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Can Anyone Save the World?
Can Anyone Save the World?
COMMENT: DO YOU HONESTLY THINK YOU OR SOCRATES CAN SAVE THE WORLD ?
WELL MAYBE YOU CAN IF YOU GET ALL THESE BILLIONAIRES TOGETHER! IM SURE MANY OF THEM ARE NOT ON THE GLOBAL GREEN SOCIALIST SIDE!
WHATS STOPPING YOU…?
CK
REPLY: You completely misunderstand what is possible. Nobody can save the world. We MUST go through this crash and burn. It’s just time! The very best that Socrates can offer is a new way to manage the world after 2032. I will not be around for that. We must reach an understanding that we are all connected; politicians cannot promise anything when it goes against the global trend.
These billionaires are not capable of saving the world. Some are involved in trying to force their agenda upon society and this is part of the very mechanism that will accelerate the crash and burn. Nevertheless, this does NOT suggest that we all must suffer. If you understand what is coming, you can dodge the punch. If I say, “Here is my fist. I am going to punch you in the jaw. Watch — here it comes!” Do you stand there and do nothing, or do you dodge the punch, block it, or try to defend yourself?
Socrates will do what no human can do by providing an objective dispassionate projection. It has done pretty good on everything from the new highs in the stock market from 2009 that Barron’s commented on, only because they thought it was a stupid forecast, on June 25, 2011: “Buy Signal: An esoteric theory based on cycles that relate to the ratio pi recently signaled the start of a long-term market uptrend.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
What? Default? Where? Dollar?
What? Default? Where? Dollar?
It won’t come as a surprise to anyone that the first half of 2020 has brought, among many other things, renewed calls for the demise of the US dollar. It’s been pretty much a non-stop call for over a decade now, and longer. But this time, like all previous ones, I’m thinking: I don’t see it. I guess my first question is always: please explain why the dollar would collapse before the euro does.
For one thing, the dollar would have to collapse/default against one or more “entities”. The dollar is not like one of those highrises that collapse upon themselves. It will have to default or collapse against something(s) else. Since it is the world reserve currency, that means there would have to be a replacement reserve currency. Yes, that could also be for example gold or SDR’s, or even a basket of currencies, and something like that may happen eventually, but it doesn’t appear in the cards in the short run.
There are really only two candidates for the role, and neither looks at all fit to play it. The euro may have some ambitions in that direction, but it has far too many problems still. The yuan/renminbi certainly has such ambitions, but the Communist party refuses to let it get on stage to show what it’s got. As I recently wrote:
The main sticking point for Beijing is a conundrum it cannot solve. The CCP wants to have BOTH a global currency AND total control over that currency. It will have to choose between the two, and cannot make up its mind. So it pretends it doesn’t have to choose.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Doom or denial: Is there another path?
Doom or denial: Is there another path?
I was recently asked to comment on a dustup between some members of Extinction Rebellion (see Thomas Nicholas, Galen Hall, and Colleen Schmidt, “The Faulty Science, Doomism, and Flawed Conclusions of Deep Adaptation”) and Jem Bendell, founder of Deep Adaptation (see his “Letter to Deep Adaptation Advocate Volunteers about Misrepresentations of the Agenda and Movement”). Since the issues raised in this controversy seem relevant to readers of Resilience.org, I thought it might be worthwhile to accept the invitation and weigh in.
For those not familiar, Jem Bendell’s Deep Adaptation (DA) takes as its starting point the judgment that, because of unfolding human-induced climate impacts, the near-term utter collapse of society is nearly inevitable. Extinction Rebellion (XR) is an activist movement that uses civil disobedience to compel government action to avoid climate tipping points that would lock in trends leading ultimately to ecological and social collapse. In simplistic terms, you could say that Deep Adaptation is about accepting and coping with the reality of climate-driven collapse while Extinction Rebellion is about acting to prevent it.
The nub of the controversy is this: some folks involved in Extinction Rebellion think that Bendell is being too fatalistic, thereby discouraging his followers from taking actions that might still save civilization and global ecosystems. Bendell, in his response, accuses his critics of ignoring evidence and misrepresenting his views.
