ( I read a letter written by an old oysterman who’d been codding in one of the bays near Milford Sound. One day, so he wrote, as he was pulling up cod pots…there, on the beach, was a bull, a cow and a calf Moose watching him from under the trees on a little beach. )
And so there we are. 5 million people, most of whom are crammed into tiny, ugly, boring little towns dotted about a gloriously beautiful few islands safely nestled down in some of the richest oceans left in the world cowering in fear and fighting among themselves because they’ve been conditioned to worship their abusers. I think it’s commonly referred to as called ‘gaslighting’.
This was sent to me by a good friend. Mind boggling stuff
“Your Body’s Molecular Machines”
https://youtu.be/X_tYrnv_o6A
I enjoy reading your comments cb, but you really should have kept quiet about:
‘I’ve flown into our beautiful AO/NZ’s most special little places in helicopters, I’ve flown over the country hundreds of times, I’ve driven up, down and across our large and beautiful islands’
because that is major-league planet-fucking.
The moose were in fiordland not south westland.
You have hit the nail on the head with this review of the current situation and it is not a picture I like to see . History shows that as the population loses faith in the current alternatives they reach out to someone with a message of hope . In NZ this has been limited to people like Winston Peters or Jim Anderson but overseas it has lead to far worst leaders who have ultimately caused untold harm .
2021 Horrorscopes.
Virgo.
The whole world will turn to shit and on a personal note your small business will fail.
All the other Signs.
I don’t care about you guys I’ve got enough problems of my own not the least of which is “timid incrementalism”.
Missing from your list is energy.
We are in the midst of the biggest energy crisis in history. But because there is so much demand destruction and low pricing that accompanies demand destruction, ‘nobody’ notices.
The shit is really hitting the fan in the oil sector now:
According to HIS Markit, eleven U.S. refiners are scheduled to close.
The largest refinery in the United States, Royal Dutch Shell’s Convent, Louisiana refinery has shut down after it was unable to find an interested buyer. But the Dutch oil major is closing six more refineries according to Reuters, because it cannot sell those refineries either.
Then, the largest U.S. refiner, Marathon Petroleum, is set to close several refineries, including its Gallup, New Mexico, refinery and its refinery in Martinez, California.
Japan’s Eneos Corp has shut its Osaka refinery, too, but the real pain is in Australia.
BP announced back at the end of October that it was shutting down its aging 65-year-old Kwinana refinery in Perth, because it was simply “no longer economically viable.” Instead, the refinery will be turned into an import terminal. After this closure, BP has only three refineries left in Australia.’
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/The-Oil-Refinery-Crisis-Will-Worsen-This-Winter.html
By the way, anyone who thinks we will all soon be driving electric cars is utterly deluded. Apart from the fact that they are a sub-set of the petroleum industry and use electricity generated by burning fossil fuels, the is ‘small’ matter of practically all roads being made of petroleum, and maintained using petroleum.
Charles Hugh Smith points out the reality of the situation in an in-depth article on oil.
https://www.oftwominds.com/blogdec20/gasoline12-20.html
Undoubtedly, politicians and economist will not be at all concerned, since they are scientifically illiterate, and don’t even consider the oil supply in their so-called planning.
Without energy nothing happens.
Thanks for talking about this AFEWKNOWTHETRUTH.Our refinery has stopped making bitumen. The only other refineries NZ can access for this material are in Malaysia ( we would be last on their list) and California. We have no storage facilities for this product at our Ports. Same with Maui Gas . It is dropping rapidly. No new drilling means no more Maui Gas. We still have plenty of gas but Jacinda and Co who are economically and energy illiterate think we can import gas from foreign countries whose carbon footprint is fucken ginormous . We can’t . We have no storage or distribution pipelines for this. We are energy rich in NZ. We manage our energy poorly and have international treaty obligation which require us to have certain amounts of oil and fuel on standby. We are governed by ignorant fuckwits.
I am waiting with anticipation for the energy crisis created by the pathetic shortsightedness of Jacinda’s window dressing. It should be right doozy.
On a happier note, at least we all get to die eventually.
