Sometime ago, I wrote a post suggesting that the our economy isn’t a game that is rigged – in fact, I pointed out that it isn’t even a game - it’s essentially an activity, where wealth is transferred from the many to the few. And I postulated that when people realise this, they’ll appreciate that the only option they have left is to go to the few that have the wealth, carrying pointy-tools, and…take all their stuff.
I pointed out that London now is nothing more than a random
group of people, who share nothing non-geographical in common and often don’t
even speak the same language, and who live in a society with income and asset
inequality not seen for over a century. The rest of the country would be the
same soon. And now the entire debt bubble it’s based on is showing signs of deflating.
I posed the question – how do you govern that?
I think we now know the answer – no one, in fact, can. We
are, therefore, close to everyone in the country picking up a metaphorical pitchfork.
From the reasonable state of calm that existed not that long
ago forming the general hive mind of the populous, the comfortably numb feeling
has completely dissipated and been replaced by…well, something akin to despair,
in a (quiet British) sense. People aged 20-35 are fleeing in as-yet largely
unreported droves. Economic stagnation is now essentially taken as the norm –
not that long ago this would still have been regarded as completely unprecedented,
long-term and therefore it must be aberration - but we forget these things.
Now, no other path is conceivable. People are just quietly giving up. Mad Ed is
still hell bent on closing down our reliable energy system, and at this stage
possibly even he knows that what he’s doing is completely idiotic, but still,
somehow, just can't stop it.
Are we, then, near peak doom?
I actually think we are still not quite at the crash stage.
Cycle theory – Kondratiev (friend of the blog) and co I think are still worth basing
analysis on, and suggest that 2026/7 is when the shit hits the air source heat
pump. We need to be looking out for news, for example, announcing the new “World’s
Tallest Building” which should presage the next crash.
But we can’t be far off. Geopolitical factors will play a
part in pulling the trigger on the UK's debt-bomb. US debt is now going parabolic – instead of adding a
trillion in USD to their debt every 3 months, as they were last year, it’s now…every
2 months. A trillion is big number to get your head around: a million seconds
is 12 days, a billion seconds is 32 years, and a trillion seconds is…32,000 years.
Basically, two trillion is a lot.
Key to this is potentially the completely delusional EU desperation to confiscate
Russia’s frozen foreign reserves, held in US Treasuries (as have been most
foreign reserves, for historical reasons) – or at least use them as collateral for
a giant loan to Ukraine, to be repaid from Russian war reparations - which
obviously won’t be paid, ergo it’s essentially confiscation. I am no fan of what Russia are doing - but would point out that when this
happens, it’s confirmation to the world that US Treasuries aren’t actually as good as gold,
and henceforth more non-western countries will switch their foreign reserves into actual
gold. And the price of gold will go up more, and US debt will be worth less and
it’s all a bit bleak…. and, as the UK is the one of the largest holders of US Treasuries,
this might be the thing that tips us all over the edge.
So, what to do? Panic? Well, if you’re going to panic, it’s
normally best to panic first. So buy gold. Buy a generator. And maybe even buy
a pitchfork. And why not? Everyone else will have one soon, hopefully metaphorically
speaking – but you never know these days…
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