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Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh XI

May 7, 2021

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh XI

Knossos, Crete (1993) Photo by author

Yet another in an increasing collection of comments I have posted to the online media site The Tyee. This time it is a commentary on an article that reviews a book arguing in favour of the implementation of Universal Basic Income.

“No stone is left unturned in their thorough and convincing argument…”

I’m not so sure this is true. My personal focus for the past decade+ has been on the unsustainability of our complex society, particularly as it is impacted by our propensity to chase growth — especially population and economic, for these both have a significant connection to our ever-increasing drawdown of finite resources and ecological destruction of our planet. If we are not correcting this tendency to ‘grow’ in any way, shape, or form, then we are just creating more ways to kick-the-can-down-the-road of our wasteful and ruinous path; and place the significant burden of our misinformed ways on future generations.

One of the key arguments of archaeologist Joseph Tainter’s thesis regarding societal collapse as presented in his text The Collapse of Complex Societies is that a society becomes increasingly susceptible to collapse once it encounters diminishing returns on its investments in complexity. It is not a stretch at all to argue that we have been on the path of such decline for decades, particularly once we began creating a purely fiat currency that has allowed an explosion in debt/credit. If one looks at the ‘growth’ of our world since the late 1960s when central banks/governments shifted the world to a monetary system that creates money from thin air with no connection to physical commodities that could constrain our growth somewhat, it is almost all predicated on debt/credit expansion; a conundrum since debt repayment necessitates the growth imperative to continue (yes, basically a gargantuan Ponzi scheme).

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

World leaders are planning new lock downs to introduce “The World Debt Reset Program” which includes universal basic income and vaccination requirements

October 19, 2020

Image: World leaders are planning new lock downs to introduce “The World Debt Reset Program” which includes universal basic income and vaccination requirements

(Natural News) World leaders are preparing for a second and third wave of covid-19 cases and are fine-tuning their lock down strategies which will be implemented late in 2020 and into 2021. Their planning involves the development of a new world economy, one that introduces medical fascism as a permanent way of life.

A Canadian whistle blower came forward with the plans. The whistle-blower is on the Liberal Party of Canada’s Strategic Planning Committee, which operates under the direction of Canada’s Office of the Prime Minister (PMO).

The historic lock downs have engineered mass poverty and will continue to weaken people’s financial and food security, making them more vulnerable and eventually making them more desperate to accept the new world economy and its bodily requirements.

New world economy includes universal basic income and vaccination requirements

The new world economy includes the introduction of a digital currency, a universal basic income, vaccine requirements for travel, and “The World Debt Reset Program.” A continuous cycle of lock downs into 2021 will eventually lead to an international economic collapse. Governments worldwide will offer citizens an alluring way out by promising to eliminate all personal debts (mortgages, loans, credit cards, etc.)

In the U.S. this idea has already been implemented in 2020 through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) – a guaranteed loan program that forgives the debt if the borrower follows specific instructions. Under an impending economic collapse, any and all loans will be forgiven if the citizen agrees to participate in the “World Debt Reset Program, funded by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In order to get all debts forgiven, citizens will have to forfeit ownership of any and all private property, accept a universal basic income, and enroll in the covid-19 and covid-21 vaccination schedule.

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

Social Media, Universal Basic Income, and Cashless Society: How China’s Social Credit System Is Coming To America

March 17, 2019

Social Media, Universal Basic Income, and Cashless Society: How China’s Social Credit System Is Coming To America

Some well-informed Americans may be aware of China’s horrifying “Social Credit System” that was recently unveiled as a method of eradicating any dissent in the totalitarian state. Essentially freezing out anyone who does not conform to the state’s version of the ideal citizen, the SCS is perhaps the most frightening control system being rolled out today. That is, until you consider what is coming next.

Unbeknownst to most people, there appears to be a real attempt to create a system in which all citizens are rationed their “wages” digitally each month in place of a paycheck, including the ability to gain or lose money. This system would see any form of dissent resulting in the cut off of those credits and the ability to work, eat, or even exist in society. It would not only be the end of dissent but of any semblance of real individuality.

