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'"All are driven by the strains placed on Western society by the economic rise of the emerging economies combined with their currency manipulation."'

so war it is then.

Another good read Paul. It will be interesting to hear what ideas the GOP and Tea baggers now have for the recovery. So far they have had none.

Another great post Paul taking yesterday's post further.
From yesterday para 11 "an extended Depression for the countries that lost the exit battle because they clung to their old orthodoxies." The Tea Party can't see that the freedom to operate as the dominant world economy has already been given up to the mountain of debt. No good agitating for tax cuts if you ain't got a job. No good rolling back big government if that is all that is acting in the economy to foster growth or provide a limited safety net. In the 30's dustbowl you couldn't take matters into your hands and solve the problem by gitting a job. The jobs are all in China and Asia.
"Americans are looking at their way of life and asking: How does it all come back the way it was?" Answer: it doesn't.
That is when the real anger will start.

"Having spent two weeks in the middle of it all, I think the power of the "end-of-times" rhetoric is that for so many people it rings true:
whether they see the overweening state and the deficit as the problem, or the untrammelled power of Wall Street, or two military quagmires, or the offshoring of millions of jobs - Americans are looking at their way of life and asking: How does it all come back the way it was?"

It doesn't. You missed out the most important explanation of all, the dramatic, but insidious, demographic change. By 2050, only half the population will be White (mean IQ 100, but probably falling through differential/dysgenic fertility). The Hispanic mean is half a SD below that (and the major area t he population is growing), and the Black American mean is a full SD below the White mean. As the demographics change, the population becomes more like the USA's Third World competitors, and meanwhile, China, which is half a SD above the White mean, is ploughing ahead. This is why China began managing its population long ago. They learned from our academics, and they acted upon what they learned too. Sadly, nobody fought the truth more than the USA and UK and its poodles (which sadly include most of Western Europe, Japan, and the Tiger economies). It's all most odd, and very sad.

"The world is engaged in a long, slow, painful re-balancing in which the idea that Western countries could voluntarily become "high-skill, high-wage" - and foist the economic pain of downturn onto other less successful countries using free trade or currency policy - is crumbling to dust. This is not something you put right by consulting the annals of Congressional tactics."

Alternative; high-skill, low wage - lets all go back to the stone age!

Now I am not advocating this as something we should be ecouraging but does anyone amongst you think a massive global conflict could actualy be beneficial in the long run?

If we are gonna go back to square one financialy, why not wind back the global population and take another countrys wealth while we're at it, eh?

This all sounds rather familiar!

Closing the 'Collapse Gap': the USSR was better prepared for collapse than the US


The US is still in the denial phase.

#5

Something has to give, hard to see at this stage what that 'something' may be, but whatever it is it WILL, be beneficial in the long run. That is not to say that we should wish for it or stop doing what we can to avoid it or soften its impact (whatever it may be).

The current geo-political dynamic is very complex with a lot of ebb and flow. I think leaders do have an inkling of what is at stake and flirt with the leverage they have but instinctively hold back from the brink from fully exercising that leverage, China's stance on 'rare earth metals' being a good example of that.

I suppose that gives us a chance of 'muddling through' a protracted process of a transfer (or more fairly sharing) 'wealth' from west to East. Idealy the west should 'grow' into sustainable economies while the rest of the world 'develops' to catch up to that point.

Trouble is nobody talks about that or offers that as a tangible narrative, all we get is the noise of fingernails grasping at at the floor as the global dynamic drags the priveledged inexorably towards a different kind of economic model and way of life.

Through this tightrope walk of a process all it takes is a flashpoint or black swann of some kind and the whole thing could unravel very quickly and disastrously. None of that is necesarry and it is incumbent upon those who can see through this (there are afew on here anyway)to just keep plugging away and try to raise awareness somehow to a level which would, at the very least, make a catastrophe much less likely or much less severe or avoid it all together.

To quote HG wells again on the quantum of human history.

'History is a race between education and catastrophe'


Just got to keep plugging away I guess.

..America is facing a challenge to its economically dominant position in the world: not an overt, intentional challenge or a plot..

china's devaluation is intentional. they have to actively manage it. its not some passive accident.

when japan did the same devaluation to get a competitive advantage the western powers ganged up and bent the currency that in the end blew out the japanese economy through a bubble. why not ask lawson about those days? China is beginning to have bubbles.

in a zero sum game you can only become 'rich' by making someone else 'poor'. every surplus must have a deficit.

no doubt the leftys see the chinese currency manipulation as a redistributive tax upon 'the rich' and so a 'good thing'. they have this rural ideal of everyone living in mud huts with a few chickens and everyone calling everyone else comrade. They would say the only people who oppose this ideal are counter revolutionary oligarchs greedy to protect their profits of exploitation. But then when the cuts come to redistribute wealth to china they go on trot fit strikes. Does anyone in the uk have the moral right to live better than the poorest pig farmer in china? They don't have sick pay. They don't have holidays, sky tv . What right do we have to those things if it means keeping others in poverty?

this why the chinese won't give up.they will never give up. they will keep on with the 'redistribution' until the pips squeak and the western public embrace socialism. what better weapon is there against the west than money? china is proving that capitalism must fall. And through the greed of some and the ignorance of others it is happening. QE is not a sign things are getting better. Qe deals with a symptom of the 'communist redistribution tax'.

