Garth Turner, in his blog www.greaterfool.ca, recommended that Peacenik stop reading doomer sites. Peacenik tried. But Peacenik's computer is infected with doomer links, google alerts, and Peacenik failed. Which brought Peacenik to this site. For two generations North American's have never really had to contend with shortages, other than of mood rings, and Wii games. But now there is a very real possibility that there will be food shortages. Nothing gets Peacenik's dander up quicker than being hungry or thirsty. 41 million people in the U.S. are on food stamps. When that number hits 44 million watch out. In Canada there is unprecedented demand from food banks. Will hunger be the black swan event that gets North American's off their arses? War hasn't. Bankruptcy hasn't. Unemployment hasn't. Racism hasn't. Will hunger?
The stunningly violent food riots in Tunisia and Algeria show just how quickly things can change. Just a few months ago, these two northern Africa nations were considered to be very stable, very peaceful and without any major problems. But now protesters are openly squaring off with police in the streets. Many of the protesters are throwing "fire bombs" or are shooting fireworks at the authorities, and the police are responding with a tremendous amount of violence themselves. In Algeria, several protesters have been killed by police and several others have actually set themselves on fire to protest the economic conditions. In Tunisia, more than 100 people have been killed and the president of that country actually had to flee for his life. But on a global scale, food shortages have not even gotten that bad yet. Yes, food prices are starting to go up and food supplies are a little bit tighter right now, but much worse times than these are coming. So what in the world are the cities of the world going to look like when we have a very serious food shortage? Just as we saw during the food riots of 2008, when people get to the point where they can't even feed themselves anymore, they tend to lose it. In the video posted below, you can really feel the desperation of these young Algerians as they riot in the streets...
Read on...
Showing posts with label economic collapse. Show all posts
Showing posts with label economic collapse. Show all posts
1/19/11
10/20/10
Britain Details Radical Cuts in Spending, Citing Debt
Coming to a country near you. Maybe even your country. Sovereign debt levels are unsustainable. The black hole of debt that Peacenik has been watching for years is sucking economies and societies into it, faster and faster. The Brits are even going to cut military spending and of course welfare. Ireland has just about disappeared down the drain. The French are at the abyss.
And what about Canada? Canada is facing record debt levels, a collapsing economy, soaring unemployment and the pricking of a U.S. style housing bubble. Peacenik wonders how Canadians will respond to the inevitable British medicine. Peacenik wonders how you will respond. Peacenik wonders how Peacenik will respond.
And what about Canada? Canada is facing record debt levels, a collapsing economy, soaring unemployment and the pricking of a U.S. style housing bubble. Peacenik wonders how Canadians will respond to the inevitable British medicine. Peacenik wonders how you will respond. Peacenik wonders how Peacenik will respond.
LONDON — Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer unveiled the country’s steepest public spending cuts in decades on Wednesday, sharply reducing welfare benefits and eliminating almost half a million public sector jobs over the next four years as the country seeks to free itself of crushing debt from the global financial crisis.
“Today is the day when Britain steps back from the brink,” George Osborne, the Chancellor, told Parliament.
“It is a hard road but it leads to a better future,” he said, but “to back down now would be the road to economic ruin.”
He said that 490,000 public sector jobs would be lost over the four-year savings program and the size of government departments in London would be cut by one third. Public spending would be cut by a total 83 billion pounds, or around $130 billion, by 2015.
10/23/09
Raising up dead horses
Joe Bageant isn't happy as he surveys the detritus of what was the American dream. This guy is a downer. And unfortunately Peacenik saw Peacenik's self in Joe's article "you got your common man living on hope, lottery tickets, or the dogs and ponies." Yes Peacenik buys lottery tickets. Peacenik feels modestly anxious that Peacenik hasn't bought a 649 ticket for Saturday night.
But Peacenik said it before, Peacenik would rather trust the future to lottery tickets than to Stephen Harper or the rest of our oleaginous leaders or the corrupt and crooked stock exchanges. The DOW and TSX are in the red and only 4 hours to go till the closing bell. Does it matter? Do you have your lottery tickets?
By Joe Bageant
When Barack Obama took office it seemed to some of us that his first job was to get the national silverware out of the pawn shop. Or at least maintain the world's confidence that it was possible for us to get out of debt. America is dead broke, the easy credit, phantom "growth" economy has been exposed for what it was. A credit scam. Even Hillary Clinton and Obama's best efforts have not coaxed much more dough out of foreign friends. But at least we again have a few friends abroad.
So now we must jackleg ourselves back into something resembling a productive activity. No matter how you cut it, things will not be as much fun as shopping and speculative "investing" were.
The fiesta is over, the economy as we knew it is dead.
Read on...
But Peacenik said it before, Peacenik would rather trust the future to lottery tickets than to Stephen Harper or the rest of our oleaginous leaders or the corrupt and crooked stock exchanges. The DOW and TSX are in the red and only 4 hours to go till the closing bell. Does it matter? Do you have your lottery tickets?
By Joe Bageant
When Barack Obama took office it seemed to some of us that his first job was to get the national silverware out of the pawn shop. Or at least maintain the world's confidence that it was possible for us to get out of debt. America is dead broke, the easy credit, phantom "growth" economy has been exposed for what it was. A credit scam. Even Hillary Clinton and Obama's best efforts have not coaxed much more dough out of foreign friends. But at least we again have a few friends abroad.
So now we must jackleg ourselves back into something resembling a productive activity. No matter how you cut it, things will not be as much fun as shopping and speculative "investing" were.
The fiesta is over, the economy as we knew it is dead.
Read on...
8/10/09
Obamageddon
punditman says...Many of you may have noticed the absence of Peacenik. You would be right; he is off in the wilderness once again training for the collapse of everything—and vacationing at the same time until the 20th. In the meantime, Punditman will try to fill Peacenik's shoes. Punditman has trouble finding a pair of tennis shoes to fit Punditman's quirky feet, so filling two people's shoes simultaneously should prove challenging.
I'll give it a shot.
The article below is a good place place to start, because it deals with several crises all at once: President Obama's escalating war in Afghanistan, the threat of war with Iran, the collapse of the "bailout bubble" and finally, the mother of all bubble burstings, the collapse of the American hyper-power empire. That outta keep your neurons firing for awhile.
The Celente thesis: war as the "solution" to economic depression
by Justin Raimondo
www.antiwar.com
I'll give it a shot.
The article below is a good place place to start, because it deals with several crises all at once: President Obama's escalating war in Afghanistan, the threat of war with Iran, the collapse of the "bailout bubble" and finally, the mother of all bubble burstings, the collapse of the American hyper-power empire. That outta keep your neurons firing for awhile.
The Celente thesis: war as the "solution" to economic depression
by Justin Raimondo
www.antiwar.com
An American president is launching the most ambitious, the most expensive, and certainly the most dangerous military campaign since the Vietnam War – and the antiwar movement, such as it is, is missing in action. After a long and bloody campaign in Iraq and the election of a U.S. president pledged to get us out, our government is once again revving up its war machine and taking aim at yet another "terrorist" stronghold, this time in Afghanistan. Yet the antiwar movement’s motor seems stuck in the wrong gear, making no motions toward mounting anything like an effective protest. What gives?
