Home » Posts tagged 'systemic collapse' (Page 3)

Tag Archives: systemic collapse

Olduvai
Click on image to purchase

Olduvai III: Catacylsm
Click on image to purchase

Post categories

Post Archives by Category

Time Is Running Out For Pax Americana’s Apologists

November 15, 2015

Time Is Running Out For Pax Americana’s Apologists

Time Is Running Out For Pax Americana’s Apologists

The paradox of the current global crisis is that for the last five years, all relatively responsible and independent nations have made tremendous efforts to save the United States from the financial, economic, military, and politicaldisaster that looms ahead. And this is all despite Washington’s equally systematic moves to destabilize the world order, rightly known as the Pax Americana.

Since policy is not a zero-sum game, i.e., one participant’s loss does not necessarily entail a gain for another, this paradox has a logical explanation. A crisis erupts within any system when there is a discrepancy between its internal structure and the sum total of available resources (that is, those resources will eventually prove inadequate for the system to function normally and in the usual way).

There are at least three basic options for addressing this situation:

  1. Through reform, in which the system’s internal structure evolves in such a way as to better correspond to the available resources.
  2. Through the system’s collapse, in which the same result is achieved via revolution.
  3. Through preservation, in which the inputs threatening the system are eliminated by force, and the relationships within the system are carefully preserved on an inequitable relationship basis (whether between classes, social strata, castes, or nations).

The preservation method was attempted by the Ming and Qing dynasties in China, as well as theTokugawa Shogunate in Japan. It was utilized successfully (in the 19th century) prior to the era of capitalist globalization. But neither of those Eastern civilizations (although fairly robust internally) survived their collision with the technologically more advanced (and hence more militarily and politically powerful) European civilization.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Does This ‘Elite’ Magazine Cover Predict A Major Global Event For November?

October 28, 2015

Does This ‘Elite’ Magazine Cover Predict A Major Global Event For November?

theeconomist

Last week highly acclaimed cyclical analyst Bo Polny warned of an imminent failure in stocks that could lead to a complete meltdown in world markets in November. As Michael Snyder recently noted, Polny has accurately predicted market movementsover the last three months, suggesting that his current cycle theory may be worth considering:

In recent months he has correctly predicted that U.S. stocks would begin to drop in July, that there would be a huge plunge in August and that that the month of September would be rather uneventful.  Now he is saying that he expects “November to be a complete meltdown on the U.S. and world markets”.  Just because he has been right in the past does not guarantee that he will be correct this time around, but lots of people (like me) are starting to pay attention.

Though the Fall of 2015 was forecast to be rocky for the global economy and financial markets, we have yet to see the full-on collapse that many expected. This has, in many cases, left the impression that the U.S. economy remains on solid footing. But those who follow economic news and recent financial reports from some of the world’s leading companies know different.

We may not be seeing an overt collapse of the system as we know it, but behind the scenes it is clear that we are experiencing an implosion and loss of confidence. This is apparent by the massive flight of capital from some of the world’s leading investors into safe haven assets like gold and silver. Moreover, wealthy individuals around the world are expediting their efforts to prepare for the eventuality of collapse by stockpiling food and acquiring stylish emergency shelters.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Bond Crisis & 2015.75

October 23, 2015

The Bond Crisis & 2015.75

ECM2015-2020

Some people have wrongly expected a crash in the long bonds. What has actually happened is that China and others have sold into the high, liquidating their long bonds, and moving short-term. This is why rates are negative on the short-end. The CRASH comes in the opposite direction this time. Why? Because the central banks have engaged in Quantitative Easing. The ECB (European Central Bank) stepped up its buying of long-term debt to hold the market from 25% to 33%. Smart money is not interested in buying long-term paper, especially when the Fed keeps warning that they MUST normalize interest rates, i.e. raise rates.

So whom has the bonds and will take the loss? Guess who? The central banks. They are loaded to the gills and cannot sell the long-bonds they bought. There is no bid. In this debt crisis, there is no bid for debt, which is typically how empires, nations, & city-states collapse.

The system is now highly geared and we will see in the months ahead that short-term rates rise when people begin to wake up and realize that this system is failing. The U.S. Congress tried to push the debt ceiling from the September 30 deadline, which was precisely the day of the ECM – 2015.75. They could not make it out to December. There is a war within Congress and this is critical, for if the debt ceiling fight gets much worse, then we may indeed begin to start the perception that this is not going to look very pretty the further we move from 2015.75.