Inequality will increase, there will be more money printing (QE) to address out of control Western budget deficits, the stock market will reach new record highs (DOW Jones at 35,000+), house prices will continue to increase, Amazon will destory more retail businesses, China will see a renewed confidence and might occupy Hong Kong, Russia will once again become demonised in the hopes of igniting a new Cold War, the US will invade a country (maybe Syria to also annoy Russia), the climate will be mostly the same as it was this year (i.e. within normal deviations), democracy will continue to fail voters everywhere, the US might start seeing some genuine civil unrest, and the Covid pandemic will become less important once people realise it isn’t very deadly at all for 99.95% of the population.
Your last sentence is one of the more brainless assertions used by those attempting to minimise COVID.
If you are caught in a superspreader event, or in say a rest home or other place you cannot easily leave, the death rate can soon zoom up. It is not about the total population it is about who actually gets the virus, and who becomes a spreader.
Nitrium is so full of shit one wonders whether he makes stuff up just for the sake of being provocative and contrarian.
Take this, for example:
‘the climate will be mostly the same as it was this year (i.e. within normal deviations),’
What the hell are ‘normal deviations?
2020 saw the greatest number of named hurricanes in any year -so many the naming authority ran out of standard alphabet and got a fair way down the Greek alphabet.
There were more unprecedented weather events than in any time in recorded history -including four month’s rain in 24 hours in Napier. .
So Natrium give as all the impression everything is just fine and we are not in the midst of the fastest planetary meltdown in geological history, exceeding that of the Permian Extinction Event by a factor of at least 1000!
Maybe he has shares in an oil company or a coal corporation.
He’s another piece of nonsense:
‘China will see a renewed confidence and might occupy Hong Kong’
Well, the renewed confidence came around 20 years ago, and as for occupying Hong Kong, let’s not forget that it was the British who occupied Hong Kong (by force) and was returned to China in 1997. Hong Kong is full of Chinese.
As for:
‘Russia will once again become demonised in the hopes of igniting a new Cold War,’
Well, actually Russia has been demonised since Putin took control and threw out the western looters and prosecuted numerous Russian exploiters of the Russian people. That’s why the Russians love him and why the west hates him.
‘the US might start seeing some genuine civil unrest’
Is Nitrium saying the George Floyd and other protests we not genuine?
All that said, I’m sure Nitrium is right about yet more money-printing by central banks to prop up the failing system a little longer.
When I say “normal deviations” I mean somewhere between 10-20. 2005 and 2020 were really the only anonylous years
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/monitoring-content/sotc/tropical-cyclones/2018/annual/NAT_storms_2018.png
To complete the graph, 2019, had 18 named storms, 2020 had 29. I predict 2021 will not see a new record (there is really no obvious trend in that graph imo), so somewhere between 10 and 20 named storms.
As for China, what I meant that Biden is FAR more China friendly than Trump, so they will try on things they might not have attempted otherwise. Pu it this way. if the Hong Kong occupation is carried out and is successful, I’d be worried to be a Taiwanese.
Wrt to Russia, again it has to do with the new US president Biden. Trump largely ignored both Russia and Putin (despite some token lip service to keep a few war hawks happy).
Wrt to US civil unrest I meant that people actually start shooting at each other for having the wrong politics/beliefs. Despite occassional looting, rioting and one occupation, the BLM protests were by and large “peaceful”. There was no wide scale (i.e. nation-wide) civil unrest with thousands dead.
“Pu[sic]it this way. if the Hong Kong occupation is carried out and is successful”
LOL
https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/hong-kongs-low-profile-pla-garrison-in-the-spotlight
NED and other related NGOs funded by congress and administered by the CIA: may get chucked out of HK where they have caused /funded the riots, and take their yankee flags with them and go home.
HK can then resume their newly found democracy they have had since the mainland took HK back from Britain / The East India Company and their cronies, that gave HK absolutely NO democracy for 100 years.
“Covid pandemic will become less important once people realise it isn’t very deadly at all for 99.95% of the population.”