We shouldn’t doubt the scope of the present war effort. Make no mistake: the Obama administration is radically ramping up the stakes in the "war on terrorism," which, though renamed, has not been revised downward, as the Washington Post reports:
"As the Obama administration expands U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, military experts are warning that the United States is taking on security and political commitments that will last at least a decade and a cost that will probably eclipse that of the Iraq war."
There are always "warnings" in the beginning, aren’t there? For some reason, however, they are never heeded. Instead, we just barrel ahead, undaunted, into the tall grass where ambush awaits us. War opponents predicted the Iraq invasion would prove unsustainable – and we were right. We said that, far from greeting us with cheers and showers of roses, the Iraqis would soon be shooting at us and demanding our ouster – and we were right. We said the rationale for war was based on a series of carefully manufactured and marketed lies – and that was the truth, now wasn’t it? Yet it seems we are caught in an endlessly repetitive nightmare, where the same prophetic voices are being drowned out by a chorus of "responsible" voices – to be followed by an all-too-familiar disaster.
The problem, however, is that the scale of these disasters seems to be increasing exponentially. As Gerald Celente, one of the few economic forecasters who predicted the ‘08 crash, put it the other day, "Governments seem to be emboldened by their failures." What the late Gen. William E. Odom trenchantly described as "the worst strategic disaster in American military history" – the invasion of Iraq – is being followed up by a far larger military operation, one that will burden us for many years to come. This certainly seems like evidence in support of the Celente thesis, and the man who predicted the 1987 stock market crash, the fall of the Soviet Union, the dot-com bust, the gold bull market, the 2001 recession, the real estate bubble, the “Panic of ‘08,” and now is talking about the inevitable popping of the "bailout bubble," has more bad news:
"Given the pattern of governments to parlay egregious failures into mega-failures, the classic trend they follow, when all else fails, is to take their nation to war."
As the economic crisis escalates and the debt-based central banking system shows it can no longer re-inflate the bubble by creating assets out of thin air, an economic and political rationale for war is easy to come by; for if the Keynesian doctrine that government spending is the only way to lift us out of an economic depression is true, then surely military expenditures are the quickest way to inject "life" into a failing system. This doesn’t work, economically, since the crisis is only masked by the wartime atmosphere of emergency and "temporary" privation. Politically, however, it is a lifesaver for our ruling elite, which is at pains to deflect blame away from itself and on to some "foreign" target.
6/23/09
California Collapsing
Peacenik has posted about the California situation before. It was bad then. It is worse now. And remember California is the future.
Peacenik tries to figure out why Ontario should be any different from California. Ontario's manufacturing is going the way of the dodo bird. Real estate is over priced. The TSX plunged almost 500 points yesterday. Unemployment is soaring. Pension plans are failing. Why should Ontario be any better off than California? Peacenik says it isn't. Cash out, Cash in, and prepare for collapse.
by Martin D. Weiss, Ph.D. 06-22-09
Washington and Wall Street seem to be treating California as if it were a sideshow in the financial circus of these turbulent times.
It’s not.
California is home to the largest manufacturing belt in the United States and to Silicon Valley, the nation’s largest high-tech center.
California is America’s most populous state with 38 million people. Its GDP of $1.8 trillion is the largest in the U.S. Its economy is bigger than those of Russia, Brazil, Canada, or India.
California's Mortgage Nightmare
And it’s collapsing.
Major California counties are ground zero in the continuing mortgage meltdown:
Read on...
Peacenik tries to figure out why Ontario should be any different from California. Ontario's manufacturing is going the way of the dodo bird. Real estate is over priced. The TSX plunged almost 500 points yesterday. Unemployment is soaring. Pension plans are failing. Why should Ontario be any better off than California? Peacenik says it isn't. Cash out, Cash in, and prepare for collapse.
by Martin D. Weiss, Ph.D. 06-22-09
Washington and Wall Street seem to be treating California as if it were a sideshow in the financial circus of these turbulent times.
It’s not.
California is home to the largest manufacturing belt in the United States and to Silicon Valley, the nation’s largest high-tech center.
California is America’s most populous state with 38 million people. Its GDP of $1.8 trillion is the largest in the U.S. Its economy is bigger than those of Russia, Brazil, Canada, or India.
California's Mortgage Nightmare
And it’s collapsing.
Major California counties are ground zero in the continuing mortgage meltdown:
Read on...
5/26/09
Why Are Long-Term Rates Going Up? Maybe Lenders Think We're Screwed
Henry Blodget|May. 25, 2009, 9:48 AM
The whole world is deflating, but long-term interest rates are moving up. (See the chart for the 10-yr Treasury at right). Why?
Tim Geithner thinks it's because traders are recognizing that the economy's beginning to recover
That's one happy theory. And it's possible (fingers crossed). But here are two less-happy theories:
Read on...
Peacenik has been browsing the news this morning. In the Globe and Mail there is a story about Flaherty not revealing the extent of the federal deficit. WTF? Peacenik guesses it must be big. And in Haaretz, Netanyahu is threatening Iran again. Yawn. Should Peacenik yawn at this threat? GM is on the verge of bankruptcy. Who cares? Standard and Poor's just warned Britain about downgrading Britain's credit rating. So what? Foreclosures in the U.S.A continues at a record pace.....zzzzzzzzzzzz . There are lots of stories about the growing threat of inflation. Boring. And the yield on 10-year U.S treasuries jumped 33 basis points in the past week. What dat? Obama said the U.S. was out of money. Who isn't?
Is there a trend in all this news? Peacenik doesn't see one. But Peacenik senses something. Something disquieting. Bad news is losing its punch. The sheeple are becoming inured to bad news. Society no longer seems to distinguish between good news and bad news. The stock market is just as apt to rise on bad news as on good news. Tons of really bad news is just ignored. Peacenik wonders why this is so. Peacenik wonders if this is bad. Bad news is losing its impact. That is bad news. Very bad news...I think.
Tim Geithner thinks it's because traders are recognizing that the economy's beginning to recover
That's one happy theory. And it's possible (fingers crossed). But here are two less-happy theories:
Read on...
Peacenik has been browsing the news this morning. In the Globe and Mail there is a story about Flaherty not revealing the extent of the federal deficit. WTF? Peacenik guesses it must be big. And in Haaretz, Netanyahu is threatening Iran again. Yawn. Should Peacenik yawn at this threat? GM is on the verge of bankruptcy. Who cares? Standard and Poor's just warned Britain about downgrading Britain's credit rating. So what? Foreclosures in the U.S.A continues at a record pace.....zzzzzzzzzzzz . There are lots of stories about the growing threat of inflation. Boring. And the yield on 10-year U.S treasuries jumped 33 basis points in the past week. What dat? Obama said the U.S. was out of money. Who isn't?