I don’t propose to plunge into the weeds, adjudicating each point raised in each essay. Instead, I prefer to step back and offer my own interpretation of the evidence, and then discuss the subtext of the dispute.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Why the Unraveling Will Accelerate
Why the Unraveling Will Accelerate
Sclerotic, hidebound institutions optimized for linear stability and permanent growth are simply not designed to adapt to non-linear change and disruption of permanent growth.
Since the first news of pandemic in late January, I’ve been discussing potential accelerants to the unraveling of our fragile financial system: second-order effects (initial travel restrictions and layoffs were first-order effects, new waves of layoffs are second-order effects) and the shift from linear dynamics (add 1 to inputs, that changes output by 1) to non-linear: (add 1 to inputs, that changes output by 10).
The system appears stable until a catalyst pushes it off the cliff. Catalysts come in a variety of forms, from the apparently modest “straw that breaks the came’s back” to a broad awakening that the status quo simply isn’t capable of adapting successfully to new realities.
Financial catalysts tend to result in sudden, cataclysmic collapses in liquidity, solvency and sentiment. While the Federal Reserve can “fix” liquidity crises by creating currency out of thin air, that doesn’t make bankrupt firms solvent or make employers hire employees. Once complacent confidence slides into cautious fear, massive liquidity injections to keep the system from crashing are understood as last-ditch desperation.
Social-political catalysts are slower but much more difficult to reverse. While the media’s attention has been focused on the protests stemming from long-standing institutional bias, As Mark, Jesse and I discuss in Salon #14: Jobageddon and the Coming Education Revolts, two other social-political catalysts are gathering momentum:
1. The failure of our education complex to provide workable childcare/learning solutions
2. The hope of a V-shaped recovery in employment collapses.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Beyond Trump: Rebooting the System from inside the Death Machine
Beyond Trump: Rebooting the System from inside the Death Machine
Free your mind, find your power, change the world
We previously exposed the fact that President Donald Trump is fighting a war to protect the establishment from itself, and the rest of us. Now here’s what we do about it.
We’re all feeling it. A sense that, in the Age of Trump, something fundamental has shifted. You feel like you’re going insane. Like everyday brings with it a new battle, a fresh sense of feeling deluged with new, alarming information, the constant experience of being overwhelmed.
In such circumstances it’s not unusual to feel a combination of outrage, resignation, despondency and despair, mingled with internal efforts to re-ignite a sense of pragmatic hope.
But as we begin to develop a systemic, structural and holistic diagnosis of the current moment, doing so opens up greater insight into the possibilities for renewal and revitalization.
To do this, we will deploy a journalistic methodology co-designed in partnership by INSURGE and EXILE. Our approach is an adaptation of the principles of Euclidian geometry, using an analytical framework based on establishing axioms, which we use to explore further postulates, derive meaningful conclusions, and imagine possible scenarios — in a way that allows us to bypass dogmatic polarity, and contribute to a generative dialogue that can advance actionable knowledge.
In How the Trump regime was manufactured by a war inside the Deep State, we set out a systems analysis of how we got to where we are now, giving us insight into how a global systemic crisis threshold has ushered in a conflict at the heart of power.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Business-as-usual porn – or, We need to talk about collapse
Business-as-usual porn – or, We need to talk about collapse
I think we need to talk openly and calmly about the possibility of societal or civilizational collapse arising from humanity’s present predicaments. And that’s mostly what I want to pursue in this post – not so much what the likelihood or the underlying mechanisms of collapse might be, but the idea that it would be useful if, as a society, we could talk about it.
Maybe that’s happening in one sense. The noises offstage from scientists, multilateral agencies, social critics and political activists about the possibility of collapse are getting louder1. Inevitably, so is the pushback from those arguing that this is so much overheated rhetoric, and everything’s just fine2. My sense is that there’s far greater empirical weight behind the former than the latter position, but it’s the latter one that seems to dominate public discourse. There’s precious little public and media attention to the rather big news that the way we live may soon be ending. Indeed, people who say such things are generally relegated from serious debate, and sometimes accused of peddling ‘collapse porn’ with their mawkish tales of impending doom3. It’s a curious phrase. Inasmuch as pornography presents people with something that they guiltily want to see, but in unrealistic and idealized ways that hide the reality of the relationships involved and erode their integrity, perhaps we should rather be talking about ‘business as usual porn’.