Oh dear, how moronic. Even the bat shit thick Trump has acknowledged this as a pandemic.
Less important to you and that’s probably because you’re alive!
Adern should resign followed by Robertson and the rest of the cabinet. They are failing and will continue to.
Yet when National were failing you did not call for their heads?
And when interest rates rise, those who have bought at inflated prices will be screwed. Dumb.
No, what’s dumb is you thinking the rates will significantly rise again.
This and every other government will protect house prices at all costs.
I agree.
The government would rather condone (implement) negative interest rates than see house prices fall.
Of course interest rates on deposits are already negative. Anyone saving for a house is totally screwed. Anyone who has worked hard all their life and put money in the bank is screwed if they don’t own a house. And a lot of those with a house are screwed because city and district councils always want more money for delivering less service. So many snouts in the trough to feed, and all that.
It’s only the collapse of the US dollar and the commensurate increase in value of the Kiwi (now around 71c US) , that is saving us from massive increases in the price of imports.
As Charles Hugh Smith points out, money-printing may allow the Dow to head on up towards 100,000, but the monstrous bubble is going to burst some time soon.
Extremes become more extreme right up until they reverse, a reversal no one believes possible here in the waning days of 2020.
The absolutely last thing anyone expects is a collapse of all the asset bubbles, i.e. a deflation of assets that reverses the full 20 years of bubble-utopia since 2000. The consensus is universal: assets will continue to loft ever higher, forever and ever, because the Fed has our back, i.e. central banks will create trillions out of thin air without any consequence other than assets lofting ever higher.
This research paper from the San Francisco Federal Reserve begs to differ. Here is an excerpt from Longer-Run Economic Consequences of Pandemics (San Francisco Federal Reserve)
“Measured by deviations in a benchmark economic statistic, the real natural rate of interest, these responses indicate that pandemics are followed by sustained periods–over multiple decades–with depressed investment opportunities, possibly due to excess capital per unit of surviving labor, and/or heightened desires to save, possibly due to an increase in precautionary saving or a rebuilding of depleted wealth. Either way, if the trends play out similarly in the wake of COVID-19 then the global economic trajectory will be very different than was expected only a few months ago.”
Allow me to translate: wars launch 20-year booms of rebuilding, pandemics launch 20 years of deflation. Oops! Not only do wars destroy physical assets that must be rebuilt, they also tend to kill off a consequential percentage of the labor force, generating a labor shortage that pushes up wages.
So capital wins funding the rebuilding and labor wins because workers are scarce and in demand: win-win baby! Pandemics are considerably less warm and fuzzy, especially Covid-19. Pandemics are like neutron bombs, they leave the built environment intact so there’s no impetus to invest.
Unlike the Black Death that decimated the human workforce from China to Europe in the 1350s, Covid disproportionately takes the lives of the elderly, most of whom have already left the workforce. So the Covid pandemic’s reduction of the workforce is too modest in scale to create labor scarcities consequential enough to push wages higher.
In other words, lose-lose: capital earns low returns in a low-demand environment and labors’ wages stagnate in this low-demand economy.
Cue 20 years of asset deflation. Bu-bu-but the Fed is omnipotent, godlike in its powers! The Fed can push stocks to moon, never mind history, fundamentals or reality!
Yes, well, um, fantasies are nice, and delusions are fun, but reality inevitably intrudes and diminishing returns on the Fed’s neofeudalist feast for the super-wealthy are about to grab markets by the throat, regardless of what the Fed bleats.
There are a couple of funny little things called reversion to the mean, bubble-symmetry and non-linear dynamics that the Fed doesn’t actually control (gasp!) because they are not fully controllable by human policies. Statistical outliers / extremes have a preternatural propensity to reverse, regardless of human manipulation (recall that the way of the Tao is reversal.)
And these reversals are not “buy the dip” wiggles; they completely reverse the entire bubblicious move to the stars via bubble-symmetry: so markets that go from 1,000 to 30,000 retrace all the way back down to 1,000, no matter how many humans shout, scream, plead and whine “that’s not possible!”
