SteveB
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
“If an economy stops growing, the only profit opportunities left involve taking something away from someone.”
Is that really all so different from when the economy is growing? For example, you’ve often referred to our grandchildren.
“The precautionary principle is always trumped by the dollar.”
Why single out the PP? Just about everything is trumped by money-seeking. To end the trumping, end the game by ending money and the concept of exchange.
“While the planet warms, an increase to Antarctic sea ice leaves scientists scratching their heads.”
Do you dispute that “the planet warms”? Your concluding paragraph is straw-manish.
Speaking of which, rapier, here’s a good one:
“Loan gives low-income borrowers a chance to build equity fast”
https://www.latimes.com/business/realestate/la-fi-lew-20141005-story.htmlCheck it out, Ilargi. The bankers are just full of bright ideas. That should have some value, right?
Excellent presentation, Nicole, as always.
Could you or Ilargi share the image of “Japanese bubble infrastructure” that you presented in your talk? Thanks.
Great series of posts last week, Ilargi. I’m still catching up.
“Human beings are notoriously bad at looking toward the future and planning ahead.”
Money-think prevents us from seeing the reality that it is money/exchange-using cultures, not humans, that suffer that malady.
The ZH piece on how it’s never different uses the wrong timeline for the 1987 crash in that graph. According to Robert Prechter, Jr.’s Elliott wave analysis in the appendix to his second edition of Conquer the Crash, the comparable period is just the last 20% or so of that five-year period, so the comparable collapse this time will be much lower than the graph suggests, which would be well below the 2009 low.
Why? Because we’ve chosen to keep using money and exchange well past the clear evidence that doing so is going to result in our making our planet uninhabitable for our species. Seeing that big picture requires stepping back even farther than you and your readers are used to.
You continue to assume the continued use of money and exchange in your writings and ignore/deny/forget/not acknowledge the option of ending that cultural practice, in spite of the obvious examples of how it underlies so many of our current problems and ongoing threats. It doesn’t even have to be an isolated choice, we can decide about that while the collapse—weak, strong, fast, or slow—is underway.
Referring to our cultural/societal use of money as being part of “the human operating system” is inaccurate. That use is a choice, not a biological necessity, and “[f]ood is one of the vital factors that will be substantially affected in a financial crash where connecting producers and consumers will be extremely difficult due to lack of money in circulation” only because of that choice. The sane alternative is to abandon money use and the concept of exchange, globally.
The answer to all those “why?” questions is because we use money. That use comes with the incentives to behave insanely.
“Abandoning the use of money altogether is not one I consider to be serious…”
That didn’t surprise me, but after reading Nicole’s latest I find it baffling. Maybe you define “serious” differently than I do. Nicole says that we have no other choice but to decentralize. Excluding choices will lead to that. Fortunately, you and Nicole don’t get to decide the choices—serious or otherwise; they exist.
<blockquote cite=”This would need to be done globally, with a much fairer distribution of available resources than we have now. If one large country refuses to cooperate with such a plan, it’s basically impossible to implement. It would mean bankrupting most of the world’s richest corporations and even nations, no trifle matter. It’s plain to see that, and why, there would be a lot of resistance to this. There is also no global body that has the power to even start discussing such a plan.
We might want to wonder if the human mind is capable of not only imagining, but actually implementing, this (as we might want to wonder if the human mind is capable of long term planning in general). And while wondering that, it seems indispensable that the real picture gets out there of what halting the changes in the climate would mean in practical terms: a completely different world. If those who feel climate is the number one issue today would start explaining that different world, instead of staying trapped in a regurgitating and bottomless argument exercise with those who are going to keep saying “no” regardless of what is said, that would at least greatly improve the level of conversation.”>
There’s no need to implement anything nor for long-term planning. Nor do we need a global body to initiate change. What it would take is something along the lines of the following process:
1. Acknowledge that ending the global use of money and the concept of exchange is our best and perhaps only hope of preventing the destruction of our life support system (among a multitude of other and contributory maladies).
2. Help one another to understand that a sufficient portion of global society’s positive aspects could continue in the absence of money and exchange.
3. Choose a date certain at which to end the ‘game’. Not a deadline, but a lifeline. I’ve proposed October 15, 2014. (If we’re not ready by then, we can aim for a year later.)
4. Prepare mentally and emotionally for the change and communicate with one another about it. Maintaining relationships and establishing new ones would be paramount.
5. As of the lifeline date, live—like every other species—without the stress and perverse incentive system of the money game.
Note that the process doesn’t include reaching a consensus, convincing anyone of anything, or requesting permission from those in power. No addition, just a subtraction. When the “No it’s not” crowd says “You can’t do that!”, we’ll just say “We can and we are.” A critical mass would be unstoppable (by definition).