Is there a trend in all this news? Peacenik doesn't see one. But Peacenik senses something. Something disquieting. Bad news is losing its punch. The sheeple are becoming inured to bad news. Society no longer seems to distinguish between good news and bad news. The stock market is just as apt to rise on bad news as on good news. Tons of really bad news is just ignored. Peacenik wonders why this is so. Peacenik wonders if this is bad. Bad news is losing its impact. That is bad news. Very bad news...I think.
5/21/09
California, a Broke State, Reels as Voters Rebuff Leaders
By JENNIFER STEINHAUER
Published: May 20, 2009
Published: May 20, 2009
LOS ANGELES — Direct democracy has once again upended California — enough so that the state may finally consider another way by overhauling its Constitution for the first time in 130 years.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger returned home from a White House visit on Wednesday to find the state dangerously broke, his constituents defiant after a special election on Tuesday and calls for a constitutional convention — six months ago little more than a wonkish whisper — a cacophony.
As the notion of California as ungovernable grows stronger than ever, Mr. Schwarzenegger, a Republican, has expressed support for a convention to address such things as the state’s arcane budget requirements and its process for proliferate ballot initiatives, both of which necessitated Tuesday’s statewide vote on budget matters approved months ago by state lawmakers.
Read on...
The west coast has always been viewed as the place to go if you want to see the future. Fashion. Cultural trends. Political trends. And yes total collapse. The 10th biggest economy in the world is in a state of total collapse. Housing prices continue to fall. Unemployment continues to rise. Institutions continue to implode.
Does California provide a glimpse of our future. Peacenik hopes not but thinks so. The voters of California had a chance to weigh in on how to solve the economic crisis. Did the voters realize that there is no solution? Or did they simply continue with the anti-tax mantra of the last 30 years? Were the voters selfish or stupid or both? Peacenik doesn't know. But California is on the leading edge of living a new standard of living. A lesser one. A third world one. Here come the cuts to healthcare, education, and welfare. Here come 20,000 prisoners, on the street, cause the state can't afford to keep them in prison.
Will Canadian voters vote for progressive solutions when their turn to vote comes? Or have 30 years of brainwashing so engrained libertarian ideas that Canadians' too will vote against their own self- interest? Is there a way to prevent collapse? Peacenik thinks probably not.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger returned home from a White House visit on Wednesday to find the state dangerously broke, his constituents defiant after a special election on Tuesday and calls for a constitutional convention — six months ago little more than a wonkish whisper — a cacophony.
As the notion of California as ungovernable grows stronger than ever, Mr. Schwarzenegger, a Republican, has expressed support for a convention to address such things as the state’s arcane budget requirements and its process for proliferate ballot initiatives, both of which necessitated Tuesday’s statewide vote on budget matters approved months ago by state lawmakers.
Read on...
The west coast has always been viewed as the place to go if you want to see the future. Fashion. Cultural trends. Political trends. And yes total collapse. The 10th biggest economy in the world is in a state of total collapse. Housing prices continue to fall. Unemployment continues to rise. Institutions continue to implode.
Does California provide a glimpse of our future. Peacenik hopes not but thinks so. The voters of California had a chance to weigh in on how to solve the economic crisis. Did the voters realize that there is no solution? Or did they simply continue with the anti-tax mantra of the last 30 years? Were the voters selfish or stupid or both? Peacenik doesn't know. But California is on the leading edge of living a new standard of living. A lesser one. A third world one. Here come the cuts to healthcare, education, and welfare. Here come 20,000 prisoners, on the street, cause the state can't afford to keep them in prison.
Will Canadian voters vote for progressive solutions when their turn to vote comes? Or have 30 years of brainwashing so engrained libertarian ideas that Canadians' too will vote against their own self- interest? Is there a way to prevent collapse? Peacenik thinks probably not.
4/16/09
The Coming Siege of Austerity
by Jim Kunstler
It's a curious symptom of the consensus trance zombifying the American public and its auditors in the media that something like a "recovery" is now deemed to be underway. And, as events compel me to repeat in this space, it begs the question: recovery to what? To Wall Street booking stupendous profits by laundering "risk" out of bad loans with new issues of tranche-o-matic securitized paper? This I doubt, since there isn't a pension fund left from San Jose to Bratislava that would touch this stuff with a stick, even if it could be turned out in collector's editions of boxed sets. Does it mean that American "consumers" (so-called) are awaited momentarily in the flat-screen TV sales parlors with their credit cards fanned-out like poker hands, ready for "action?" Not too likely with massive non-performance out in cardholder-land, and half the nation's electronics inventory wending its way onto Craig's List. Are we expecting more asteroid belts of new suburbs carved in the loamy outlands of Dallas and Minneapolis, complete with new highway strips of Big Box shopping and Chuck E. Cheeses? Go to banking's intensive care unit and inquire (if you can) among the flat-lining production home-builders and the real estate investment trusts on life support when they expect to rev up the heavy equipment.
Read on...
Yesterday Peacenik read that the Stratford Festival was putting 30 performance dates on hold. This morning, former Mike Harris acolyte and now Canada's Industry Minister, Tony Clement, is warning the CAW to make more concessions. Also this morning, General Growth Properties, the largest mall owner in the U.S., declared bankruptcy. Conquest Vacations went out of business yesterday. Intrawest is being forced to sell Mont Tremblant. Housing starts in the U.S. are near a record low. The Habs are for sale. A closer examination of Goldman Sachs stated first quarter profit shows that maybe the profit was just some accounting trickery.
Peacenik doesn't think things are getting better. Jim Kunstler doesn't think things are getting better. Do you?
Read on...
Yesterday Peacenik read that the Stratford Festival was putting 30 performance dates on hold. This morning, former Mike Harris acolyte and now Canada's Industry Minister, Tony Clement, is warning the CAW to make more concessions. Also this morning, General Growth Properties, the largest mall owner in the U.S., declared bankruptcy. Conquest Vacations went out of business yesterday. Intrawest is being forced to sell Mont Tremblant. Housing starts in the U.S. are near a record low. The Habs are for sale. A closer examination of Goldman Sachs stated first quarter profit shows that maybe the profit was just some accounting trickery.
Peacenik doesn't think things are getting better. Jim Kunstler doesn't think things are getting better. Do you?
4/9/09
Resist or Become Serfs
by Chris Hedges
America is devolving into a third-world nation. And if we do not immediately halt our elite's rapacious looting of the public treasury we will be left with trillions in debts, which can never be repaid, and widespread human misery which we will be helpless to ameliorate. Our anemic democracy will be replaced with a robust national police state. The elite will withdraw into heavily guarded gated communities where they will have access to security, goods and services that cannot be afforded by the rest of us. Tens of millions of people, brutally controlled, will live in perpetual poverty. This is the inevitable result of unchecked corporate capitalism. The stimulus and bailout plans are not about saving us. They are about saving them. We can resist, which means street protests, disruptions of the system and demonstrations, or become serfs.