Oh yes it is. Hubris weighs heavily on our faith in the “right” human policies to work magic forever and ever. So as long as the Fed follows the “right policy” and continues printing trillions of dolars out of thin air and buying bonds (and whatever else needs to be bought up to loft markets higher) then Dow 100,000 is in the bag.
Or not. The idea that human don’t control everything is anathema to a technocrat elite, and so when the inevitable reversal crashes assets, everyone will rush around looking for the human-action cause of the disaster and the human-action fix, so we can get back on track to Dow 100,000.
But the search for causes will be in vain, for extremes pendulum swings reach a limit and then swing back, eventually reaching the opposite extreme minus a bit of friction, which is minimal in a frictionless financial sector of printing trillions with keystrokes.
If you want evidence that the pendulum has swung as far as it can go, ponder this chart of billionaire wealth jacked higher by the Fed and its central bank cronies’
Full article and graphic here:
https://www.oftwominds.com/blogdec20/deflation12-20.html
But who controls 90% of news and close to 99% of banking and related fiscal events but are not seriously talked about.
NZ cannot do as it likes unless complete collapse occurs.
We need to prepare for that.
I used to believe what AFKtT writes, but I think the central banks are very firmly in control here. By keeping interest rates at artificial lows, they allow corporations to borrow against the very assets they are inflating with their borrowing. i.e. Most of the stocks bought in global stock exchanges are the companies buying back their own stocks using borrowed money from bonds leveraged against those very stocks which they are artificially pumping from thjeir purchasing.
Meanwhile, the government owes all the newly printed money to themselves! Any increase in interest will actually result in an income! Sound like nonsense?Nope, behold, the miracle of Modern Monetary Theory (that has been warmly embraced by pretty much every developed country):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Monetary_Theory
‘Meanwhile, the government owes all the newly printed money to themselves!’
That would be the case if the government owned the central bank.
However, in the case of the Federal Reserve there is nothing Federal about it -it is privately owned- and there are no reserves -all the money in the system has no tangible backing.
So the debts keep piling up and the nation continues to live way beyond its means.
Now that might not be too much of a problem in the short term if other components of the system were under control. But they’re not. The US is running monstrous deficits on its trade, particularly with China; practically every month that passes the gulf between what the US earns from exports and what it pays for imports increases.
Note that every sector of the US economy other than military, pharmaceuticals and medical is in trouble, so the government has patched together yet another bailout.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/15bn-airlines-corporate-meal-tax-breaks-and-other-pork-whats-inside-900bn-stimulus-bill
What could one say about ‘theory”? Well, where would you start. Just a random hit:
“A theory is a group of linked ideas intended to explain something. … The word ‘theory’ has several meanings: a guess or speculation, a law about things which cannot be seen directly …., a whole system of laws and hypotheses which explain many things”.
And then there are so-called personal theories, convictions bulit up over time by observation, lived experince, and reflection.
Economic theory is nothing but guessanomics, pure speculation. All been covered by TDB.
Food for thought for the government.
“A new study reveals that greater bird biodiversity brings greater joy to people, according to recent findings from the German Center for Integrative Biodiversity Research. In fact, scientists concluded that conservation is just as important for human well-being as financial security.”
Study: Birds Are Linked to Happiness Levels
https://www.ecowatch.com/birds-happiness-study-2649413979.html?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1
I like your post, and yeah I agree.
Every day I speak to people in Germany, and they always comment on the birds they hear in the background.
Usually sparrows, blackbirds, and the noisiest, and their favourite, the myna.
Sparrows are endangered now in Europe. Probably the blackbirds are as well.
I cannot stand the mynas, another NZ pest, but sometimes we are blessed with a tui in the flaxbush.
But the point is they love the sound of the birds in the background and it relaxes them. And brings them joy.
And then I realise they bring me joy as well.