The commentariat [or yapparrazzi] seem mystified why things are not correcting even though it would seem obvious. china is at war with us but not in a way the west has woken up to yet. Money is power. If you have no money you have no power so it then becomes academic what you think if you can't implement it, make facts on the ground. China is becoming dominant not through deployment of troops but deployment of money.

Chinese psychology/philosophy is completely different from ours. They will be a boa constrictor that slowly wraps around until there is no escape and then the crushing begins. Like the Supermarket that the council allows to build a superstore thinking its a good thing then wonder after a few years why the high st is dead. How many towns has that happened to?

""All are driven by the strains placed on Western society by the economic rise of the emerging economies combined with their currency manipulation."" What a nice untroubling way of saying that western economies have allowed their population to spectacularly live beyond their means. Also that the indigenous productive resources have been allowed to whither and atrophy. That governments (even left of centre) have all but abdicated from active management of the economy allowing a corrupt oligarchy of money men to drive events and dictate policy. The emergents have simply exposed the inherent and historical fundamental weaknesses of post free market capitalism. The tea party will prove to be more Pinteresque than Bostonian!

Listening to the Fed announcement this evening I was reminded of that incredibly naff scene in the film 'Independence Day' when a bunch of British fighter pilots hear, via radio, of the American plan to save the planet.

In best Hollywood English accent a pilot utters:

"It's about bl**dy time. What do they plan to do?".

Alas, I doubt very much whether QE2 will save the US let alone the planet.

Personally, I have decided to follow the advice of Blackadder - stick my underpants on my head, stuff two pencils up my nostrils and say;

"Wibble!".

The Fed's 600 billion will not create one job. It will not save a single house from foreclosure and it will not stop thousands of businesses going bust in the US.

Roosevelt put the money into building roads, railways, dams, state buildings, houses - real things that created real jobs overnight.

Obama has just bought a bunch of paper.

The only people cheering tonight will be the bankers - no doubt they will be able to wrangle QE2 as being more profits on their books and hence use a large slab of it to give themselves bonuses.

We are watching the United States lead us into the Second Great Depression.

This will all end in tears.

Wibble.

SEND FOR JAMES - HE THAT IS KNOWN AS GORDON (#10)


"Alas, I doubt very much whether QE2 will save the US let alone the planet."

Surely James G Brown is advising? Isn't world-saving like riding a bike.
Oh - he did learn I hope - he couldn't drive . . . But he must know how to do it again - surely?

And don't call me Alas.

Oh grief - the Beeb is fixated on 'shellacking'. Didn't Barry have a Cockney Barry-boy on his mother's side?

General weeping.

@8 Jaunty "no doubt the leftys see the chinese currency manipulation as a redistributive tax upon 'the rich' and so a 'good thing'. they have this rural ideal of everyone living in mud huts with a few chickens and everyone calling everyone else comrade. They would say the only people who oppose this ideal are counter revolutionary oligarchs greedy to protect their profits of exploitation..

Do you have any evidence for this, or are you arguing with an caricature opponent of your own creation, like Sagredo v Simplicio? This used to be called "putting up Aunt Sallys to knock them down", and you are rather prone to it.

So far as I can see it, China is a risng world superpower, using every method it can to ensure its own future dominance. This has nothing to do with left-right ideology. At the moment, they are just better at it than anyone else. The US is so hamstrung by its own ideologies, fears and dreams that it is incapable of acting pragmatically. Europe is a little better, but not too much, and Britain is in the middle as US owned media try to influence our domestic agenda.

"Does anyone in the uk have the moral right to live better than the poorest pig farmer in china? They don't have sick pay. They don't have holidays, sky tv . What right do we have to those things if it means keeping others in poverty?"

I agree with you here, but most people prefer to be ignorant of the harsh reality that we don't produce enough to satisfy our own needs. For decades our conservatives (and New Labour) have been happy to run our own industry down, with the expectation that the City will make up the shortfall. It always was a dangerous and shortsighted strategy. However, when the present government attacks the jobs and services of ordinary people, you can't blame some of them for protesting, even striking. For it is manifestly clear that we are NOT "all in this together".

How much wealth do we need to allow everyone to have enough food, decent housing, reasonable health care etc. for everyone on the planet given ~9bn population ?

Those of us who already have sufficient should be helping those who don't to create the necessary wealth.

I'm not sure that the Chinese want to dominate the world, I think they want the benefits of modern life and I don't see why they shouldn't have it.

China is moving up the value chain quickly and we should be looking to jumpstart the poorer countries into producing the kind of labour intensive stuff that China started with, not to create competitors to China but to fast start the beginnings of their modern industry.

It's 40 years since tricky dicky and sailor ted visited China, in that time they have moved from almost feudal to nearly first world and they couldn't have done it without the West.


