ZOMBIE END GAME - The financial undead continue to drag us down.

The disjointed musings of the financial media support groups and the politicians desperation to patch up the emperor's new clothes again, serve notice that the final act has begun.

The banks have sucked the blood from their governments through a series of bailouts.
The governments have sucked away the lives of their peoples through ongoing and expanding programs of austerity.
They have stolen from multiple generations of the unborn through bond issuance and leveraging so called "stability funds".
Financial institutions are stealing from their depositors as they begin to panic at the glimmer of the bottom of the shiny trough.

The managed retreat has begun.
Treaties are hastily being re-written. Doubtless constitutions, bills of rights and human rights legislations will go a similar way.

All areas of the economy have been fatally wounded. And even the most optimistic commentators are now describing the future misery in terms of decades.

It's a zombie paradise.

WHO ARE THE ANTI CAPITALISTS ? - And who are the bad guys ?

Regardless of your opinions about the rights or wrongs of the capitalist system, it is the capitalists themselves that are behaving in an anti capitalist manner. Far more so than the so called anti capitalist protesters.

It's ANTI CAPITALIST to rig markets and pretend that we are living in a free market system.

It's ANTI CAPITALIST to save banks that are to big to fail.

It's ANTI CAPITALIST to allow banks to become too big to fail.

It's ANTI CAPITALIST to allow banks to create money out of thin air under the cover of the fractional reserve banking system.

It's ANTI CAPITALIST to have a shadow banking system that is unregulated and causes other parts of the financial system to behave chaotically.

It's ANTI CAPITALIST to have targeted import tariffs and limits.

It's ANTI CAPITALIST to set artificially lower interest rates.

It's ANTI CAPITALIST to deliberately allow inflation to take off in order to reduce the impact of commercial and sovereign debts.

It's ANTI CAPITALIST to effectively buy your own bonds through a convoluted system of central banks, shadow banks, monetary funds and rescue/stability funds.

Capitalism in its purest form could just work. The trading of goods and services equitably for other goods and services serve many barter only communities well.

Its time to think about just who the anti capitalists are.

99ers UPDATE - Maybe they'll all get on a bus to occupy Wall Street and join in the fun

About a year ago I posted a blog about the 99ers in the USA. In a nutshell, in the USA, unemployment benefits only pay out for 26 weeks. Then you're on your own with no state support.

Because of the 2008 financial crisis and the huge increase in unemployment numbers, the American government passed an emergency law to increase these benefit payments by a further 73 weeks in order to limit the number of visible destitutes that would end up on the streets of U.S. cities.

That emergency legislation was only allowed to be passed on the basis of a concession to the political right. And that concession was that the new arrangement would be time limited. That time limit is about to expire.

To make matters worse, there is an election coming up soon so it is unlikely that this extension will be kept via a new version of that legislation.

Further details can be seen in my previous blog entry - http://subsister.blogspot.com/2010/12/99ers-set-to-take-off.html

Now then.

If that extension is not forthcoming by the end of this year (about 10 weeks time), the number of 99ers is set to increase on a rapid scale.

By February 2012, the number of new 99ers with no state support will increase by a staggering 2,153,700 people.



What will these 2 million new disenfranchised people decide to do about it?

DEBT, DEBT AND MORE DEBT - Your enslavement by numbers.

Here is a list of the top 20 countries in order of their debt to GDP ratios. I have also added a couple of columns showing the average wage in each country and the payback time required if we all worked full time and paid all of our earnings in tax.

Click table to enlarge

Nearly all mainstream political and economic commentators have been making a big fuss about Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain (collectively known as the PIIGS).

Why this focus on these countries in particular. Is it a form of Northern European economic fascism?

Sure, Ireland is in big trouble. However there are some big players up there too. Why are they so quiet about UK, Switzerland, Holland, Sweden and even Germany to name a few.

Going back to the repayment terms, lets take the UK as an example.

George Osbournes austerity measures have caused an increase in tax take and a decrease in jobs and wages equivalent to about 6% (which is a lot for people to deal with). Therefore instead of the 3.34 years payback time the actual payback time is more like 55.7 years.

That 55 year target is coincidentaly the same period of time that people will have to work according the a recent independent actuarial audit on UK pensions. Mmmm! retirement at 73 years old.