We have been in a steady economic decline for decades. The Canadian political philosopher John Ralston Saul detailed this decline in his 1992 book "Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West." David Cay Johnston exposed the mirage and rot of American capitalism in "Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You With the Bill)," and David C. Korten, in "When Corporations Rule the World" and "Agenda for a New Economy," laid out corporate malfeasance and abuse. But our universities and mass media, entranced by power and naively believing that global capitalism was an unstoppable force of nature, rarely asked the right questions or gave a prominent voice to those who did. Our elites hid their incompetence and loss of control behind an arrogant facade of specialized jargon and obscure economic theories.
The lies employed to camouflage the economic decline are legion. President Ronald Reagan included 1.5 million U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine service personnel with the civilian work force to magically reduce the nation's unemployment rate by 2 percent. President Bill Clinton decided that those who had given up looking for work, or those who wanted full-time jobs but could only find part-time employment, were no longer to be counted as unemployed. This trick disappeared some 5 million unemployed from the official unemployment rolls. If you work more than 21 hours a week-most low-wage workers at places like Wal-Mart average 28 hours a week-you are counted as employed, although your real wages put you below the poverty line. Our actual unemployment rate, when you include those who have stopped looking for work and those who can only find part-time jobs, is not 8.5 percent but 15 percent. A sixth of the country is now effectively unemployed. And we are shedding jobs at a faster rate than in the months after the 1929 crash.
Keep Reading...
punditman says...The article posits that if the Obama administration doesn't change course--and fast--America is headed towards becoming Weimar Germany. And we all know what followed. So will we see skyrocketing inflation followed by some sort of crypto fascism? Things are not getting better, and that is why Peacenik is practicing his survival skills for two weekends in a row. And that is why Punditman is worried. Is this what America's near future will look like? Scary stuff--and not just for America.
America is devolving into a third-world nation. And if we do not immediately halt our elite's rapacious looting of the public treasury we will be left with trillions in debts, which can never be repaid, and widespread human misery which we will be helpless to ameliorate. Our anemic democracy will be replaced with a robust national police state. The elite will withdraw into heavily guarded gated communities where they will have access to security, goods and services that cannot be afforded by the rest of us. Tens of millions of people, brutally controlled, will live in perpetual poverty. This is the inevitable result of unchecked corporate capitalism. The stimulus and bailout plans are not about saving us. They are about saving them. We can resist, which means street protests, disruptions of the system and demonstrations, or become serfs.
We have been in a steady economic decline for decades. The Canadian political philosopher John Ralston Saul detailed this decline in his 1992 book "Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West." David Cay Johnston exposed the mirage and rot of American capitalism in "Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You With the Bill)," and David C. Korten, in "When Corporations Rule the World" and "Agenda for a New Economy," laid out corporate malfeasance and abuse. But our universities and mass media, entranced by power and naively believing that global capitalism was an unstoppable force of nature, rarely asked the right questions or gave a prominent voice to those who did. Our elites hid their incompetence and loss of control behind an arrogant facade of specialized jargon and obscure economic theories.
The lies employed to camouflage the economic decline are legion. President Ronald Reagan included 1.5 million U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine service personnel with the civilian work force to magically reduce the nation's unemployment rate by 2 percent. President Bill Clinton decided that those who had given up looking for work, or those who wanted full-time jobs but could only find part-time employment, were no longer to be counted as unemployed. This trick disappeared some 5 million unemployed from the official unemployment rolls. If you work more than 21 hours a week-most low-wage workers at places like Wal-Mart average 28 hours a week-you are counted as employed, although your real wages put you below the poverty line. Our actual unemployment rate, when you include those who have stopped looking for work and those who can only find part-time jobs, is not 8.5 percent but 15 percent. A sixth of the country is now effectively unemployed. And we are shedding jobs at a faster rate than in the months after the 1929 crash.
Keep Reading...
punditman says...The article posits that if the Obama administration doesn't change course--and fast--America is headed towards becoming Weimar Germany. And we all know what followed. So will we see skyrocketing inflation followed by some sort of crypto fascism? Things are not getting better, and that is why Peacenik is practicing his survival skills for two weekends in a row. And that is why Punditman is worried. Is this what America's near future will look like? Scary stuff--and not just for America.
3/26/09
Economic Quagmire: What does Punditman think?
punditman says...
For months now, there has been much chatter around here about complete economic collapse, especially since the misnamed Peacenik arrived and started gathering up prognostications from the best of the online doomers and peak oilers. Though he started his Punditman career by posting about a possible US attack on Iran along with the ongoing quagmires in Afghanistan, Iraq etc., Punditman wonders if this was simply a means of infiltrating the content side of this blog, because it is clear where Peacenik's priorities lie: He is a "Peacenik" in a class warfare/survivalist sort of way (whatever does that mean?).
Still, Punditman does not blame Peacenik for closely monitoring the largest economic downturn in 80 years, in fact he is thankful to have such a razor sharp doomer analyst on board. He just wishes he would change his moniker.
That aside, what exactly does Punditman think about all this talk of economic collapse?
Punditman believes that "doomsday" is a relative concept. It depends on the country, the region, the sector, the business and ultimately the individual.
For instance, in the underdeveloped world, doomsday has been the norm for decades. Ditto for war zones. Suddenly a little karmic discomfort in the First World and everyone is screaming that the sky is falling.
Okay, so things are bad enough. But how bad can/will this crisis get? Well, I just got an email from a friend out West who said his wine class sales are booming. "Things are crazy busy," says he. Seems one person's doom is another person's dollar.
On the other hand, if you lose your job, your house, your business, your
wine collection, well then it's certainly doomsday for you. Punditman wishes he had a fine Merlot collection to lose.
Anyway, doomsday estimations are dependent on how stupid the estimator thinks politicians who are beholding to entrenched interests have become. Granted, they appear pretty clueless lately. Peacenik apparently thinks they are really stupid and will let the whole house of cards collapse all around them and do nothing to save their political hides or the actual hides of their rich business friends (especially if they live in France), as hordes of pitchfork wielding peasants and workers storm the corridors of power. Thus Peacenik is forming his own militia, just in case.
On the other hand, Punditman thinks that the powers that be fear the above scenario more than anything and that even their greed and ignorance is not as great as their fear of revolt.
Maybe.
With the past as our guide, we know that elites do not give away power willingly, nor, in a touch of great historic irony, do they change direction even when the train is seemingly headed off the tracks---unless there is concerted pressure from below that addresses the needs and demands of the common folk.
If you want, you can call that hope. Hopefully a guy named "Peacenik" has similar hopes.
For months now, there has been much chatter around here about complete economic collapse, especially since the misnamed Peacenik arrived and started gathering up prognostications from the best of the online doomers and peak oilers. Though he started his Punditman career by posting about a possible US attack on Iran along with the ongoing quagmires in Afghanistan, Iraq etc., Punditman wonders if this was simply a means of infiltrating the content side of this blog, because it is clear where Peacenik's priorities lie: He is a "Peacenik" in a class warfare/survivalist sort of way (whatever does that mean?).