How 2030 is the new 2100: Global Food Yields Already Dropping from Abrupt Climate Change
2030 is the new 2100. Climate change is ALREADY reducing global food yields TODAY, with an average 1% annual reduction in the worlds top ten global crops, providing 83% of food calories to humanity: top ten food crops: barley, cassava, maize (corn), oil palm, rapeseed (canola), rice, sorghum, soybean, sugarcane, wheat. Most reduced: oil palm (-13.4%); increased: soybeans (+3.5%). Negatively affected regions are Europe, South Africa, and Australia; +ve is Latin America; mixed is Asia, North and Central America. Growing season temperatures over all harvested areas is up 0.5 to 1.2 C since the early 1970s.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SModhHUpcj0
What Does The Sixth Mass Extinction Mean For Humans?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07qyvX8WBco
erNomic
erNomic
10 months ago
Until profits become less important to our leaders than survival nothing will change. Get rid of super pacs and lobbyists, actually prosecute white collar crime, break up the media oligopoly, break up the banks, break up the 2 party duopoly that has broken our Democracy.
Your right on the button Martyn. That’s exactly what people like Gerald Celente who is more capitalist than marxist. Anyway I digress. He is a trend forecaster from New York and he predicts massive social unrest and rebellion around the world. Its not going to be pretty the picture he paints. He say then we will head into a economic depression like we have not seen since the 1930’s. This is all to come and I don’t doubt him he predicted the GFC and other crisis.
I could predict Collins will be replaced as National Party leader but that will depend on Christopher Luxon believing it’s the right time to roll her. That of course requires a “strong team” haha to deal with their own fear of being confronted by Chucky after they backstab her. What will that take? The ACT Party overtaking them in the polls?
I could predict the Government will tackle the farcical situation with house prices but all I’m hearing so far amounts to a splash in the ocean. Repealing the RMA will help and also reinstating the LVR’s in March but as long as they ignore tidal wave immigration continuing at this time and there being no tax on massive housing investor profits, the status quo will continue. How can we have record homelessness when there are 191,000 homes vacant in the country? There must be a punitive charge on investors who are land banking and house banking. Many of these investors feel they are better off financially to keep the property vacant and or not have homes built on their investment land. That amounts to obscene treason at this time in NZ’s history. As long as this situation continues, no meaningful progress will be made with the housing crisis. Does the Government have the stomach to address this? I admire Ardern but the answer there is an emphatic NO.
The Government however will make sound progress in other areas.
I only have one prediction for 2021 that I’m very confident with. The incessant and growing number of threats from the arrogant bullies of the CCP will escalate and result in the commencement of military conflict. In recent years the question has been where ground zero will be? Australia? Hong Kong? Taiwan? India? . My confident prediction is it will be all of the above simultaneously. We need to look back in order to look forward. During WWII, the Japanese set out to conquer many countries and Islands in the Pacific. They knew the strategic significance of their targets and used bayonets, shovels, swords, and rifles to achieve their goals. The CCP has done exactly the same but they’ve done it with $$$$$$ while masquerading as friends.
Nazi Germany adopted a policy of Lebensraum (living space) at approximately the same time. They did so at their targets using Military Blitzkrieg. The CCP has the same goal but again has instead used $$$$$ while masquerading as friends.
It is just a matter of time before the CCP commence the next stage of their master plan. I’m very confident 2021 will see that occur. The only force they are concerned about is the United States who is reeling from Covid-19.
This situation is no reflection on the fine Chinese people I’ve met who’ve made NZ their home.
‘I admire Ardern ‘
Why?
I have seen nothing to admire over the three+ years she has been around. All she has done is make promises she had no intention of keeping or couldn’t keep -“climate change nuclear moment” being a very good example- and done virtually nothing worthwhile whilst ignoring all the crucial issues of the times! By pretty much every measure that means anything, Jacinda has made matters worse in NZ; that’s the financial crisis, the energy crisis, the environment crisis (both CO2 and biodiversity, the housing crisis, the waste crisis, the population overshoot crisis, the consumption crisis…
Her ONLY achievement was to go on television and present the advice given to her by specialists in the management of pandemics. And managing the border was not particularly hard when there isn’t one!
I see an acolyte of Tony B Liar doing exactly what he did: lying. And reaping huge personal rewards for doing so.
