Home » Posts tagged 'cycle'

Tag Archives: cycle

Olduvai
Click on image to purchase

Olduvai III: Catacylsm
Click on image to purchase

Post categories

Post Archives by Category

Cataclysms and the Megamachine: Is History a Cycle or a Progression?

May 4, 2021

Cataclysms and the Megamachine: Is History a Cycle or a Progression?

This image by the Tuscan painter Piero della Francesca exudes such power that it may truly blow your mind. Apart from the mastery of the composition, the perfection of the details, the fascination of the human figures, a canvas in the hands of a grand master is not just an image: it is a message. In this case, all the figures are static, there is no one moving. Yet, the painting carries the message of a tremendous movement forward in time. It shows a great change occurring: something enormous, deep, incredible: the triumph of life over death. And those who sleep through it are missing the change without even suspecting that it is happening. Just like us, sleepwalkers in a changing world, where gigantic forces are awakening right now. 

“Cataclysms” (*) is a recent book by Laurent Testot (Univ. Chicago Press, 2020) that goes well together with “The End of the Megamachine” (Zero Books, 2020) by Fabian Scheidler of which I wrote in a previous post.Both books see human history using the approach that I call “metabolic.” It means to take the long view and see humankind in terms of a living entity. Call it a “machine” (as Scheidler does), call it “Monkey” (as Testot does), call it a “complex system” (as it is fashionable, nowadays), or maybe a holobiont (as I tend to do). It is the same: humankind is a creature that moves, grows, stumbles onward, destroys things, builds new things, keeps growing, and, eventually, collapses.

Bot “Cataclysms” and the “Megamachine” catch this multiform aspect of the great beast and both emphasize its destructive aspects. Both understand that the thing is moving. More than that, its trajectory is not uniform, it goes in bumps. It is a continuous sequence of growth and collapse, the latter usually faster than the former (what I call “The Seneca Effect“).…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Half The World’s Banks Won’t Survive The Next Crisis, McKinsey Finds

October 22, 2019

Half The World’s Banks Won’t Survive The Next Crisis, McKinsey Finds 

More than half of the world’s banks are at risk of collapse in the next global downturn if they don’t start preparing for late-cycle shocks, McKinsey & Company warned in its latest global banking outlook. 

The consultancy firm warned on Monday, in a 55-page report titled The last pit stop? Time for bold late-cycle moves, that 35% of banks globally are “subscale” and will have to merge or sell to larger firms if they want to survive the next crisis. 

“A decade on from the global financial crisis, signs that the banking industry has entered the late phase of the economic cycle are clear: growth in volumes and top-line revenues is slowing, with loan growth of just 4% in 2018—the lowest in the past five years and a good 150 basis points (bps) below nominal GDP growth. Yield curves are also flattening. And, although valuations fluctuate, investor confidence in banks is weakening once again,” McKinsey said. 

Kausik Rajgopal, a senior partner at McKinsey, told Bloomberg that “we believe we’re in the late economic cycle and banks need to make bold moves now because they are not in great shape,” adding that, “in the late cycle, nobody can afford to rest on their laurels.”

The report warned that 60% of global banks are experiencing “returns below the cost of equity.” And even warned that when the next recession strikes, “negative interest rates could wreak further havoc.” 

McKinsey said fin-tech startups are rapidly evolving the industry, and legacy banks risk “becoming footnotes to history” if they don’t immediately invest in technology. For instance, the report said, Amazon and Ping An are two technology firms that are quickly acquiring market share from the traditional banking sector. 

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

Climate Change & the 43-Year Cycle

May 24, 2018

Climate Change & the 43-Year Cycle

QUESTION: Dear Martin,

I was browsing through the website of NASA and came across a graph (see attachment).
It shows the temperature differences between 1880 and 2012. As far as I can see there seems to be a +/- 40-year cycle. I have edited it with the red vertical lines. The end of the current 40-year cycle should be around 2020, which, if I am not mistaken, coincides with a date you have mentioned previously in one of your blogs. This could mean that around that date a new 40-year cycle should start and temperatures should decline. What is your opinion on this?

Best regards,

SG

ANSWER: Yes, not bad. Look closely. The Japanese data seems to be the least messed with. The others have recalculated the data numerous times to get the biggest effect. Our model shows a 43-year cycle to be precise. That is driven by the energy output of the sun for it tests back into ancient times as well. The Japanese data is the least “politically correct” data whereas the US versions have an agenda behind them to justify raising taxes as if we can really change the climate of the entire planet. They get away with this because they confuse people with pollution and climate change. Hospital waste dumped in the sea does not change the climate but is disgusting and dangerous in spreading disease.

