Thursday, March 17, 2011

wave goodbye

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as someone acutely aware of the bears who winter in deserted farm properties in the chernobyl restricted areas, bears whose lifestyle is not far removed from my own, i welcome developments in japan. this may, at first reading, appear heartless. if so, it deserves to proceed to second and third reading. our racist (human racist ), fascist, and expansionist species is carrying out systematic ethnic cleansing against other species. this is true of all 'peoples.' from the mildest tibetan monk to the most macho retired pentagon general with sexual potency issues - the human race supports ruthless ethnic cleansing and conducts endless chemical warfare against every other species from harmless and peace loving bacteria to rats. rats - omniverous, courageous, resouceful scavengers and recyclers - are the victims of cruel propaganda, to the effect that they are 'dangerous'. at the same time that we project our worst characteristics onto these creatures - we conduct an incessant 'final solution' on their entire species by means of poisoning.
so who exactly is dangerous ? ? this is the greatest calumny since poland invaded hitler. the poisons eventually find their way into groundwater and boost the cancer rate. we are thus not only a mindlessly aggressive race, but stupified by our own propaganda, and our obsessive need to sell stuff to each other, whether or not it is lethal to ourselves and our children. the japanese earthquake is to be welcomed as the first glimmer of dawn, of the coming contraction phase of global industrial civilisation. forget peak oil. peak oil per capita - which is what counts - was over thirty years ago. to promote alternative energy as a means of sustaining the unsustainable, is delusory.

nature is resouceful, inventive, all powerful, and both nurturing and utterly ruthless. but the earth is a ball of molten iron and a holiday visit to iceland might be the best way to understand the fragility of her crust. japan suffered hiroshima, and went back to meddle with nuclear toys. japan may be on the brink of creating the most extensive wildlife park and nature reserve since the dawn of the industrial revolution. let the growth addicts weep. let the fascists retreat. let the rising sun of the brave new dawn warm the hearts of the bears of chernobyl in their cosy homes. earthquake, flood, fire ! and so far the earth has done little more than shrug.
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Monday, March 14, 2011

greeks have a word for it.

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congratulations to the noble people of japan, for not looting the tsunami wrecked shops – and to the decent plain people of ireland, for not breaking any windows on their way to trashing the governing party.

solidarity and democracy – deemokratia – ( greeks please copy )

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Thursday, March 10, 2011

dail dress code.

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latest standing orders, dail dress code :


general appearance is to reflect the dignity and integrity of the house - i e slightly threadbare, with concealed ties.


taoiseach : mr punch costume with truncheon.
leader of the opposition : smart squeaky clean judy outfit.
minister for finance : hair shirt, can be fianna fail cast-off.
minister for public service reform : a sturdy cap.
minister for transport : sensible walking shoes.
tanaiste and minister for foreign affairs : a swimsuit.
fine gael rank and file : blue shirts.
labour rank and file : white collar.
female labour cabinet member : something she knitted herself.
fianna fail senior members : deep mourning.
united left alliance : blue collar.
shane ross, outspoken independent : dog collar.
clatter of independents : where motley is worn.
lowry, mcgrath, healey-rae : drip dry county colours and cloth cap.
backbenchers worried about gender quotas : drag.
sinn fein : dry cleaned balaclavas.
fianna fail rank and file : bare faced, or grandfather's worn out balaclava.
green senator : a fig leaf, otherwise stark naked ,with tweetmobile.
barry cowen : his brother's shoes.

cean comhairle : black shorts and a whistle.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

all mercs will be traded in. ministers will drive themselves in 500 c c italian cars, in order to stuff it to the british and germans who fed our borrowing habit and now call us to do the cold turkey treatment. the independents can hitch hike. the new government jet is a three man currach. if you have a second home in west cork, either stay in clontarf or go on the bus.
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Friday, March 4, 2011

what's the difference between election politics 2011 and wild west poker ?

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in wild west poker you leave your gun at the door, put your money on the table, lift your cards, play to win, and try to see if anyone is bluffing.

in election politics you leave your gun at the door, lift your voting card, and you know everyone is bluffing, but you can't win, because there is no money on the table.

in wild west poker, the bad guys ride into town, hold up the pensioners, terrify the children, blow a hole in the bank, grab the gold, turn the corner, and head for the hills.

in election politics the bad guys are all running the town. the bank robs the people of half their money. the shit hits the fan. the bad guys grab their pensions and head for the hills. then the good guys ride into town, back off from the pensioners, kiss the children and win the election, find the hole in the bank, say 'tut tut' to the bankers, collect the other half of the townsfolks' money and throw it down the hole.

in wild west poker a few bad guys creep back into town in disguise, get caught by the townsfolk, marched out of town, and strung up from a tree.

in election politics a few bad guys creep back into town in disguise, mutter about taking hard decisions, say 'sorry' to the townsfolk but 'we are where we are', promise we'll soon turn the corner, turn the corner into the saloon, leave their guns at the door, tell gerry's gang to get lost,
buy a round of bourbon for the good guys, get their feet back under the table, grin at all the new kids and greenhorns and say -

'anyone for another game of poker ?'
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Thursday, February 17, 2011

globalised boom >< globalised bust.