Your rhetoric concerning China doe not stand the test of analysis. Western nations were all too happy to exploit the cheaply-made goods China had to offer from the 1970s on, and to shut down their industries and relocate them to China to take advantage of cheap labour and resources through the 1990s and beyond. Indeed, western nations were falling over themselves in the race to open up China and exploit to cheap labour and cheap resources, and to import mountains of crap use once and throw away Halloween suits being a prime example- that China generates.
Right now the world is awash with cheaply-made plastic crap and cheaply-made metal crap, that western nations are all to keen to import because it’s “good for business.”
As for comparing China with Japan of the imperial-colonial period, I suggest you study some history.
Afewknowthetruth,
As always, your version of the truth is the only truth.
The fact you don’t / can’t see why I admire Ardern relates to your own ignorance, impediments, and bias. Comical that you still expect miracles to occur while a PM is dealing with an unprecedented massacre and a deadly pandemic is VERY telling. I’m sure you’d get the job done while trying to balance so many events including winning an election. Yea right. The other one plays jingle bells.
Yes, comparing Japan’s attempt at conquering countries and Islands of the Pacific during WWII to what China has been doing is extremely relevant. Japan did it with bayonets and shovels. They were extremely determined. China has done it with $$. Both knew exactly how significant the conquest / financial input would be for similar reasons. This is factual. Perhaps I should return my post-graduate degree in history and seek your version of the truth in future.
Do you have any idea just how arrogant and condescending you come across as being?
I do however agree with you on plastics. How ironic that The Warehouse is blowing their own trumpet in this area.
‘Japan did it with bayonets and shovels. They were extremely determined. China has done it with $$.’
If you could look beyond the end of your nose you might discover where those $$ came from.
‘Perhaps I should return my post-graduate degree in history and seek your version of the truth in future.’
I can’t comment directly on that, since I don’t know what you studied. But I do know that most of what is taught as history isn’t actually what happened at all, and the reasons given for events are not the real ones.
The victors of a conflict decide what history gets published, and that has been particularly true of the British and American empires.
Try Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_People%27s_History_of_the_United_States
‘Comical that you still expect miracles to occur while a PM is dealing with an unprecedented massacre and a deadly pandemic is VERY telling.’
Sorry Jacindafan…actually, we don’t expect miracles. We expect her to do her job. And that is to make some hard PM worthy decisions.
Here’s a hard one: Install Capital Gains Tax!
Here’s another hard one:
Here’s another hard one: Fire Mallard!!!
Here’s another one: Appoint another Child Poverty Minister!!!
She only makes the easy ones, the ‘feel good’ ones, the PR ones, the ‘Hello UN’ ones. She doesn’t do her voter base, or the whole nation, any practical good. You should really take off your blinkers. It’s embarrassing reading your drooling adorations.
On the matter of the world awash with plastics, drowning in plastics even, nowhere is safe:
‘Microplastics revealed in the placentas of unborn babies
Health impact is unknown but scientists say particles may cause long-term damage to foetuses’
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/22/microplastics-revealed-in-placentas-unborn-babies
2021 prediction: there will be absolutely no progress on state house building and affordable rents. You heard it here first folks. It’s not in this government’s agenda.
Martyn, lots of predictions, but not much shit hitting the fan as far as I can see??
My only prediction:
National will get rid of Collins.
“If the Dems can win Georgia they finally take control of the Senate and they will have actual power, the Corporations will not like that.”
Im pretty sure the corporations will be absolutely fine with Dem control of the Senate. Anyone who thinks the Democratic Party is a ‘left wing’ party or even ‘centre left’ is delusional.
I would very much like to point out that Biden has frozen the progressives out of any cabinet posts, choosing a bunch of centrist technocrats instead.
Indeed, it was Clinton, a Democrat (though it’s been hard to tell the difference between Democrats and Republicans for an awful long time)), who unleashed the banks with his repeal of Glass-Stegall, and set up the conditions for corporations having more control than ever. Plus setting up the preconditions for the biggest financial bubble in all of history.
Both major parties in the US are just as faux as Labour and National in NZ, or Labour and Conservative in the UK, ad infinitum.
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