I’m not too sure why business as usual porn is so widespread, but I think possibly it’s because of an unfortunate fusion between two aspects of modern life. First, a sense that the vast technological reach of contemporary societies armours us against the malign contingencies of the world, and second an elaborate and urbanized division of labour that denies most people even the remotest capacity to care for themselves in the face of those contingencies.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Why America Won’t Be ‘Great’ Again
Why America Won’t Be ‘Great’ Again
They called him the ‘Little Emperor’. Romulus Augustus — better known as Romulus ‘Augustulus’ (‘Little Augustus’) — was the last Western Roman Emperor. He assumed the throne at the age of 16 during a period of unprecedented strife. There had been 8 emperors in the previous 20 years. Like his predecessors, the Little Emperor’s reign was short. It lasted less than a year. In 476 CE, Augustus was deposed and the Western Roman Empire came to an end.1
One wonders what Augustus said to his followers during his reign. As little more than a proxy for his military-general father, Augustus left no monuments and made no decisions. But what might he have said in private? Perhaps he promised to ‘make Rome great again’. …
✹ ✹ ✹
We are perennially fascinated with the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. Why? Likely because its collapse cast such a long shadow on Western Europe. Once the center of civilization, the Roman collapse sent Western Europe into a dark age. It would take a millennia to recover.
Interestingly, the Roman elite seemed to be the last to recognize the empire’s decline. True, during Augustus’ reign the elite probably knew that the empire was a shadow of its former self. But elites were too busy squabbling over power to care much for the long arc of history. In their eyes, a return to Roman ‘greatness’ was probably forever on the horizon.
Perhaps the best characterization of this elite attitude comes not from history, but from science fiction. In his Foundation trilogy, Isaac Asimov imagines a galactic empire that sits on the verge of collapse. Scientist Harry Seldon sees the writing on the wall. But the leaders of the galactic empire do not. They’re too busy squabbling amongst themselves.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Bottom’s Falling Out
The Bottom’s Falling Out
Imagine you’re standing across the street from a house that’s on the verge of falling apart, a condemned building, an edifice devoured by rot from bottom to top. Now imagine you see a construction crew arriving to repair it, and they start to fix the roof. You would think that’s not much use if the walls, floor and foundation are just one wolf’s huff and puff away from collapse.
Still, that is what the world’s central banks are doing today: they “fix” the top by bailing out banks and allege that somehow that will fix the rest of the edifice too. In that same analogy, while central banks prop up banks, governments try to support the walls, by bailing out businesses. Again, while the floors and foundations keep on rotting away. And when the floors cave in, so of course will the walls, just like the roof.
There may appear to be some logic to all this, but it’s only the “inner logic” of an economic and political ideology that deals exclusively with how things should be, not how they are. Of course it’s nice to have a shiny new roof, and strong walls. But neither have any value if there are no more floors to support them.
This is what is happening today to our economies and societies. The 2008 crisis wasn’t bad enough to expose the failures of the “inner logic” of the system, but the fallout of COVID19 will be. And it’s not the virus that does it all, or the lockdowns, they merely expose a system that’s been rotting for many years without its floors and foundations ever being repaired.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The American Economy in Four Words: Neofeudal, Extortion, Decline, Collapse
The American Economy in Four Words: Neofeudal, Extortion, Decline, Collapse
Our society has a legal structure of self-rule and ownership of capital, but in reality it is a Neofeudal Oligarchy.
Now that the pandemic is over and the economy is roaring again–so the stock market says–we’re heading straight back up into the good old days of 2019. Nothing to worry about, we’ve recovered the trajectory of higher and higher, better every day in every way.
Everything’s great except the fatal rot at the heart of the U.S. economy hasn’t even been acknowledged, much less addressed: every sector of the economy is nothing but one form of neofeudal extortion or another.
Let’s spin the time machine back to the late Middle Ages, at the height of feudalism, and imagine we’re trying to get a boatload of goods to the nearest city to sell. As we drift down the river, we’re constantly being stopped and charged a fee for transiting one small fiefdom after another. When we finally reach the city, there’s an entry fee for bringing our goods to market.