The energy output of the sun peaked in 2015 and has been crashing faster than anyone thought possible. The fascinating thing as you look at the chart and see the cycle. They do not. They forecast linearly whatever trend is in motion will last forever.

Saxo Bank Quarterly Outlook: End of a Cycle Like No Other

April 19, 2018

Saxo Bank’s provides an ominous economic outlook in its second quarter report.

What follows below are snips from a 35-page report by Saxo bank. I condensed the report for readability. Any emphasis in italics is mine. Until the final paragraph what follows are snips from various Saxo Bank analysts.

Enjoy.

End of a Cycle Like No Other – Steen Jakobsen – CIO

We are nearing the end of the largest monetary policy experiment of all time, and ascendant nationalism, staggering inequality, and a widespread loss of hope among the younger generation are among its varied fruit. The good news? Things only change when they absolutely must.

Q1’s brief volatility spasms notwithstanding, today’s capital markets are in a zombie-like state, with low volatility and extreme valuations in all assets with no net increase in growth and productivity, and a massive increase in inequality.

The benefits from the globalised system and particularly from the central bank’s asset-pumping response accrued near-entirely to the already wealthy, while the average economic participant lost out. This is the process that drove the advent of Brexit and Trump.

So now we have our first great new showdown since the Cold War, which saw the victory of capitalism over communism. Now comes the fight between nationalism and globalism. Nationalism is winning big, as country by country the outlook is turning inwards, with an increase in placing the blame on external forces from immigrants to the real and imagined misbehaviour of trade partners. Talk of trade policy and protectionism is now labelled “trade wars”.

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

Without Recovery There Is Every Need To Examine The Worst Case

May 18, 2016

Without Recovery There Is Every Need To Examine The Worst Case

There is a great deal that is wrong with mainstream economic commentary, starting with its unwavering devotion to orthodox economics and unshakable faith in their “stimulus.” No matter how little is actually stimulated there is never any doubt that the media will simultaneously forget the last one while lavishing praise on the next one. It is, however, the actual economic commentary itself that may be the most damaging. Because nothing works, every news story is printed from the shallowest, narrowest perspective. It is a grave disservice to the public and journalism.

As an example, on July 15, 2015, the Wall Street Journal published an article on Industrial Production that wasn’t unique or atypical. If you read these kinds of stories you find them utterly devoid of differences, so this effort was entirely symptomatic. At the time, industrial production for June 2015 was estimated to have risen 0.3% month-over-month, ending a string of six consecutive M/M declines. That fact more than the degree of the rise was cheerfully reported as if meaningful.

U.S. industrial production rose in June, a sign that the improving economy is helping the sector break out of a slump.

Industrial production, a measure of output in the manufacturing, utilities and mining sectors, rose a seasonally adjusted 0.3% from May, the Federal Reserve said Wednesday.

Even though the article noted that one month was nowhere near enough to overcome those prior declines, it didn’t matter because it was finally a plus sign conforming to the mainstream “narrative.”

The pickup comes as other measures show improvement in the economy this spring, with employment continuing to climb and wages creeping up as the labor market tightens…

“Weakness in manufacturing appears to be past its peak,” wrote Jim O’Sullivan, chief U.S. economist for High Frequency Economics in a note to clients.

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

China, Oil and Markets: It’s All One Story

January 7, 2016

China, Oil and Markets: It’s All One Story

If there’s one thing to take away from this year’s developments in markets and economies so far, it’s that they are all linked, they’re all part of the same thing. If you can’t see that, you’re not going to understand what’s happening.

Looking at falling oil prices as a separate thread is not much use, and neither is doing the same with Chinese stocks, or the yuan, or the millions of Americans who are one paycheck away from poverty, for that matter. It’s all one story.

And the take-away from that, in turn, is that focusing too much on ‘narrow’ conditions in your particular part of the globe has only limited value. We’re very much all in this together. In the UK today, it matters very little what George Osborne says or does, or Mark Carney, because they don’t shape the future of the economy.

The same goes for all finance ministers and central bank governors across the planet, Yellen, Draghi, Koruda, the lot: the influence they exert on their own economies, which was always limited from the start, is running into the boundaries imposed by global developments.

Even if central bankers could ever have ‘lifted’ anything at all (a big question mark), their power to do so is rapidly diminishing. The constraints global developments place on their powers will now be exposed -even more. And of course they’ll try to deny and ignore that, as naked emperors are wont to do.

And with the exposure of the limits to their abilities to make markets and economies do what they want, come the limitations of the mainstream financial press to make their long-promoted recovery narratives appear valid. Before we know it, we might have functioning markets back.

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

Olduvai IV: Courage
Click on image to read excerpts

Olduvai II: Exodus
Click on image to purchase

Click on image to purchase @ FriesenPress