Still, Punditman does not blame Peacenik for closely monitoring the largest economic downturn in 80 years, in fact he is thankful to have such a razor sharp doomer analyst on board. He just wishes he would change his moniker.
That aside, what exactly does Punditman think about all this talk of economic collapse?
Punditman believes that "doomsday" is a relative concept. It depends on the country, the region, the sector, the business and ultimately the individual.
For instance, in the underdeveloped world, doomsday has been the norm for decades. Ditto for war zones. Suddenly a little karmic discomfort in the First World and everyone is screaming that the sky is falling.
Okay, so things are bad enough. But how bad can/will this crisis get? Well, I just got an email from a friend out West who said his wine class sales are booming. "Things are crazy busy," says he. Seems one person's doom is another person's dollar.
On the other hand, if you lose your job, your house, your business, your
wine collection, well then it's certainly doomsday for you. Punditman wishes he had a fine Merlot collection to lose.
Anyway, doomsday estimations are dependent on how stupid the estimator thinks politicians who are beholding to entrenched interests have become. Granted, they appear pretty clueless lately. Peacenik apparently thinks they are really stupid and will let the whole house of cards collapse all around them and do nothing to save their political hides or the actual hides of their rich business friends (especially if they live in France), as hordes of pitchfork wielding peasants and workers storm the corridors of power. Thus Peacenik is forming his own militia, just in case.
On the other hand, Punditman thinks that the powers that be fear the above scenario more than anything and that even their greed and ignorance is not as great as their fear of revolt.
Maybe.
With the past as our guide, we know that elites do not give away power willingly, nor, in a touch of great historic irony, do they change direction even when the train is seemingly headed off the tracks---unless there is concerted pressure from below that addresses the needs and demands of the common folk.
If you want, you can call that hope. Hopefully a guy named "Peacenik" has similar hopes.
Japan Caught In Deflationary Spiral; Exports Plunge, Prices To Follow
Recessions have taken their toll on Asia exporters. Inquiring minds are reading Japan Exports Drop Record 49% as Global Slump Deepens.
Japan’s exports plunged a record 49.4 percent in February as deepening recessions in the U.S. and Europe sapped demand for the country’s cars and electronics.
Shipments to the U.S., the country’s biggest market, tumbled an unprecedented 58.4 percent from a year earlier, the Finance Ministry said today in Tokyo. Automobile exports slid 70.9 percent.
The collapse signals gross domestic product may shrink this quarter at a similar pace to the annualized 12.1 percent contraction posted in the previous three months, the sharpest since 1974. Prime Minister Taro Aso is compiling his third stimulus package as companies from Toyota Motor Corp. to Panasonic Corp. fire thousands of workers.
Read on...
Peacenik has to confess that Peacenik had doubts this morning on the long bus ride to work. Peacenik doubted that things were going to get as bad as Peacenik has been thinking they will get. Peacenik admits that the Baltic Dry Index is up. And truck tonnage increased in February. And new home sales may have bottomed in the U.S. And Larry Kudlow said on TV that we are at the start of a new bull market. There are lots of signs. Peacenik looks for signs. Not just headlines. For example, if things were going to be very very bad, wouldn't Obama, who has access to all the data, all the information, all the secret reports, wouldn't Obama's hair be white by now? It is not. There are other small signs. Sold signs on houses. Big crowds at the Storm hockey games. Packed pubs. Maybe just maybe the bottom is in, or near.
But then Peacenik checked the news this morning. And reality started to ebb back into Peacenik's confused mind. Peacenik read this: EU presidency: US stimulus is 'the road to hell'. And Peacenik read this: IBM To Cut 5,000 Jobs In The US. And now Peacenik is back to staring into the black hole. But not without some doubts, and some hope.
Japan’s exports plunged a record 49.4 percent in February as deepening recessions in the U.S. and Europe sapped demand for the country’s cars and electronics.
Shipments to the U.S., the country’s biggest market, tumbled an unprecedented 58.4 percent from a year earlier, the Finance Ministry said today in Tokyo. Automobile exports slid 70.9 percent.
The collapse signals gross domestic product may shrink this quarter at a similar pace to the annualized 12.1 percent contraction posted in the previous three months, the sharpest since 1974. Prime Minister Taro Aso is compiling his third stimulus package as companies from Toyota Motor Corp. to Panasonic Corp. fire thousands of workers.
Read on...
Peacenik has to confess that Peacenik had doubts this morning on the long bus ride to work. Peacenik doubted that things were going to get as bad as Peacenik has been thinking they will get. Peacenik admits that the Baltic Dry Index is up. And truck tonnage increased in February. And new home sales may have bottomed in the U.S. And Larry Kudlow said on TV that we are at the start of a new bull market. There are lots of signs. Peacenik looks for signs. Not just headlines. For example, if things were going to be very very bad, wouldn't Obama, who has access to all the data, all the information, all the secret reports, wouldn't Obama's hair be white by now? It is not. There are other small signs. Sold signs on houses. Big crowds at the Storm hockey games. Packed pubs. Maybe just maybe the bottom is in, or near.
But then Peacenik checked the news this morning. And reality started to ebb back into Peacenik's confused mind. Peacenik read this: EU presidency: US stimulus is 'the road to hell'. And Peacenik read this: IBM To Cut 5,000 Jobs In The US. And now Peacenik is back to staring into the black hole. But not without some doubts, and some hope.
3/21/09
I Don't Know Exactly When...
...But I do know why, and I do know how.
It's pretty straightforward.
People bought stuff with hundreds of trillions of dollars of debt (credit, not capital). This debt-spending inflated the prices of assets (Stuff. Mortgage Backed Securities and CDO's and all kinds of stuff.) to levels that did not in fact reflect real worth. Why? Because debt that cannot be serviced with real productive capital is worthless!!! You can write me an IOU for a million dollars for my 2000 Toyota Echo, but if you don't have a penny to your name---in fact, if you yourself are in debt up to your eyeballs---your IOU ain't worth poop. And neither is my Echo.
Read on...
Peacenik likes posts that explain what is happening in simple language. Dan W. lays it out in this post. All the bailouts are to protect the wealthy, special interests. All the bailouts are to redistribute money from you, the taxpayer, to the already wealthy. But it won't work. They'll take the taxpayer money. But it will all come crashing down. Think back three years ago, and the public didn't give a hoot about $100 million dollar salaries for executives. Because everyone was rolling in phony money. But it was phoney money, phoney wealth. Executives now need bodyguards to go to the corner store. Peacenik gets discouraged when Peacenik reads and sees how corrupt the whole system is. Peacenik is going to have a real beer. Paid for with real money. And Peacenik is checking Ebay for pitchforks.
Update: Three banks failed on Friday and two credit unions. Did yours?
It's pretty straightforward.
