The possible scenario that I pondered in ‘Chain Reaction’ obviously is not going to happen. . Our Dear Leaders have seen to that. So I feel an apology is in order
The Dear Leaders made ‘good’ on Friday’s rumour of the total bail out solution. So no melt down. Maybe you should all go and read someone else. No really. I feel like Don Quixote. He is my hero by the way.
We have had two years of borrow-and-print so that we can kick start a ‘real’ recovery of ‘real growth’ and ‘real wealth creation’. And during that two years, we have not had any real wealth creation, no real growth and no real recovery. What we have bought with now well-over 2 trillion Euros in Europe and GB alone, is a modest recovery of the banks.
We chose, or rather had chosen for us, the path of not clearing any bad debts and of supporting those who made them. Having thrown vast sums into this policy it was obvious that possible failure would create a huge pressure to keep on doing it, because to stop would be to admit failure of an idiotic first decision. And so it is playing out.
I find myself trying to straddle two realities. Trying to comment on the progress of this one while trying equally to remind people of the other path we could have taken. And how I think it would have been better, and still could be better, if we had the courage to jump from here to there. I find it a mental strain. It makes me look and sometimes feel foolish.
The problem is I cannot convince myself, that what I am being assured, is correct. I cannot help but see, that what I am told as being best for me, for us all, is in fact, best for only a single financial class and their attendant pimps, priests and soothsayers.
Let’s all watch the stock market rise. And not ask who for? Lets all cheer as borrowing costs and the costs of insuring the debts go down, and not ask ask whose debt, and incurred for what end and whose benefit? Let’s all feel relieved that a melt down was averted, and not wonder how it will be paid for and what happens when the waiter brings this bill to our table as he has brought previous ones? Let’s listen to the voices telling us that happiness depends on the consumer spending again. Let’s slip numbly into the role allotted to us – happy bovine consumers.
Do you suppose cattle feel better not thinking ahead? Do you think they save themselves pointless fretting and lead happier lives, by filling their minds with gratitude and warm feeling for the man who brings them hay and leads them to a place to sleep each night? I think they probably are happier, knowing their future is being looked after by someone who cares for them and helps them and is, after all, so much cleverer than they are.
So I’m sorry for not being a happy cow.
Hi Golem,
No need to feel too dismayed. I greatly respect your honesty and humility, which contrasts so starkly with the attitudes of the political and financial elite. I'm tired of being fed more lies and empty rhetoric. No doubt there are many unhappy cows and the herd will grow.
As for the ECB bail out, this can only be another (perhaps final?) attempt to save the banks and to keep the show on the road. How long this will last is anyone's guess is suppose. But surely they cannot delay the reckoning with all those losses/debt/angry people forever?
Thanks Ian.
I've heard that one way all this could end is the formation of a global central bank and the issuing of a new global currency. The remaining, consolidated banks would help in its creation of course.
I'd be interested to hear your opinion on this.
Morning Peter,
I think we won't be getting a full fledged World Central bank nor a full fledged world currency just yet. For that you would need global tax powers.
The IMF has already secured for itself the right to issue its own debt. IMF bonds. This raises money for it and gives it a degree of autonomy. The reserve currency is still the dollar. But in recent years the Euro has been encroaching. Some oil contracts are now in Euros. Of course what the euro has just had done to its credibility will not help it.
Then there is the suggestion of another reserve currency based around the Yuan.
I think, if the euro is not permanently harmed by this last bail-out, will join a new quasi recognised tripartite system of dollar, euro and Yuan.
I think the IMF will continue to jockey for power. Trying to be a Global force for its ideology of free-market brutalism. Modern day Jesuits – 'soldiers of God' in their case Milton Freidman.
I think further ahead events are too unstable to make sensible predictions.