Note that none of these fees were payments for improvements to transport or for services rendered; they were simply extortion. This was the economic structure of feudalism: petty fiefdoms levied extortionate fees that funded the lifestyles of nobility.
This is why I have long called America’s economy neofeudal: we pay ever higher fees for services that are degrading, not improving. This is the essence of extortion: we don’t get any improvement in goods and services for the extra money we’re forced to pay.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Why Every Person In America Needs To Become A Prepper During The Second Half Of 2020
Why Every Person In America Needs To Become A Prepper During The Second Half Of 2020
It has been on my heart to write this article for a few days, but I knew that it wouldn’t be easy to write. 2020 has already been one of the worst years in modern U.S. history, and it looks like the next six months are going to be extremely challenging as well. But even though most Americans are expecting that things will return to “normal” in 2021 and beyond, the truth is that the “perfect storm” that we are witnessing is only in the very early stages. All of the old cycles are ending, all of the bubbles are bursting, and we are starting to experience the consequences of decades of incredibly foolish decisions. So even though the remaining months of 2020 will be chaotic, the truth is that things are going to get progressively worse as the years move along. That means that you should use this period of time to prepare for what is ahead of us, because at some point the window of opportunity to prepare will be closed for good.
COVID-19 should have been a wake up call for all of us. Lockdowns were implemented very suddenly once the virus started to spread in the U.S., and shortages of key items began to happen. To this day, many retailers are still limiting the number of items that you can buy in certain categories. Hopefully this has helped people to understand that if you have not stocked up in advance, you may not be able to go out and get what you need when a major crisis strikes.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
21 Years Ago: The end of the Bombing of Serbia. And the Start of the Decline of the Western Empire
21 Years Ago: The end of the Bombing of Serbia. And the Start of the Decline of the Western Empire
Nato Bombing of the city of Novi Sad, Serbia, 1999 (image from Wikipedia)
21 years ago, on June 10, 1999, the NATO campaign against Serbia ended after 78 days of bombing. We still don’t know exactly the number of victims, civilian and military, nor the amount of damage and it would be difficult to say who actually “won” the bloody mess. But the bombing of Serbia was a turning point for many reasons.
In 1991, the collapse of the Soviet Union marked the end of the “cold war” and gave rise to expectations of a “peace dividend” once the old enemy of the West had folded out. Needless to say, that never happened. It appeared clear with the Serbian campaign that saw the whole Western world allied against a single state of less than 8 million inhabited.
There was nothing special in the Western Empire taking an aggressive posture after the fall of the rival Soviet Empire. It is the way empires work: they are military organizations dedicated to shifting economic resources from the periphery to the center. So, empires last as long as the cost of their huge military apparatus can be paid for by the resources they can control. Since resources are never infinite, they tend to be overexploited and empires suffer of a classic economic problem: diminishing returns. That’s the reason for the cycles of growth and collapse of empires in history.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Economic “Reopening” Is A Fake Out
The Economic “Reopening” Is A Fake Out
How does one define an economic “reopening”? I think most people would say that a reopening means that everything goes back to the way it was before the crisis; or at least as close as possible. Most people would also say that a reopening is something that will last. Simply declaring “America has reopened” while keeping many restrictions in place in certain parts of the country is a bit of a farce. And, reopening with the intention of implementing lockdowns again in a matter of weeks without explaining the situation to the public is a scam of the highest order.
For example, states like New York, California, Illinois and New Jersey have extended their lockdowns; with LA’s extension remaining ambiguous after they initially declared restrictions for another 3 months. New York’s lockdown is extended to the end of May (so far). This is the case in many US states and cities, while rural areas are mostly open. This is being called a “partial reopening”, but is there a purpose behind the uneven approach?