The reason why the focus is not on the major Northern European countries is because the credit ratings agencies like Moody's, Fitch, Standard and Poors are in bed with their neo-con paymasters. Its just an illusion.

The war has started and it's almost over before we've even noticed.
Time to reset the clock.  Abandon all forms of capitalism now.

CROSSING THE RUBICON - A Paradigm Shift and The Engineer in Me.

Here are a few reasons as to why the world might be entering a permanent new economic reality that will not be pretty.

1. Up until sometime around the year 1800, all species (particularly ours) had little margin for error. Like all other animals we lived up to the limit of the food supply. The populations ebbed and flowed following simple differential equations bounded by the limits of supply of food and numbers of humans.

2. From around the year 1800, fossil fuel exploitation enabled us to rig the market through advances in mechanisation, production and fertilisation. This positive trend could only ever be a temporary one. It was inevitable that the population would increase to exploit this step change in maximum demand possibilities. All that has happened is that the ebbing and flowing wave has a higher amplitude and a shorter wavelength. In other words, things just happen harder and faster. Markets are exaggerated and rich/poor disparities are exacerbated to insane and ugly degrees.

3. Since around the year 1800, the population has increased from 0.8 billion to nearly 8.0 billion.

4. The high demands of 2 centuries of wealthy countries exploitative folly and the recent extraordinary demands of large, fast developing countries have applied a number of ramping functions and a number of extreme pulses to the system. Anybody who knows anything about control systems design or mathematical modelling fears such pulses.

5. Since 1960 the annualised growth in crop yields has fallen from 3.5% per year to 1.2% per year despite the use of oil based fertilisers having been increased significantly. All of this intense farming is clearly destroying the land's potential to re-mineralise itself through natural irrigation and precipitation processes.

6. Politicians and money-markets will never face up to any of the above truths.

7. From now on, price pressures and resource shortages will be a permanent feature of our lives.


All of the above contributed to the financial crisis of 2008 and the subsequent spikes in commodity prices like oil, energy, metals and foods.

Add the following list of potential tipping points to this and we could be looking at the perfect storm.


1. Events in Syria could be the most likely scenario to inflame a full scale war against Israel, in turn, dragging the whole of the middle east into turmoil.

2. It is highly likely that Israel or the USA will wage a war against Iran if Iran escalates its nuclear program.

3. Libya. Does it need an explaination?

4. As the weather warms in other middle eastern countries, more tensions, protests and revolutions are bound to occur. The tipping points have been attributed to democratic awakenings by western media groups. It is more likely to have manifested itself due to spikes in food prices. Spending on food in second and third world counties forms a much more significant share of a family's budget.

5. The tragic events in Japan and subsequent annihilation of the Fukushima nuclear industry has changed world energy policy forever. The abandoning of existing and future fission projects will add massively to the demand for hydrocarbon based fuels for energy conversion needs. The impact on one of the worlds largest economies is sending out financial shock waves across the globe. Economists will un-forget about peak-oil once more.

6. Energy expenditure in the USA has just exceeded 9% of GDP for the second time. The first time was in the summer of 2008, just before the 'global financial crisis'.

7. Austerity programs (you ain't seen nothin' yet) around the globe both nationally and locally are beginning to impact on the jobs economy. This will accelerate as the story unfolds.

8. The much talked about sovereign debt crisis is about to materialise in spectacular fashion. Who will be the first 'fall guy'? Almost certainly Greece, but much bigger names will be in the frame soon after. A tower of cards teetering. The fallout will be truly shocking.

9. The demise of the U.S dollar seems unlikely to most people but watch this space. China bought massive amounts of US treasuries over the last decade. It is now trying to dump these investments on unsuspecting world bond markets at a faster rate than it accumulated them and that was pretty damn quick.


The next few years (or months even) will be very interesting to say the least.

See you all on the other side.

ROLLING BACK THE LANGUAGE OF ECONOMICS - Part 2 : STIMULUS

Various Western governments have introduced stimulus plans. These measures have also been called 'quantitative easing' (QE) among other things but basically they amount to printing money.

The mirage created with QE is that the central banks created electronic money out of thin air and used that to buy their own government's bonds. These bonds are basically IOUs and in time the governments will have to repay those debts to the central banks with interest. When the payments are recovered the central banks will then electronically destroy the imaginary money.