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this is why you cannot have a fiat reserve currency in a globalised world, - and this is what happens if you try :


a certain quantity of money is required to lubricate trade in any economy. this can be a larger amount circulating slowly, or a smaller amount circulating more rapidly. it is not so much the money, as the volume of transactions, that is the lifeblood of an economy, closely analogous to the circulation of the blood in the body.

if you pour in more money than is needed, you get both inflation, and speculation with surplus money.

if borders are open, capital searches out the investments with the best return, but the very excess of funds causes the yields on all investments to fall. it also causes bubbles, which is to say when an investment is no longer based upon the expected income yielded - i e the rent from a shop - but a capital gain - i e the presumed profit upon the sale of the premises in the future.

a bubble is when the investment itself is helping to create the capital gains that it is chasing. a circular process.

if the authorities hold interest rates lower, to ward off a crash (the collapse of a bubble) - a situation develops where the interest rates are tending towards zero, and the return on investment worldwide is also tending towards zero.

whereas authorities permit investment capital freedom to move across borders, they tend to limit their response to inflation to what is arising in the home country. ( asset bubbles also tend to escape the governments' definitions of inflation.) the danger is that money created by lending/borrowing in, say, america - may cause inflation in, say, china. further funds are then sucked in to ride on the resulting waves and bubbles.

this is hard for authorities to react to, in a world where the political units remain compartmentalised, but the economic sphere is open and globalised.

eventually, as money is lent into being, interest rates at near zero cannot be lowered further, and returns at near zero, drive investors into greater risk tolerance in search of positive results.

perfect globalisation can only end in perfect and instantaneous collapse, as all of the mechanics of investment bubbles go into reverse. even if a computer programme could be devised to
identify the onset of a bubble - short term, thick skinned, and risk taking insiders would pile in, hard and heavy, to take a profit while the spike lasted.

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in the ensuing inevitable bust, borrowers and lenders blame each other. since borrowing and lending come under the eternal rule that 'it takes two to tango' - they should be lumped together under the unified term 'blenders.'

- and as every boom is followed by a bust, just as every spring has an autumn, boom and bust should also have a common term - a 'boost.'

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protectionism is decried by conventional economic wisdom, as causing a brake on trade, and on economic growth.

too many green economists manage to have 'growth' as an evil and at the same time as a long term objective. which is it ?

protectionism, or the world divided into economic compartments, just as it is divided into political compartments, does not bring the natural pattern of exponential-growth-plus-collapse, to an end. it merely ensures that some economic zones are growing at a time
when others are collapsing, and vice versa.

perfect and total globalisation, with fiat currency, at first stimulates growth, secondly synchronises growth, thirdly maximises the opportunities to search out highest possible yield upon investment, fourthly threatens to go into reverse, causing the authorities to create a stimulus, or serial stimuli, and fifthly and finally exhausts all possible roads to profitable investment so that a simultaneous global bust ensues, after which there is nowhere to go, except to collapse all financial assets, and to declare the then current holders of real assets (freehold land, property, gold, commodities, grain stocks, seed banks, tools of trade etc. ) - to be the winners.

as public order is one of the things that disintegrates in a severe collapse, the next question for the 'winners' is how to hold on to these proceeds of their luck or foresight . . . .

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

the project to maximise trade and development on a global scale is a nonsense project, and is like a gold rush in mountains where there is no gold, that can only yield a profit to the nimble and lucky sellers of shovels, boots, and whiskey.

it is a subset of the project to create infinite growth in a finite sphere.

those who imagine that the balance can be tipped by military hardware are living in a pre globalised world. on a battlefield an aggressor can prevail by throwing hand grenades, and if the opponents have only swords and staves, all the better. but resorting to force in a globalised and specialised and integrated world, is more like throwing hand grenades in a helicopter.

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in a world in which population expands, while resources are finite and the availability of energy in decline - wages, the cost of labour, will fall - while energy prices will either rise, or more likely decline but just not quite as fast as wages.

the real economy, even before civil unrest, will therefore contract in per capita terms, and after a while, in any terms.

the appropriate lubrication for trade in a contracting global economy, is a gently contracting money supply.

whereas a contracting global economy, plus an expanding global money supply, will together expand the parasitical financial world in relation to the real economy. capital will flow to any viable investment that has been overlooked, until all seats are taken, and overall investment return declines towards zero, at which point banks refuse to play the game any longer.

the survivors of the ensuing crash may then wonder if slower progress under protectionist policies, might not have been the tortoise that outpaced the hare. they will have learned a lesson.

but the folk memory will fade, the lesson will then be forgotten by some future generation, and mindless boom will again take its turn on the economic world stage.

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optimists maintain that the greenspans, bernankes, and other holders of the levers of economic power, have failed to understand the (worse than) zero sum nature of economic expansion within a finite biosphere.

pessimists believe that they do understand.






Wednesday, February 16, 2011

the great islamic contraction.

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in a contracting global economy, in which the expansion bounce would become a rare and surprising event, ( like serious recessions have been in the 20th century), islamic interest free banking might just come into its own ?

for interest to be paid at even 2 1/2 per cent, the economic system requires growth.

but in a contracting economic system - inevitable where energy availability is declining - the savers still put away money in the bank which the bank accumulates and lends out to a smaller number of borrowers.

if the economy declines by 2 1/2 per cent, the saver - repaid the same amount - has enhanced purchasing power in terms of the real world. conversely, the borrower, while paying back the same amount, pays 2 1/2 per cent more in terms of what must now be sold to raise the money.

the world of banking is not as simple as that - but the illustration holds good. after all, borrowers and lenders ultimately do business through real, not nominal, interest rates. it is by variations and anomalies in real interest rates that one of them is rewarded and the other punished.

thus money will still be bought by borrowers and sold by savers in a contracting global economy.
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Friday, February 4, 2011

the only pole that counts.

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message from a lonesome polish mother :


PLEASE VOTE LABOUR to prop up a fine gael government implementing a fianna fail programme to bleed the people for the sake of german and international banks who need ireland to keep on filling the black hole left by anglo irish property gamblers when they financed the ghost estates and bankrolled buy-to-let investors renting out to our polish construction workers who have suddenly got unemployed and now want to go home.

dziekuje !
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