“It takes just the richest 85 people in the world to get the same net worth as the poorest 50%. Whoever thinks that’s a good thing, good luck. The other 99% of you, do something about it if you don’t like it.”
As long as you keep using money, ’cause even if that ratio changes (temporarily), we’ll still be exploiting you. Thank you, The One Percent.
“Unlike real money, it can be revalued, devalued at whim.”
And yet the tech stock and real estate bubbles popped and we saw deflation through 2008. Any theories on why that was ‘allowed’ to happen? Might it be that money (i.e., cash) isn’t the only financial asset, so what you assert doesn’t hold? I think your comment raises interesting questions, and that’s all I have about it are questions (other than to point to recent market history that doesn’t seem to fit what you describe).
“Have you found any cheap, easy foods that we can eat if things get dicey?”
In the meat department, squirrel, wild rabbit, domestic rabbit (probably best option due to high reproduction rate, though apparently less nutritious than other meats), guinea pigs, pigeons (squabs). Wild animals and pigeons mostly find their own food, which is helpful.
Greens are cheap to grow, especially when they ‘volunteer’ as “weeds”. We have violets, dandelions, mint, nettles, purslane, chicory, plantain, and other edibles that were in our yard when we bought the house. We let them grow and add to other annual greens that we grow in our garden beds.
“A better question is whether it is possible to have hyperinflation with electronic money”
I’ve been wondering about the liquidity crunch that Nicole has spoken and written about and whether electronic money will cause that to play out differently than in the 1930s. Will cash actually be in short supply when debit cards obviate the need for cash? Any thoughts on that, Nicole? Anyone?
“the ephemeral conditions of the present”
Of course, our ancestors had ephemeral conditions as well. I wonder to what extent those conditions involved money-think.
Winning is generally understood to be determined by the rules of the game, along with the act of playing the game. So I continue to believe that the best option we have is to quit the game en masse, that is, the exchange game in which we use money. A debt jubilee is just a way to restart the game and so is temporary at best (and like others, I don’t expect to see it happening very widely).
Are you in the UK, Ken? You might want to take a look at the Dow (DJIA) and S&P 500. Odds are quite high that their tops are now behind us.
Nicole, I’m sorry I didn’t see earlier that you would likely be passing through our area here in SE MI this weekend. We would have enjoyed having you as a guest.
p01 post=8089 wrote: The root driver of our demise is indeed profit, more specifically the production of food for profit, because this generates an exponential inflation of … you guessed it: people.
The root is the use of money and the concept of exchange. The concept of profit arises from those.
SteveB post=7884 wrote: It looks like May of this year was very possibly the peak, given the drop off in total production in spite of the continued increase in wells in subsequent months.
Then again, maybe not. I was looking at the monthly numbers, and May had one more day than June, while the daily amount increased in June. It doesn’t look likely to be something that would hold out past the end of the year, if even the summer.
It looks like May of this year was very possibly the peak, given the drop off in total production in spite of the continued increase in wells in subsequent months.
Also interesting to note that the ramping up of Bakken drilling in 2005 roughly coincided with what some thought (me included) was the peak in worldwide conventional oil production.
“By aggregating the entire shaded orange area, SAVERS have missed out on a whopping 10.8 Trillion in earned interest usage.”
That’s not necessarily a bad thing, and is probably a good thing considering the environmental impacts of consumption. The “missed out” framing is specious when viewed in that context.
So (before we further distracted) what’s the real concern?
Learnable skills:
1) Brevity.
2) Moderation – that is, finding the middle ground between the obvious extremes.
3) Relating – that is, realizing that your well-being relies on the well-being of others, and that those others aren’t as unappealing as you initially believed.
4) Inquiry – when a stressful thought arises, ask “is that true?” in order to find your own truth and free yourself from learned lies. (For all four questions and turnaround possibilities, see http://www.thework.com.)
5) Succession – it just happens; let it. (Read up on permaculture for more on this squandered gift, as well as observation and other learnable skills.)
6) Patience. (See #4.)
Variable81 post=7552 wrote:
b) What steps can one start to take to mitigate these issues?Cheers,
VariableVariable, I suggest getting familiar with The Work of Byron Katie, starting with her first book, Loving What Is, and her web sites, http://www.byronkatie.com and http://www.thework.com. Have stressful thoughts about the future? I do too, then I question them and turn them around. 🙂
The shortcoming of ‘doing it ourselves’ is that the ongoing use of money will provide incentives for others who want (what they believe to be) more to keep the dysfunctional system running, even if at a slower pace, still heading toward the cliff. Local currencies, though well intended and of some benefit, haven’t, don’t, and won’t prevent(ed) this. So, for example, growing your own food won’t stop someone else from fracking nearby and contaminating the ground water or from using marketing tactics to entice others into debt, addiction, etc.