This process of printing money causes a devaluation of the 'fiat currency' due to the laws of supply and demand. If you make more of it, each piece of it is worth less.

As the majority of all money 'exists' only in a digital form, it can also be argued that what is actually being printed is digital debt.

The problem with introducing a stimulus is that you have to maintain that stimulus for a significant period as global markets take time to react to the change in the economic system. By maintaining that stimulus, the system can become dependent on it. This happens when a sick person is treated with stimulus drugs. They can soon become addicted to the stimulus and side effects appear. The side effects can be harmful. Even more harmful than the original disease.

These unorthodox processes are hitherto untried and untested, and it is only because it is mathematicians offering these 'solutions' to governments and banks that any credibility at all can be given to the process.

WARNING !!! These are the same breed of mathematicians that sold the financial services industry the ideas of complex derivatives including 'securitization of mortgages' and 'credit default swaps'. Watch out for Global Banking Crisis II, coming to a town near you soon.

FOOD MADNESS - Counting the calories

Chasing the calorie trail.

It takes 10 fossil fuel calories to produce 1 food calorie on a first world table.

An oil burning machine is used to plough a field.
That ploughing machine and all of the raw materials in that machine were manufactured using oil, gas and coal based energies.

An oil burning machine is used to plant seeds.



That seed drilling machine and all of the raw materials in that machine were manufactured using oil, gas and coal based energies.



The seeds are treated in a factory with germination products derived from oil.
The factory uses oil, coal and gas based energies to run.

The factory uses oil burning machines to bring raw materials to it and oil burning machines to deliver seeds to distribution centres.

These distribution centres consume oil, gas and coal based energies.


They use oil burning machines to transport their seed products to farms.

An oil burning machine is used to apply a high yielding fertiliser.



That fertiliser is derived from oil.


That fertiliser is produced in a factory that uses oil, gas and coal based energy sources.
That factory uses transportation methods and energy sources to distribute its product as the seed company.

The farms often rely on irrigated water systems.
Oil, gas and coal based energies are used to extract water from aquifers and pumped large distances using pumps that consume oil, gas and coal based energy sources.
Pesticides are used throughout the growing period.
These pesticides are derived from oil.
Like the seeds and the fertilisers, these pesticides are made in factories using oil, gas and coal based energies and are transported and distributed using oil burning machines.

The crops are harvested using a multitude of oil burning machines.

The crops are transported to distribution centres using oil burning machines.

The distribution centres use oil, gas and coal based energies.

The goods are packaged in plastics and cardboard.

The plastics are oil derived products.
Cardboard use huge amounts of oil, gas and coal based energies for their extraction, production, transportation and distribution needs.
These packaged products are transported to distribution centres using oil burning machines.
They are then redistributed to supermarkets using oil burning machines.
Millions of people collect their food from supermarkets each day using oil burning machines.














To reiterate then. For each calorie of food on a first world table, another 10 calories of fossil fuel derived energy has been used to put it there.

And finally to put this in perspective.

Each person requires around 2000 food based calories per day to maintain themselves. In power terms this equates to 2.326 KWh; about the same as an electric kettle running for 1 hour or 15 TV sets running for an hour. And given that it takes 10 calories of fossil fuel to produce and transport 1 calorie of food to your table, each person uses the equivalent of 23.26 KWh of fossil fuel energy per day. That is about twice the amount of fossil fuel energy that the average family uses each day for their domestic electricity requirements.

OIL IS THE KEY.

EVERYTHING DEPENDS ON IT AND IT'S RUNNING OUT FAST.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT - The commodity conundrum

Data just released by the World Bank shows that 44 million more people in developing countries have been pushed into extreme poverty in the 8 months since June 2010. They say that food commodity prices have hit 'dangerous' levels.

Reasons why global food prices are heading out of control.

Droughts, storms and fires - These have impacted on rising food prices. However, these events happen every year and are not responsible for the current spikes in commodity prices.

Emerging markets - Rapidly developing central Asian countries are seeing phenomenal economic growth activity. Corporations are exploiting their rising disposable incomes and these countries are now sucking in a diversification of 'en vogue' agricultural products. These are being sourced on the world commodity exchanges and driving prices higher.