Here’s how the Social Credit System operates in China.

First, however, for those who are unaware of the Social Credit System as it operates in China, we should briefly describe just what has taken place there. The Social Credit System in China isn’t merely a punishment for criticizing the state as is the case in most totalitarian regimes, the SCS can bring the hammer down for even the slightest infraction such as smoking in a non-smoking zone.

One summary of the SCS can be found in Business Insider’s article by Alexandra Ma entitled “China has started ranking citizens with a creepy ‘social credit’ system — here’s what you can do wrong, and the embarrassing, demeaning ways they can punish you,” where Ma writes,

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

The Dynamics of Decadence

October 5, 2018

The Dynamics of Decadence

In the present era of decadence, Universal Basic Income (UBI) is the modern equivalent of Bread and Circuses.

The dynamics of decadence are easy to understand: as affluence becomes the norm that is widely assumed to be permanent, shared purpose and sacrifice for the common good is replaced by self-absorbed decadence and an ethos of maximizing personal gain.

In his seminal essay The Fate of Empires, Sir John Glubb listed these core dynamics of imperial decline:

(a) A growing love of money as an end in itself.

(b) A lengthy period of wealth and ease, which makes people complacent. They lose their edge; they forget the traits (confidence, energy, hard work) that built their civilization.

(c) Selfishness and self-absorption.

(d) Loss of any sense of duty to the common good.

Glubb included the following in his list of the characteristics of decadence:

— An increase in frivolity, hedonism, materialism and the worship of unproductive celebrity.

— A loss of social cohesion.

— The willingness of an increasing number to live at the expense of a bloated bureaucratic state.

Glubb’s list may at first glance be largely psychological–self-aggrandizement and a focus on hedonistic pursuits–but the dynamics of decadence have economic, political and social ramifications.

First and foremost, the aristocratic financial and political elites secured their position at the expense of social mobility by erecting barriers that protect them from competition and accountability. In effect, they eliminated the risk posed by change by rigging the system to their benefit.

To fund their extravagant lifestyles, they took more of the earnings of those below them, widening the inequality between the aristocracy and commoners to extremes. Historian Peter Turchin reports that where the patricians of the Roman Republic had 10 or 20 times the wealth of an average Roman citizen, by the late Empire the elites possessed up to 200,000 times the wealth of the average commoner.

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

What Could Pop The Everything Bubble?

October 28, 2017

What Could Pop The Everything Bubble?

A crisis that can’t be solved by just printing more dollars

I’ve long held that if a problem can be solved by creating $1 trillion out of thin air and buying a raft of assets with that $1 trillion, then central banks will solve the problem by creating the $1 trillion out of thin air—nothing could be easier.

This is the lesson of the past eight years: if a problem can be solved by creating new money and buying assets, then central banks will solve that problem.

Problem: stock market is declining. Solution: create new money and buy, buy, buy stock index funds. Problem solved! Market stops falling and quickly rebounds as “central banks have our backs.”

Problem: interest rates are inhibiting lending and growth. Solution: create a few trillion units of currency and buy enough sovereign bonds to drop interest rates to near-zero.

Problem: nobody’s left who can afford to buy the new nosebleed-priced flats that underpin China’s miracle-grow economy. Solution: create new currency, lend it to local government agencies who then buy the empty flats.

Problem: stagnant employment and deflation. Solution: create a trillion in new currency, buy a trillion in new government bonds that then fund infrastructure projects, i.e. bridges to nowhere.

And so on. Any problem that can be solved by creating a few trillion out of thin air and buying assets will be solved.  The mechanism to solve these problems—creating currency out of nothing—is like a perpetual motion machine: there are no intrinsic limits on the amount of new money that can created at near-zero interest, as the interest payments can be funded by new money.

Even better, the central bank (the Federal Reserve) buys Treasury bonds with the new currency that generate income, which is then returned to the Treasury: a perpetual-motion money machine!

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

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