Only(? tell us if otherwise) the mass rejection of money/exchange at the global level will put an end to those nefarious incentives. The bright side is that 3D printers and most of the rest of a so-called Utopian vision aren’t necessary in order for it to happen. The Internet would help, of course, but beyond communication it comes down to a choice.
A big part of the puzzle, IMO, is that the paradigm in question isn’t a growth paradigm, but rather an exchange-(and, therefore, money)-is-necessary paradigm.
The belief about the necessity of growth is an outgrowth (sorry) of that underlying belief. We just don’t see it that way because we view money as being as much a given for our lives as air or water.
No other species uses exchange/money (transfer, yes, but not exchange in the sense of ‘if I give you so much, you need to give me so much in return’). They don’t have beliefs; they just live (and die—maybe that’s the other paradigm in play: death is bad).
“soaring global population”
They don’t get it. Probably haven’t read Daniel Quinn. Less food=>less people.
In any case, population isn’t “soaring”. It’ll top by 2035, in less than a generation. As with the stock market, this is another example of projecting the past into the future in spite of readily available data—not to mention logic—to the contrary.
Fear trumps all in the absence of inquiry.
James,
I’ve shared previously my positive experience with The Work of Byron Katie. From her and it I learned that everything is perfect, everything happens for me (not to me), the past and future don’t exist, what’s not my business or your business is God’s business (or, simply, reality), and that stressful feelings are signals to question the thoughts behind them and turn them around. In short, I learned to love reality.
Katie’s form of inquiry has been the path to freedom, clarity, sanity, happiness, peace, and understanding for me. I use it on my relationships as well as thoughts about big-picture context of the sort discussed here. It’s simple enough that a child can do it, and it’s not unnecessarily wrapped in spirituality or the like.
Her first book, Loving What Is, is a great place to start, as is her web site (or The Work web site), where you can see videos of her facilitating people doing The Work. My favorite of her books is Question Your Thoughts, Change the World, though they all have been helpful.
I’ve also found it easy to share, which might appeal to you.
Ted, Stoneleigh’s perspective is that wealth will go to safe havens first, and she considers the US dollar one that will be seen as such, at least initially, and at least relative to other currencies. That’s what would account for the ‘grace period’ for the US.
SteveB post=7074 wrote: [quote=SteveB post=6628][quote=Rapala post=6626]So is this trend just temporary or is there another way to explain rising cpi index?
The Dow topped, S&P is topping today, and the NASDAQ is only a week or so behind. European markets are already headed downward. PM are headed generally downward as well, but they aren’t likely to lose as much value as financial assets, as I understand it (won’t reach 0, in any case).
That was obviously a premature call. However, the market is now heading downward. Tomorrow should begin a third wave, which is likely to be steep.
And now yet another curveball: looks like this has been an undershoot of a fourth wave, now heading up in wave one of five (since a new high was reached in the S&P 500, negating the second wave possibility).Watching the stock market in this context has been very interesting and a lesson in patience, among other things. It seems that the knowledge of what’s to come (eventually—soon enough, but not necessarily immediately) leads to a bias toward the scenario that would play out earliest.
I’m also wondering if the additional time to prepare for the reversal will make a difference for anyone who hasn’t initiated changes yet.
SteveB post=6628 wrote: [quote=Rapala post=6626]So is this trend just temporary or is there another way to explain rising cpi index?
The Dow topped, S&P is topping today, and the NASDAQ is only a week or so behind. European markets are already headed downward. PM are headed generally downward as well, but they aren’t likely to lose as much value as financial assets, as I understand it (won’t reach 0, in any case).
That was obviously a premature call. However, the market is now heading downward. Tomorrow should begin a third wave, which is likely to be steep.Well done bringing debt into this, Sid. Certainly much of the cash flow following mass withdrawals would still need to pay off debt, i.e., deleveraging: deflationary.
Rapala post=6626 wrote: So is this trend just temporary or is there another way to explain rising cpi index?
Hi Rapala,
If inflation is happening at all, it’s temporary. Deflation has been underway for more than a decade. Look at a graph of any financial asset in terms of gold, i.e., “real money”, relative to dollar-denominated prices in order to see this. CPI rising does not equal inflation, technically speaking. It might help to read Nicole’s articles on deflation/inflation.
The Dow topped, S&P is topping today, and the NASDAQ is only a week or so behind. European markets are already headed downward. PM are headed generally downward as well, but they aren’t likely to lose as much value as financial assets, as I understand it (won’t reach 0, in any case).
Everything’s relative when it comes to prices, so your gold will look good from one angle but not another as events unfold. For the next few years or so, cash will be king (as Nicole has repeatedly informed us).
alan2102 post=6608 wrote: …Nadeem Walayat, the proprietor of
marketoracle.…
A few of his recent pieces:
https://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article38807.html
…The pitfall in his analysis in this article is in thinking that the “big picture” begins in 1996.
