Another step towards the super dollar ?

truly believe that we are barely scratching the surface of the true problems facing us as
people. Most world leaders seem to view this crisis as a problem of pure economic
policy failure and a lack of joined-up political strategy. n my view it goes far deeper than
this and therefore the following are my comments regarding the subject :
O The post industrial age and excess consumption. We have passed the point
where industry can easily provide everyone with the basic products needed to
live a fairly luxurious life. (Leave aside the distribution problems for a moment).
Once a person has clean water, food, shelter, a cooker, refrigerator, radio, TV,
bed, clothing, hoover, shower/bath, toilet, and internet access, they have covered
nearly every "basic need and quite a lot beyond. This was realized in 1950's
America. Economists and planners knew that the problem was that if people had
access to all these things, and they were built to a high standard, then people's
need to earn, replace, spend or work was vastly diminished. The problem was
how to get people to buy new things and so the drive to excess consumerism
began.
O Decreased employment needs. Linked to point one, there is simply neither the
need nor the ability to have full employment. The problem is that all current
economic models are geared to the idea of full time employment as the idealized
standard model for most citizens. Don't confuse this with the thinking that
governments have a goal of actually achieving full employment. nstead they
think everyone should work full time to earn money to pay tax to full growth and
allow government spending, with the unemployed being an unfortunate side
effect of inflation control. Economic models assume that everyone must work to
earn money, and that they should try to work as much as possible to earn as
much as possible in competition with other workers. See Erik Brynjolfsson and
Andrew McAfee in a recent e-book Race Against the Machine
O Until we accept that this model is not sustainable, and is environmentally
disastrous, we will be unable to construct a model where working full time is no
longer the norm. We need to get to a model where the majority of the population
work part time, instead of a single overworked wage earner. We certainly can't
continue with the trickle up model, and if we decreased the consumerist model
over time to match the realities of the post industrial age, we could come up with
a viable model.
O Peak oil and the new energy crisis. The late C19th & C20th economic model was
based on cheap oil technologies. Current economic models don't really factor in
that we will not have this to rely on. (Great granddad has made repeated sensible
posts on this).
O Economics as a science.
O Excess government.
O Poor quality banking methods.
O Flawed investment models (especially the commodities and futures markets)
O Too many wars and too much military spending.
O Poor quality governance. There is an absolute crisis in terms of the quality of
politicians, civil servants and government institutions. Too many political models
are still essentially C19th in philosophy and operation. Ask yourself why; we stick
to representative democracy despite universal education, the internet and the
problems of excess lobbying; why we have political institutions that are so slow to
respond to events, that utterly fail to create real evidence based laws; why there
are so few highly talented individuals in politics, why we don't require basic
qualifications and an education system for politicians post election; why it is
almost impossible to change policies and laws even when politicians and their
civil servants want to? Why do we allow political parties? Why do we allow the
media to be come so close to politicians and so powerful?
O Climate change and carrying capacity. t is arguable that we are reaching or
exceeding the carrying capacity of the planet. f that is true (and accept that
there is dispute) then the rest of this list falls into insignificance except for the
worries over poor government and governance. f man made climate change is
also occurring and we fail to address it then we are potentially facing a "great
dying off event.
We are now entering a truly new age for humanity and it will require us to display
unusual skill, vision, leadership, flexibility and talent to avoid utter calamity.
h dear...there we go again.smoke and smoke screens
(WSJ) "BRUSSELSEuropean Union finance ministers Wednesday agreed to a plan
for coordinated guarantees provided by national governments for longer-term debt
issued by the region's banks, part of an effort to thaw the region's frozen wholesale
lending market, officials familiar with the matter said, but the ministers meeting this time
rejected a more ambitious plan, pushed by EU authorities, to create a "syndicate" that
would be jointly backed by the 27-nation bloc and issue guarantees for the banks, the
officials said. Well, why should the non euro nations fill this bill?
The governments wanted to get a program of debt guarantees up and running quickly
and that will not be possible given the large technical and political obstacles facing the
creation of a "syndicate (sound like mafia organization), the officials said. And the most
credit-worthy governments have opposed joint guarantees, fearing the scheme could
undermine their own credit ratings.
Banking regulation experts said something like the "syndicate ( in fact they are a
syndicate of corrupt identities ) idea is necessary in the current environment, underlining
the fact that the guarantees provided by the EU's troubled sovereigns will be of little
use to their banks a true statement.
The Austrian Finance Minister Maria Fekter said Wednesday that she can't give
numbers for the size of the leveraged-up euro-zone bailout fund and that the
government must now wait and see the market response to the instruments....what
instruments? ...so far only empty talk !
"Asked if the lack of a specific target for the boosted-up European Financial Stability
Facility was a setback, on her way to a meeting of European Union finance ministers,
she said: "NO ! We agreed on the guidelines for the EFSF yesterday and hope that
markets will now accept these instruments. t wouldn't be serious to name any numbers
because it depends on how markets value these instruments" - reports WSJ.
Spanish Finance Minister Elena Salgado joined the crowd of smoke blowers by saying
that while greater investment commitments from other investors would be welcome, the
size of the leveraged up EFSF is "more than sufficient." Ms. Salgado also said taly's
Prime Minister Mario Monti on Tuesday promised to announce further measures early
next month ahead of the European Council of EU heads of government.
To top it off all, The European Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn
( the most incompetent of all participants) told EU finance ministers at the meeting that
an agreement to create some form of a common euro-zone bond market would help
troubled countries access better rates on market funding, without being able to sustain
his statement though. "While 'm aware of certain opposition to stability bonds, need to
point out that already an agreement on common issuance can have an impact on
market expectations," Mr. Rehn said...totally out of subject, as usual !
;erything is now starting to make sense to me at last
The Federal Reserve is trying to bail everyone out and this will produce a lot of
downward pressure on the US dollar. Eventually the pressure will become too great
leading to a collapse of the currency. An international reserve currency will be organized
in the aftermath with an international Central Bank probably led by the MF. This bank
will 'prevent' the bank runs that are taking place at this very moment. The carbon tax
scheme will then be the instituted worldwide with the proceeds going to the international
bank. may be wrong but it looks like this may happen....However : the next step in the
"Hollywood script", soon the USA will own and control all of Europe, and they will get us
paying for their defense budget, but said this almost a year ago, but 'm simple mind.. .
RAL LF
Greece will see another general strike tomorrow, with ferries and public transport
disrupted, schools closed and state hospitals running with reduced staff. The cause,
again, is the painful package of austerity measures that the state was forced to take on
in return for bail-out cash. Just yesterday euro zone leaders approved the next C8bn
payment. IIias IIiopouIos, deputy leader of the civil servants' union AEDEDY, spoke to
AP television: They are creating a situation that can no longer be tolerated, can no
longer be endured. Unfortunately people are in a state of somewhere between poverty
and despair. The measures are supposed to improve the country's financial situation,
but the country is getting deeper into debt, unemployment is rising, and the recession -
unprecedented in recent times - is worse than anywhere else in Europe.
Date: dec. 01 . 2011

Mircea Halaciuga, Esq.

Financial news - Eastern Europe