Neither Crowdfunding, Nor Oxi,Nor Anything Else Can Stave OffGreece’s Systemic Collapse

July 9, 2015

Neither Crowdfunding, Nor Oxi,Nor Anything Else Can Stave Off Greece’s Systemic Collapse

In case you missed the media hubbub, a one-week Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign was started back on June 29th with the goal of raising €1.6 billion to pay off Greece’s most recent debt repayment and set it back on the road to prosperity. The campaign of course came nowhere near the repayment amount, and although it amassed a massive reaction across the Internet, it barely made it past the 0.1% mark of its goal – €1,930,366. But seeing how it had no realistic chance of achieving its goal in the first place, it’s inherent that its failure isn’t its biggest disappointment. That mark of distinction goes straight to its existence in the first place, and in particular the dumbing down it has foisted upon a very serious situation.

The brainchild of a Mr. Thom Feeney, a marketing co-ordinator in London, the Indiegogo campaign came with the tagline of being “by the people, for the people,” a great gimmick if there ever was one. Since Feeney stated that he was “fed up with the dithering of our politicians” and that he “would have prefer[red] that we had governments that listened and connected with the public,” it seems that European politicians forced his hand in the matter and left him with no choice but to single-handedly save Greece. Or so one gathers from his statements. Furthermore, and being the 21st century with all its techno-wizardry, the idea behind the crowdfunding campaign he started was that

The beauty of the internet and social media means that a campaign like this can become possible by word-of-mouth and people all across the world can get involved very quickly.

In other words, slap up a page on the Internet, put in your dues in the right social (media) circles, and whammo – you’ve suddenly saved a country! As Feeney then put it,

The chance to use a crowdfunding site for social good is really exciting and I hope that others will follow my lead in future and start or get behind projects like this.

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

What Choice Do We Have?

July 3, 2015

What Choice Do We Have?

As systemic solutions fall short, we must grasp the nettle of making our own arrangements in a time characterized by burgeoning demands and diminishing resources, capital and security.

The idea that our large-scale problems could be fixed with systemic reforms is enticing: replace the thousands of pages of tax code with a simple flat tax without deductions, for example, or the replacement of too big to jail/fail banks with community-owned banks that served the public, not shareholders.

But the attraction of reforms is a siren song, because our system is run by vested interests for vested interests, period. Any real reform is Dead On Arrival (DOA) because any real reform threatens the swag and security of vested interests.

One person’s livelihood is another person’s vested interest.

Toss in The Enchanting Charms of Cheap, Easy Credit and Our Spoiled-Brat Economyand we have a toxic resistance to systemic reforms that require any degrowth, direct democracy, writedowns of debt, devolution of centalized power, i.e. any real reforms of the unsustainable status quo.

So where does that leave us? With no choice but to submit? No, it leaves us with private solutions, by which I mean arrangements made on the individual and household level that do not assume the unsustainable status quo will magically continue to issue us our “we wuz promised” share of the swag.

Private solutions subdivide into practicalities (securing multiple income streams, choosing where to live, arranging access to healthcare, food and energy, proximity to friends and family, like-minded colleagues, etc.) and what we might term self-fulfillment: aligning our internal goals, priorities, personality traits, values and skills with the practical externalities of daily life.

Longtime correspondent Bart D. recently responded to an email in which I expressed the all-too common sense of being overwhelmed–by work, duties, responsibilities.His response gives us a starting place for choosing our priorities and goals:

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Limits to Growth and Greece: systemic or financial collapse?

June 30, 2015

The Limits to Growth and Greece: systemic or financial collapse?

The results of the “standard run” (or “base case”) scenario of “The Limits to Growth” 1972 study. Could it be that the ongoing Greek collapse is a symptom of the more general collapse that the model generates for the first two decades of the 21st century?

So, we have arrived to an interesting point, to be intended in the Chinese sense of a curse. It is the point where the people of Greece are being asked to choose between starvation and slavery and this is supposed to be a triumph of democracy.

As the tragedy unfolds, people take sides, aiming their impotent rage at this or that target; the Euro, the bureaucrats of Brussels, the Greek government, Mr. Tsipras, some international conspiracy, and even Mr. Putin, the usual bugaboo of everything.

But, could it be that all the financial circus that we are seeing dancing in and around Greece be just the effect of much deeper causes? The effect of something that gnaws at the very foundations not only of Greece, but of the whole Western World?

Let’s take a step back, and take a look at the 1972 study titled “The Limits to Growth” (LTG). Look at the “base case” scenario, the one which used as input the data that seemed to be the most reliable at the time. Here it is, in the 2004 version of the study, with updated data in input.

Despite all the criticism that the LTG study received over the years, its basic soundness was repeatedly demonstrated, for instance in “The Limits to Growth Revisited.” The LTG calculations were based on a number of assumptions, the main one was that the increasing costs resulting from the gradual depletion of the world’s natural resources would bring an increasing burden on the industrial system, forcing it to slow down its growth and, eventually, to start an irreversible decline.

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Post navigation

Newer posts →

Olduvai IV: Courage
Click on image to read excerpts

Olduvai II: Exodus
Click on image to purchase

Click on image to purchase @ FriesenPress