People bought stuff with hundreds of trillions of dollars of debt (credit, not capital). This debt-spending inflated the prices of assets (Stuff. Mortgage Backed Securities and CDO's and all kinds of stuff.) to levels that did not in fact reflect real worth. Why? Because debt that cannot be serviced with real productive capital is worthless!!! You can write me an IOU for a million dollars for my 2000 Toyota Echo, but if you don't have a penny to your name---in fact, if you yourself are in debt up to your eyeballs---your IOU ain't worth poop. And neither is my Echo.
Read on...
Peacenik likes posts that explain what is happening in simple language. Dan W. lays it out in this post. All the bailouts are to protect the wealthy, special interests. All the bailouts are to redistribute money from you, the taxpayer, to the already wealthy. But it won't work. They'll take the taxpayer money. But it will all come crashing down. Think back three years ago, and the public didn't give a hoot about $100 million dollar salaries for executives. Because everyone was rolling in phony money. But it was phoney money, phoney wealth. Executives now need bodyguards to go to the corner store. Peacenik gets discouraged when Peacenik reads and sees how corrupt the whole system is. Peacenik is going to have a real beer. Paid for with real money. And Peacenik is checking Ebay for pitchforks.
Update: Three banks failed on Friday and two credit unions. Did yours?
3/19/09
"Civil War in the United States?"
by Immanuel Wallerstein
We are getting accustomed to all sorts of breakdowns of taboos. The world press is full of discussion about whether it would be a good idea to "nationalize" banks. None other than Alan Greenspan, disciple of the superlibertarian prophet of pure market capitalism, Ayn Rand, has recently said that we have to nationalize banks once every hundred years, and this may be that moment. Conservative Republican Senator Lindsay Graham agreed with him. Left Keynesian Alan Blinder discussed the pros and cons of this idea. And while he thinks the cons are a bit bigger than the pros, he was willing to spend public intellectual energy writing about this in the New York Times.
Well, after hearing nationalization proposals by arch-conservative notables, we are now hearing serious discussions about the possibilities of civil war in the United States. Zbigniew Brzezinski, apostle of anti-Communist ideology and President Carter's National Security Advisor, appeared on a morning television talk show on February 17, and was asked to discuss his previous mention of the possibility of class conflict in the United States in the wake of the worldwide economic collapse.
Keep Reading...
[Copyright by Immanuel Wallerstein, distributed by Agence Global. For rights and permissions, including translations and posting to non-commercial sites, and contact: rights@agenceglobal.com, 1.336.686.9002 or 1.336.286.6606. Permission is granted to download, forward electronically, or e-mail to others, provided the essay remains intact and the copyright note is displayed. To contact author, write: immanuel.wallerstein@yale.edu.
These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]
Peacenik says...Look whose name pops up in this commentary above...Ann Rand. Peacenik thinks it is time to stamp out Randism. Back not too long ago Peacenik thought the world, and North America was civilized. Peacenik thought North America was beyond the type of violence that exists in Africa, or in the Middle East, or in the old Soviet Union. But now major mainstream pundits/players are acknowledging that it is possible. In just a few short years Canada has gone from a country that was proud of its record for peacekeeping to a country that is inundated with militarist advertising to join the military and FIGHT. In Canada now one has to be careful when they say "bring the troops home now!!" The U.S. is already fighting a cultural civil war throughout the country. Will the U.S. devolve into a fighting civil war? Could Canada? Peacenik wants to go on a peace march. But Peacenik may have to start Peacenik's own militia.
We are getting accustomed to all sorts of breakdowns of taboos. The world press is full of discussion about whether it would be a good idea to "nationalize" banks. None other than Alan Greenspan, disciple of the superlibertarian prophet of pure market capitalism, Ayn Rand, has recently said that we have to nationalize banks once every hundred years, and this may be that moment. Conservative Republican Senator Lindsay Graham agreed with him. Left Keynesian Alan Blinder discussed the pros and cons of this idea. And while he thinks the cons are a bit bigger than the pros, he was willing to spend public intellectual energy writing about this in the New York Times.
Well, after hearing nationalization proposals by arch-conservative notables, we are now hearing serious discussions about the possibilities of civil war in the United States. Zbigniew Brzezinski, apostle of anti-Communist ideology and President Carter's National Security Advisor, appeared on a morning television talk show on February 17, and was asked to discuss his previous mention of the possibility of class conflict in the United States in the wake of the worldwide economic collapse.
Keep Reading...
[Copyright by Immanuel Wallerstein, distributed by Agence Global. For rights and permissions, including translations and posting to non-commercial sites, and contact: rights@agenceglobal.com, 1.336.686.9002 or 1.336.286.6606. Permission is granted to download, forward electronically, or e-mail to others, provided the essay remains intact and the copyright note is displayed. To contact author, write: immanuel.wallerstein@yale.edu.
These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]
Peacenik says...Look whose name pops up in this commentary above...Ann Rand. Peacenik thinks it is time to stamp out Randism. Back not too long ago Peacenik thought the world, and North America was civilized. Peacenik thought North America was beyond the type of violence that exists in Africa, or in the Middle East, or in the old Soviet Union. But now major mainstream pundits/players are acknowledging that it is possible. In just a few short years Canada has gone from a country that was proud of its record for peacekeeping to a country that is inundated with militarist advertising to join the military and FIGHT. In Canada now one has to be careful when they say "bring the troops home now!!" The U.S. is already fighting a cultural civil war throughout the country. Will the U.S. devolve into a fighting civil war? Could Canada? Peacenik wants to go on a peace march. But Peacenik may have to start Peacenik's own militia.
3/9/09
Forget About "Recovery"
by Jim Kunstler
At the risk of confirming my critics' dumbest charge -- that I am a "doomer" -- the mandate of clarity requires me to ask: to what state of affairs do we expect to recover? If the answer is a return to an economy based on building ever more suburban sprawl, on credit card over-spending, on routine securitized debt shenanigans in banking, and on consistently lying to ourselves about what reality demands of us, then we are a mortally deluded nation. We're done with that, we're beyond that now, we've crossed the frontier and left that all behind, and we'd better get our heads straight about it.
I maintain that there are countless constructive tasks waiting to occupy us on a long national "to do" list for rebuilding a national economy, but they are way different than the ones currently preoccupying government and the mainstream media. The Obama White House, Congress, and The New York Times are hung up on exercises in futility -- "rescuing" banks and insurance companies that cannot be rescued (because they are hopelessly trapped in "black hole" credit default swaps contracts), and re-starting a "consumer" binge that was completely crazy in the first place, based, as it was, on a something-for-nothing standard-of-living.
Peacenik has wondered in many of Peacenik's posts if there will be violence. If there will be justice. If there is a way out of this mess. This is a must read article by Kunstler. Very entertaining and not totally pessimistic. Enjoy.