As I predicted in my article ‘Pandemic And Economic Collapse: The Next 60 Days’, the restrictions will continue in major US population centers while rural areas have mostly opened with much fanfare. The end result of this will be a flood of city dwellers into rural towns looking for relief from more strict lockdown conditions. In about a month, we should expect new viral clusters in places where there was limited transmission. I suggest that before the 4th of July holiday, state governments and the Federal government will be talking about new lockdowns, using the predictable infection spike as an excuse.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
From Overstretch to Collapse
From Overstretch to Collapse
In less than three decades, a mere blink of the eye in historical terms, the United States has gone from the world’s sole superpower to a massive foundering wreck that is helpless before the coronavirus and intent on blaming the rest of the world for its own shortcomings. As the journalist Fintan O’Toole noted recently in the Irish Times:
“Over more than two centuries, the United States has stirred a very wide range of feelings in the rest of the world: love and hatred, fear and hope, envy and contempt, awe and anger. But there is one emotion that has never been directed towards the U.S. until now: pity.”
Quite right. But how and why did this pitiable condition come about? Is it all Donald Trump’s fault as so many now assume? Or did the process begin earlier?
The answer for any serious student of imperial politics is the latter. Indeed, a fascinating email suggests that the tipping point occurred in early to mid-2014, long before Trump set foot in the Oval Office.
Sent from U.S. General Wesley Clark to Philip Breedlove, Clark’s successor as NATO commander in Europe, the email is dated Apr. 12, 2014, and concerns events in the Ukraine that had recently begun spinning out of control. A few weeks earlier, the Obama administration had been on top of the world thanks to a nationalist insurrection in Kiev that had chased out a mildly pro-Russian president named Viktor Yanukovych. Champagne glasses were no doubt clinking in Washington now that the Ukraine was solidly in the western camp. But then everything went awry. First, Vladimir Putin seized control of the Crimean Peninsula, site of an all-important Russian naval base at Sevastopol. Then a pro-Russian insurgency took off in Donetsk and Luhansk, two Russian-speaking provinces in the Ukraine’s far east. Suddenly, the country was coming apart at the seams, and the U.S. didn’t know what to do.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Eurozone Collapse: V-Shaped Recovery Mirage Is Gone
Eurozone Collapse: V-Shaped Recovery Mirage Is Gone
Eurozone Economy Collapses 3.8% in the first quarter, the worst on record. Spain (-5.2%) and France (-5.6%) GDP were much worse than Italy (-4.7%).
Economist Daniel Lacalle offers his thoughts on the European economy in a YouTube video.
EUROZONE COLLAPSE
The V-Shaped Recovery Mirage Is Gone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO_RxjESCk4 … YouTube at 🏠 @YouTube
What LaCalle says about the Eurozone also applies to the US.
What’s Next for America?
For a 20-point discussion of what to expect, please see Nothing is Working Now: What’s Next for America?
No V-Shaped Recovery
Here’s the correct viewpoint: The Covid-19 Recession Will Be Deeper Than the Great Financial Crisis.
Simply put, a quick return to business as usual is not in the cards.
Inflation or Deflation?
Meanwhile, the debate over inflation or deflation continues.
Will it be Inflation or Deflation?
If you believe the answer is inflation, then you do not understand the importance of credit and demand shocks. Click on the link for discussion.
Collapse: the way we imagined it, and the way it was.
Collapse: the way we imagined it, and the way it was.
Even those of us who could see some kind of collapse coming (the “collapsniks”) were taken by surprise by the form it took. But, as always, for everything that happens there has to be a reason for it to happen. Above: the Seneca Curve.
Collapses happen, it is a rule of life, as the ancient Roman philosopher Lucius Seneca had noted long ago when he said that “ruin is rapid” (festinantur in damnum). Yet, another rule of collapses is that they always take you by surprise. I think even Seneca himself was surprised when he received a message from his former pupil, Emperor Nero, ordering him to commit suicide.
So, even the most hardened collapsniks were surprised by the onrush of the coronavirus epidemic. I had been thinking about the collapse that the models predicted but, honestly, I hadn’t imagined it would take this form. Surely, I had in mind that some unexpected shock would have unbalanced society enough to cause it to take the fast way down, but I imagined it mostly in the form of a war. When the Iranian general Soleimani was assassinated by US drones in January, I thought “This is it.” It wasn’t. Nobody could have imagined what would have happened just a couple of months afterward.
Yet, for everything that happens, there is a reason for it to happen. And there is a reason also for the coronavirus. I noted in my book (Before Collapse) that epidemics hit stressed societies after that they have reached their physical limits. The main example I discuss is that of the “Black Death” that struck Europe in the mid-14th century.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
