repent!

the end is nigh.

sunshine :2 or 3 people have mentioned the sleepwalking toward a cliff phenomena evident now on a mass scale . They weren’t saying it is ,but, Im sure thats not a new thing . Its an essential part of being human -in order to live each day in the face of our own death .We are all very good at putting impending doom out of our minds . Its not remarkable . Sleepers must eventually wake , simple things like high petrol prices will do it on a mass scale .

repent the end is nigh?

fascinating.

and as for going by the “news”.

which bit of “news” are we talking about here?

a small klatch?

possibly,possibly,if the nineteen thousand number is correct,then that doesn’t even amount to the population of a small town in India or China.

and as for the area of control being nothing but “zeros on paper”?

i beg to differ.

what is not done, what is held back through lack of available resources, is a continuing problem and reality,due to liquidity not flowing to areas of neccessity.

it looks very much like a “capital strike”

if sovereign states throughout the world had not increased liquidity,an even larger transfer of assets would have occurred from the time of the “GFC”until now.

a depression is after all,the means by which massive wealth transfers occur.
nobody tracks the beneficiaries of depressions,they are to busy counting the cost,trying to figure out how it happened and trying to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

(but it would be kinda interesting to see who came up trumps in the “South Sea” bubble,who lucked out from the “Tulip Mania”,who cleaned up in the “Great Depression”.)

efforts by sovereign states to retrieve liquidity parked (legally or illegally)beyond the reach and use of sovereign states is a subject of concern and the intent to release this liquidity more than just a conversation.

the undeniable (as long as deniability could be maintained it was) appearance of historically active stateless entities claiming the sovereignty of private property over and above the sovereignty of countries from which they obtain their profits has occurred.

the above may be just bulldust but in a world of secrets and lies, who knows?

“… a fascinating meta level evolutionary question of is the trajectory we’re on, which doesn’t look very hopeful at the moment, it looks like a trajectory that at best is going to go to the world of the cult movie Blade Runner and more likely to Mad Max. Is that a trajectory that any inhabited planet gets as it gradually begins to understand the world, use that mastery to do well intentioned things (everybody lives longer, everybody has more energy subsidies, life gets better and better) but all of a sudden you realise it’s just out of control and there are more people than the planet can sustain, putting a footprint on it that’s unsustainable…is what we’re doing an inevitable part of evolution on an inhabited planet or are we aberrant?”

Hobbes, Blade Runner, Mad Max, and given yesterdays big twister in Oklahoma, may as well add Frank Herbert’s Dune as well.

All a bit of a scream if you take the time to think about it.
Writing and the keeping of records in the dim-dark past – the ancient civilizations of the two rivers and along the Nile, etc.
The scribes, the priests, noble houses and dynasties.
And all these years later we are all still mug enough to keep falling for the same old disreputable, ultimately scurrilous, destructive games.

Of course it is difficult to organize the rabble to come up with a better alternative to the masses being subsumed to the rule of greed.
But, hey, the oligarchy aren’t doing a very good job either.
Everyone seems to acknowledge a near future – too many people and not enough resources.

Best way to demonstrate that is to arc up ‘Google Maps’ and fly over some parts of the world.
Room quite definitely is running out for, say, rifle ranges or flying fields for model aeroplanes.
Meanwhile, as you say, some small klatch of ‘faceless men and women’ are buying up big time all over the place (including in Australia) and I’m damned sure that their chief interest ain’t into plinking with their .22 or flying their toy plane without interruption.

So what ARE they up to?
In my view they are establishing a new regime. As May mentions it is about the destruction of Nation States as quickly, quietly and efficiently as they might manage.

AND they are doing that with the gazillions of credits withheld from all you poor overworked punters for all your working lives.

In closing permit me to say – some years ago just before they ‘retired’ me – a defence paper (for comment) was sent to me.
The scenario at question was (from memory) about the escalation of stateless terrorism (or the destruction of nation states) being financed by exactly the sort of thing being discussed here.
In other words, in about 2002/3, our defence establishment had identified, as a priority, the need to achieve some level of forward planning enabling the Commonwealth of Australia to nip that sort of stuff neatly in the bud.

Going by recent news, they’ve dipped out Big Time!

as part of the neoliberal project to break up unions and worker power, many workers are now no longer “workers” but self-employed.

Both sides of politics would like to reduce numbers of “contractors” due to loss of PAYE.

I don’t think any punters, except maybe the super rich, are safe. Market linked super can fail and government pensions and defined benefits can be wound back. Since real goods will be less abundant in future (due to resource depletion and over-population) there are two basic ways the financial system can adjust or be adjusted by the manipulators. These are debt defaults, where money is wiped out of existence and inflation where the existing money chases less and less goods. Of course, a combination of the two is possible too. Our fortnightly super payments could halve and prices at the supermarket could double. And in a short span too, maybe five years although that five years might not start just yet.

As for money in banks, all banks can fail except state owned banks. And any government could do what Cyprus planned; a haircut of all depositors. Indeed, Canada is preparing such legislation now. Government bonds, issued by relatively safe, stable governments with their own full currency sovereignty, might be the only safe place for cash. Note, I said “might be”.

I take, or attempt to take, a philosphical view. Human life on this planet has rarely been secure. Our period of relative security has been the exception, not the rule. Things will return soon to the historical norm. As Hobbes said, albeit of a time before civilization;

“… where every man is Enemy to every man; the same is consequent to the time, wherein men live without other security, than what their own strength, and their own invention shall furnish them withall. In such condition, there is no place for Industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain; and consequently no Culture of the Earth; no Navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no Instruments of moving, and removing such things as require much force; no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is worst of all, continuall feare, and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short.”