At the risk of confirming my critics' dumbest charge -- that I am a "doomer" -- the mandate of clarity requires me to ask: to what state of affairs do we expect to recover? If the answer is a return to an economy based on building ever more suburban sprawl, on credit card over-spending, on routine securitized debt shenanigans in banking, and on consistently lying to ourselves about what reality demands of us, then we are a mortally deluded nation. We're done with that, we're beyond that now, we've crossed the frontier and left that all behind, and we'd better get our heads straight about it.
I maintain that there are countless constructive tasks waiting to occupy us on a long national "to do" list for rebuilding a national economy, but they are way different than the ones currently preoccupying government and the mainstream media. The Obama White House, Congress, and The New York Times are hung up on exercises in futility -- "rescuing" banks and insurance companies that cannot be rescued (because they are hopelessly trapped in "black hole" credit default swaps contracts), and re-starting a "consumer" binge that was completely crazy in the first place, based, as it was, on a something-for-nothing standard-of-living.
Peacenik has wondered in many of Peacenik's posts if there will be violence. If there will be justice. If there is a way out of this mess. This is a must read article by Kunstler. Very entertaining and not totally pessimistic. Enjoy.
2/18/09
Swift, Steep Downturn Crosses Globe
Economists See Hope Dry Up
By Tomoeh Murakami TseWashington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, February 18, 2009; Page A01
NEW YORK, Feb. 17 -- Markets around the world plunged Tuesday as evidence mounted that the global economic crisis is worsening.
Japan is suffering its worst downturn in 35 years. The British economy is facing its sharpest decline in almost 30 years. Germany is slumping at its worst pace in nearly 20 years. Meanwhile, the job market in the United States, at the epicenter of the global downturn, is the worst in decades. And emerging economies are contracting at a pace few had predicted just months ago. Even China, whose economy still is growing at a 6.8 percent annual pace, is grappling with vast numbers of the unemployed, raising fears of unrest.
The sharpness of the global slowdown has alarmed economists, who see no obvious engine for recovery.
This dear readers is not from theautomaticearth, or Mish, or Denninger. This is from the Washington Post ferchrissakes. Which is sounding postively Doomsday like. Peacenik doesn't know what to think. Oh yeah, the DOW and TSX are both red. And ugh, the November bottoms have not held. Peacenik thinks the markets will rally shortly. Peacenik thinks, if there is a rally, it will be your last chance to cash out.
By Tomoeh Murakami TseWashington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, February 18, 2009; Page A01
NEW YORK, Feb. 17 -- Markets around the world plunged Tuesday as evidence mounted that the global economic crisis is worsening.
Japan is suffering its worst downturn in 35 years. The British economy is facing its sharpest decline in almost 30 years. Germany is slumping at its worst pace in nearly 20 years. Meanwhile, the job market in the United States, at the epicenter of the global downturn, is the worst in decades. And emerging economies are contracting at a pace few had predicted just months ago. Even China, whose economy still is growing at a 6.8 percent annual pace, is grappling with vast numbers of the unemployed, raising fears of unrest.
The sharpness of the global slowdown has alarmed economists, who see no obvious engine for recovery.
This dear readers is not from theautomaticearth, or Mish, or Denninger. This is from the Washington Post ferchrissakes. Which is sounding postively Doomsday like. Peacenik doesn't know what to think. Oh yeah, the DOW and TSX are both red. And ugh, the November bottoms have not held. Peacenik thinks the markets will rally shortly. Peacenik thinks, if there is a rally, it will be your last chance to cash out.
2/17/09
California, Almost Broke, Nears Brink
By JENNIFER STEINHAUERPublished: February 16, 2009 LOS ANGELES —
Since the fall, when lawmakers began trying to attack the gaps in the $143 billion budget that their earlier plan had not addressed, the state has fallen into deeper financial straits, with more bad news coming daily from Sacramento. The state, nearly out of cash, has laid off scores of workers and put hundreds more on unpaid furloughs. It has stopped paying counties and issuing income tax refunds and halted thousands of infrastructure projects.
This is or was the 5th biggest economy in the world. This is not Iceland, or Latvia. Events are running out of control. By the time Peacenik posts this, Ireland could have defaulted, and GM could have declared bankruptcy. The inability of politicians to compromise, or face reality is shocking. This is what happens when the ideologues rule. Here's what Krugman's says on his blog:
"Apocalypse now"
"Everyone should be paying attention to the political/fiscal catastrophe now unfolding in California. Years of neglect, followed by economic disaster — and with all reasonable responses blocked by a fanatical, irrational minority.
This could be America next."
Can any country survive a default by America? Or California? This is Canada's biggest trading partner. Peacenik neeeds to calm Peacenik. Peacenik is not a Doomer. Peacenik is not a Doomer. Peacenik is not a Doomer.
The state of California — its deficits ballooning, its lawmakers intransigent and its governor apparently bereft of allies or influence — appears headed off the fiscal rails.
Since the fall, when lawmakers began trying to attack the gaps in the $143 billion budget that their earlier plan had not addressed, the state has fallen into deeper financial straits, with more bad news coming daily from Sacramento. The state, nearly out of cash, has laid off scores of workers and put hundreds more on unpaid furloughs. It has stopped paying counties and issuing income tax refunds and halted thousands of infrastructure projects.
This is or was the 5th biggest economy in the world. This is not Iceland, or Latvia. Events are running out of control. By the time Peacenik posts this, Ireland could have defaulted, and GM could have declared bankruptcy. The inability of politicians to compromise, or face reality is shocking. This is what happens when the ideologues rule. Here's what Krugman's says on his blog:
"Apocalypse now"
"Everyone should be paying attention to the political/fiscal catastrophe now unfolding in California. Years of neglect, followed by economic disaster — and with all reasonable responses blocked by a fanatical, irrational minority.
This could be America next."
Can any country survive a default by America? Or California? This is Canada's biggest trading partner. Peacenik neeeds to calm Peacenik. Peacenik is not a Doomer. Peacenik is not a Doomer. Peacenik is not a Doomer.
2/6/09
Fast Train Revisited: What’s a Doomer Chick to Do?
Sharon February 4th, 2009
You are hearing a fast train. - Van Morrison, sung by the incomparable Solomon Burke
Despite the fact that there are plenty of people out there who view me as wildly apocalyptic, I don’t actually consider myself a doomer. My own feeling is that while radical restructuring awaits us, our future probably won’t look much like _The Road_. I have argued that what we face due to peak energy, climate change and our financial crisis can best be described as “ordinary human poverty” - and we can do much to mediate our experience, that we can experience either an ordinary, survivable poverty or one that becomes pathological, based on our own choices.
On the other hand, compared to the mainstream culture, which tells us endlessly that things will stay the same or get better always, I am, of course, your friendly neighborhood Apocalyptic Dominatrix of Doom. That’s me, cracking the whip over my readers to get their gardens going, food storage in order, learn to darn socks and fix their own roofs, etc… Carolyn Baker was kind enough to mention me as a notable Dystopian chick in her well deserved rebuke to the New Yorker. So even though I often spend time observing “well, I don’t really think that we’re literally going to see TEOTWAWKI” I suppose I qualify as one of Cassandra’s descendents.