If we all cooperate then it could be done in 25 years.

@13 Bob - I'm very sympathetic to your sentiments, but I see a number of practical objections.

1) Britain can't manage itself in the interests of its own citizens. I have no doubt that our new government is "for the rich by the rich". How can there be global justice when most countries can't manage it individually?

2) The population issue is a thorny one in a world of finite resources. If there is to be a GLOBAL strategy against poverty, there must also be a global population strategy. China seems to be controlling its population. Other countries don't seem to care. One suspects that certain religous groups have a deliberate policy of outbreeding their competitors. Also, one US child is a much greater drain on the worlds resources than an Indian child. US citizens in the long run must consume less per head. You can be sure that the religious and economic flat-earthers over there won't accept that peacefully.

3) Britain is financially wealthy, but much poorer in natural resources and manufacturing. One day, those who feed and clothe us may decide that we provide nothing of value in return. What will we do then? The Suez crisis showed that we won't be able to send in gunboats to enforce our "rights".

4) China is buying up natural resources in Asia and Africa, sometimes by supporting very unpleasant regimes. Like the British before them they have a commercial empire - and the miltary to back it up if necessary. I don't blame them, but nor do I think they are necessarily a benign force.

Despite all these objections, the problems are real, so what can we do? Britain must try to set its own house in order. This means rebalancing its economy away from financial services. It means green policies and progressive taxation. It means intelligent consumption not more consumption. It also means that we have a population policy for the UK. It means a HUGE effort to persuade Britons that this is necessary and just. In my view, that requires a campaign to rid Britain and Europe of Rupert Murdoch and his minions.

"13. At 3:43pm on 04 Nov 2010, BobRocket wrote:
How much wealth do we need to allow everyone to have enough food, decent housing, reasonable health care etc. for everyone on the planet given ~9bn population ?

Those of us who already have sufficient should be helping those who don't to create the necessary wealth."

Look more locally.

You're writing sense - alas, you make one major false assumption, namely that people are uniformly rational and adjusted. Once you appreciate that this is not so, and that there's a Gaussian continuum, with problems at either extreme, you open the important can of worms which has to be opened. Those who crave fame and fortune are in fact those with arrested development (an infantile disorder Lenin correctly called it). These are our anarchists. These are our narcissists. Sadly they are incorrigible. They are very like psychopaths (same cluster, slightly different profile Factor Analytically - see Hare). Libertarian economies promote/exploit them. 3m are in the 48K+ tax bracket, that's 10% of the work force, but only 5% of the entire population. Strip out the celebs and other fronts, and what are you left with? Then download the ONS 2010 Blue Book. look at the assets held by the Financial and Non Financial sector, and compare with Government (public sector). Note how the assets have grown too.

#15 tabblenabble02 wrote:

'...alas, you make one major false assumption, namely that people are uniformly rational and adjusted.'

I never assumed that people were rational at all.

I was simply suggesting a sensible future outcome we could achieve if we all worked together.

How much wealth and power do these narcissistic nutters want anyway, the productive power of 9bn people is limitless, more than enough to satisfy the demand of the most jaded dictators wife.

"16. At 04:09am on 05 Nov 2010, BobRocket wrote:
#15 tabblenabble02 wrote:

'...alas, you make one major false assumption, namely that people are uniformly rational and adjusted.'

I never assumed that people were rational at all.

I was simply suggesting a sensible future outcome we could achieve if we all worked together."

A counterfactual - pigs would fly if they had wings.

What you have written pretty much articulates The Rationality Assumption which is core to Rational Choice Theory and liberal neo-political economics.

Some of the points which I post here require readers to radically question their normative assumptions. The rationale behind statism is that people's behaviour has to be actively managed (as does that of children) because they don't make choices which are in their long term best interests, and that's what those campaigning for 'democratic' freedom and dignity most fear as the alternative is bad for their pockets (when the population is getting dumber and dumber, it's easier to take candy from them, see predatory-lending).

Every attempt to clearly set out what you propose has been very aggressively attacked in the USA and its liberal-democratic satellites (some of the academics publishing the results I frequently refer to have been physically threatened). You should see anti-racism and pro-feminisim etc as essentially right-wing libertarian movements, not left-wing, and if you don't immediately see why I say this, think about it.....as its been quite subtly done.

#17 tabblenabble02 wrote:

'A counterfactual - pigs would fly if they had wings.'

Why would they, penguins have wings and they don't fly.


'and if you don't immediately see why I say this'

I see why you say this but I a different view.

18. At 4:57pm on 05 Nov 2010, BobRocket wrote:
#17 tabblenabble02 wrote:

'A counterfactual - pigs would fly if they had wings.'

Why would they, penguins have wings and they don't fly.

'and if you don't immediately see why I say this'

I see why you say this but I a different view."

I don't doubt , but I do doubt that you understand what a counterfactual is, and what's wrong with the intensional conditional and other idioms of propositional attitude.

Because it's a point of logic not fact. It's like saying that if Paris was in Germany it would the capital of Germany