Bio fuels - Developed countries, particularly those who have signed up for multinational climate change mitigation agreements, are chasing every megawatt from every possible area. Vast tracts of land have been turned over to produce bio crops. This leaves a significant reduction in the available acreage required to produce sugar and cereals in these cash crop producing regions. Lack of supply pushes prices higher.

Commodity speculation - Investment bankers have switched their strategies in light of the financial crisis and the post crisis equity fear expeienced in dealing rooms around the world. Commodities and complex commodity derivatives are now being transacted with the fury once reserved for stocks, shares, options and futures. With all of these new middle men taking their cut, offloading prices have soared.

Globalisation - This has facilitated a tsunami of commodity exchange possibilities. These new 'panaceas' will realise themselves as speculative bubbles followed by spectacular and chaotic collapses.

Currency wars - Because of the financial crisis and the subsequent debt hangover and austerity programs, Governments around the world are doing their damnedest to reduce the value of their fiat currencies in order to inflate away their structural sovereign debts. This only facilitates a race to the bottom. The result of low currency values is higher import prices.

Crude oil price - For a whole raft of reasons previously discussed, crude oil prices will only be heading in one direction and that is not down. Many pesticides, animal feeds and crop fertilisers are derived from oil based products. Most commodities also attract vast fuel miles and transportation costs.


The Tunisian, Egyptian and future middle eastern, central Asian and African stories all have rising food prices as a catalysing process. In the short term a welcome regime change may come. However it is unlikely that regime changes will curtail the longer term future of escalating food prices.

SECOND DARK AGE - Reasons to be fearful Part 3

They're closing in at a phenomenal pace now.

Dogma fueled and ideologically regressive, the class and connections based elite ruling class are back in town and it's only taken 6 months or so to get to where we are now.

It is beginning to look like the last 20 years never happened.

All of those little victories culminating in a more understanding if maybe dumbed-down society now being slashed and burned through an 'oxymoron process' of stealth based shock and awe.

Smoke and mirrors. It hasn't taken long to remove the heat from the bankers and financial centres hangers-on to be forgiven or should that be forgotten.

The new demon is the old demon. Blaming previous administrations for ALL of the WORLDS ills. Spinning a web of confusion as the beast lurches from its slumber towards its sociopathic destiny, our social predestination. And all of this occurring while we sleepwalk into our futures of serfdom and systematic bondage.

We have crossed the rubicon without any knowledge of its identity or existence.

What will the resistance look like this time around? Will it even come?

More fearful than 1984, we look backward and see our futures writ large with capital Cs.

Like an intern in a national stargazey pie, we stare expresionless at death and decay in equal measure, caught at the margins of a Venn diagram, squeezed by the perpetual machine, into the void, into the vast expanse that is the 2nd dark age.

99ers SET TO TAKE OFF !

In the United States, unemployment benefits are only paid for a maximum of 99 weeks or just less than 2 years.

After that period, that's it. You're on your own.

After the banking crisis of Autumn 2008, unemployment began to soar. Every week the number of unemployed rose. These job losses continued for 55 weeks at a weekly increase of between 50,000 and 200,000 per week.

The worst period was from November 2008 to October 2009. But even since October 2009, the number of new jobs created has never exceeded 50,000 per week.

The net effect of all of the above statistics is that from December 2010 there are likely to be around 50,000 people losing their benefits every week. This figure will get significantly worse up tom around April 2011 when around 200,000 people will lose their benefits every single week.

It remains to be seen what such large numbers of disenfranchised people will do about this over the coming months.

Keep 'em peeled!

GLOBALISATION - Chickens coming home to roost - ( FROM CLUCK TO FUCK! )

Globalisation has had many critics over the years.

Arguments against the concept include inequality, environmental impact, sweatshops, cultural normalisation, dumbing down through uniformity etc....

However for the majority first world perspective, it has facilitated a perceived rise in standard of living, choice, cheap food, goods and services. All this has become possible through communication advances in interconnectivity across the globe. The whole ponzi scheme is clearly based on convincing people to buy loads of tat that nobody really needs and only really want on the basis of its easy availability, brand marketing brainwashing techniques, availability of cheap credit etc.....

During the 'good times', this interconnectivity offers a dumbed down feeling of well being; an increased happiness quotient and an illusion of being able to buy freedom.

This model is so new that it has never been tested during the bad times.