Peacenik kind of enjoyed reading this post by Sharon Astyk. Enjoy the weekend.
You are hearing a fast train. - Van Morrison, sung by the incomparable Solomon Burke
Despite the fact that there are plenty of people out there who view me as wildly apocalyptic, I don’t actually consider myself a doomer. My own feeling is that while radical restructuring awaits us, our future probably won’t look much like _The Road_. I have argued that what we face due to peak energy, climate change and our financial crisis can best be described as “ordinary human poverty” - and we can do much to mediate our experience, that we can experience either an ordinary, survivable poverty or one that becomes pathological, based on our own choices.
On the other hand, compared to the mainstream culture, which tells us endlessly that things will stay the same or get better always, I am, of course, your friendly neighborhood Apocalyptic Dominatrix of Doom. That’s me, cracking the whip over my readers to get their gardens going, food storage in order, learn to darn socks and fix their own roofs, etc… Carolyn Baker was kind enough to mention me as a notable Dystopian chick in her well deserved rebuke to the New Yorker. So even though I often spend time observing “well, I don’t really think that we’re literally going to see TEOTWAWKI” I suppose I qualify as one of Cassandra’s descendents.
Peacenik kind of enjoyed reading this post by Sharon Astyk. Enjoy the weekend.
1/27/09
January 26 2009: Gamblers, liars, fortune tellers and politicians
Ilargi: If today is any guide, my prediction yesterday that we might be in for a rough week looks spot on. Major corporations announced a minimum of 60.000 job losses. In one morning. The fact that this leads to stock exchanges doing happy dances, with London up close to 4%, and Amsterdam 6%, makes me lose what little faith I might have had left in our societies. As long as one man's misery is another man's profit in such a direct cause and effect line, there cannot be much of a future left.
What galls me in an equal fashion is reading about Citigroup buying a new $50 million corporate jet with its $50 billion taxpayer bail-out money. Or the ex-CEO of Deutsche Post, a semi-government institution as far as I can tell, getting a suspended sentence and a $1 million fine for sludging over $1 billion away from the German people. No jail, and an 0.1% fine. Justice, here we come. Or John Thain, who offers to pay back the $1.2 million he spent on his office while firing his employees. I think John Thain should by now be incapable of paying such amounts, period. Merrill Lynch paid out billions of dollars in bonuses when it was already clear they were going down and being bought up by Bank of America, with, there's the term once again, taxpayers' money. Confiscate it.
Yes the perverse reaction of the stock markets to mass layoffs is a harbinger of the investors' depravity. Peacenik thinks the stock markets are totally detached from reality. The markets glom onto the smallest fact and race up. Meanwhile the house of cards has completely fallen down. Wall Street is now totally occupied by a bunch of Baghdad Bobs. When will everyone finally clue in. Peacenik thinks never. They will never clue in. The Dow will trade down into the low 7000's and someone will start a rumour that Buffet is buying in. Larry Kudlow will call the bottom for the 60th consecutive week. And there will be a rally. But the rallies will be smaller and smaller and shorter and shorter. As everything falls to zero.
1/24/09
Downturn Accelerates As It Circles The Globe
Economies Worse Off Than Predicted Just Weeks Ago
By Anthony FaiolaWashington Post Staff Writer Saturday, January 24, 2009; Page A01
The world economy is deteriorating more quickly than leading economists predicted only weeks ago, with Britain yesterday becoming the latest nation to surprise analysts with the depth of its economic pain.
Britain posted its worst quarterly contraction since 1980 on the heels of sharper than expected slowdowns reported from Germany to China to South Korea. The grim data, analysts said, underscores how the burst of the biggest credit bubble in history is seeping into the real economies around the world, silencing construction cranes, bankrupting businesses and throwing millions of people out of work.
Read on...
Usually Peacenik takes the weekends off from blogging. But given the dire situation, Peacenik is worried the Internet may not exist on Monday. Goofball optimist, Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of Canada, and a great Canadian, says the downturn will end in the second half of 2009. No worries. Meanwhile, Obama is holding emergency meetings this weekend just to nurse the world economy to last till Monday. Why would the Internet end? It is designed to withstand global thermal nuclear war. Peacenik thinks the public is one step away from grabbing their pitchforks and hitting the streets. Whoever controls the information controls the world. They will shut it down. And it will end badly. Who is "They"? What is "it"? Peacenik doesn't know.
By Anthony FaiolaWashington Post Staff Writer Saturday, January 24, 2009; Page A01
The world economy is deteriorating more quickly than leading economists predicted only weeks ago, with Britain yesterday becoming the latest nation to surprise analysts with the depth of its economic pain.
Britain posted its worst quarterly contraction since 1980 on the heels of sharper than expected slowdowns reported from Germany to China to South Korea. The grim data, analysts said, underscores how the burst of the biggest credit bubble in history is seeping into the real economies around the world, silencing construction cranes, bankrupting businesses and throwing millions of people out of work.
Read on...
Usually Peacenik takes the weekends off from blogging. But given the dire situation, Peacenik is worried the Internet may not exist on Monday. Goofball optimist, Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of Canada, and a great Canadian, says the downturn will end in the second half of 2009. No worries. Meanwhile, Obama is holding emergency meetings this weekend just to nurse the world economy to last till Monday. Why would the Internet end? It is designed to withstand global thermal nuclear war. Peacenik thinks the public is one step away from grabbing their pitchforks and hitting the streets. Whoever controls the information controls the world. They will shut it down. And it will end badly. Who is "They"? What is "it"? Peacenik doesn't know.
1/21/09
Gordon Brown brings Britain to the edge of bankruptcy
Iain Martin says the Prime Minister hasn't 'saved the world' and now faces disgrace in the history books
By Iain MartinLast Updated: 8:41AM GMT 21 Jan 2009
They don't know what they're doing, do they? With every step taken by the Government as it tries frantically to prop up the British banking system, this central truth becomes ever more obvious.
Yesterday marked a new low for all involved, even by the standards of this crisis. Britons woke to news of the enormity of the fresh horrors in store. Despite all the sophistry and outdated boom-era terminology from experts, I think a far greater number of people than is imagined grasp at root what is happening here.
The country stands on the precipice. We are at risk of utter humiliation, of London becoming a Reykjavik on Thames and Britain going under. Thanks to the arrogance, hubristic strutting and serial incompetence of the Government and a group of bankers, the possibility of national bankruptcy is not unrealistic.
Peacenik has to ask again. Are Canadian banks really immune to the problems that are facing all the banks in England, Europe and the U.S? It is kind of hard to believe. As George Bush famously said, "This sucker is going down". If England become Iceland, what happens? And Peacenik's bird flu google alert is ringing off the wall. H1N1 is co-circulating with H5N1 in China right now. Before you head down to get your cash out of the bank you may want to re-read Peaceniks post about bird flu.
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