What could happen if things went bad in the Global Village ? :

Firstly the connectedness of world financial markets means that if an economic boom or bubble emerged, the whole connected world would feed this bubble. This bubble would become bigger than any bubble experienced in the post industrial revolution period.

This bubble could for instance be cheap credit.

The banks may push the envelope by lending to riskier borrowers. They might even lend large sums to people who would have no means to repay.

The bubble might only stretch so far due to finite limits.

A nervousness might set in.

Banks might feel twitchy about the amounts on the wrong side of their balance sheets.

As if by magic the debt has moved from personal loans to private company debt.

They might stop lending to each other.

Credit availability may stall.

Some banks might fail.

Governments might have to rescue banks using hundreds of billions of taxpayers monies. Government might be forced to nationalise banks. In other words Governments would be nationalising debt and privatising profit.

As if by magic the debt has been moved again. From private companies to the public purse.

This might be called sovereign debt.

Interest rates may have to be slashed.

This could cause cash flow problems further down the food chain.

Businesses, large and small, could fail because their creditors refuse to supply goods and services on existing credit length terms.

Unemployment could rise.

Government spending could rise due to increases in benefits, lower taxation revenues, bank bail-outs.

Banks could restrict mortgage lending.

House prices could fall.

Economic growth might fall.

There could be a recession.

Entire countries could get nervous. They might feel that other countries may default on their debts.

They might buy the debt in form of government bonds at higher interest rates.

Their debt to earnings ratios might rise.

Their bond yield spreads might rise.

They might have to print more money.

Their currency may have to be devalued if it has its own fiat currency.

Other countries may drive down the value of their own currencies in order to maintain an export trade advantage.

A currency war could cause uncertainty in equity markets.

Financiers might switch to gold, looking for a perceived safe haven.

A secondary gold market may emerge. There could be high street gold buying shops. There may even be TV ad campaigns asking people to send their jewellery in the post in exchange for cash.

Gold prices could rise five fold or ten fold or ......

A secondary commodities bubble could emerge.

Agricultural commodities could get caught up in this speculative market. As could fossil fuel commodities.

Food and energy prices could be driven higher.

Governments may feel pressurised to accept rescue monies from other countries. There may be strings attached.

Those strings might be an austerity program.

That program may be painful to everyone living in that country.

They may have to take pay cuts.

They may have to cut millions of jobs in the economy.

There could be civil unrest, demonstrations, protests and even riots.

The government's revenues might fall again due to even lower tax revenues.

Economic growth may fall again.

Other countries may begin to falter.

The contagion could spread like a fire.

Firstly it could just be a few kindling republics and small countries.

Then maybe some larger countries may be affected due to their trading reliance with that failed country.

Recessions could turn into depressions.

And then..................................Protectionism.... Hyperinflation.........Nationalism.........War

Sound familiar ?

GLOBALISATION ! Forget the old arguments. THINGS HAVE MOVED ON !

CHANGING THE DEMON'S IDENTITY

During the last few months of Tory/Lib Dem rule, there has been a steady move to redirect the wider argument of local, national and global bankruptcy.

It started out, quite rightly, with the blame laying firmly and squarely on the Bankers and other hangers on in the financial services community.

Once the Tories seized power the public were gently swayed into beleiving that it was Gordan Brown/The Labour Party that was responsible.

Almost six months on, and a budget and spending review later, the government has introduced controversial and mind bending rule changes regarding areas such as, housing benefit, taxation, child benefit etc

These marginal changes have little fiscal value but have a nasty subtext that is seized upon by the right wing media and promulgated to the general mass of the chattering classes.

All I hear from people these days are arguments that are now based on class, employment, unionisation, location, ethnicity, morality etc.

These deliberately spiteful budgetry tax and spending anomolies have conspired to succesfully erase 'The Bankers' from the mind of the people.

People are now beginning to turn against each other on the basis of race, employability etc.

If you don't believe me, just listen to any radio phone-in or TV audience debate.

It's getting like the 80's again. And it's gonna get worse. A lot worse.

Don't let them mess with YOUR MIND.

UK DEBT – Myth, legend and reality.

Everyone is being conned regarding the scale of our economic problems.

All political parties and the media constantly talk about the debt and the debt reduction plan.

The austerity budget has been sitting in Whitehall for a considerable time and would always have been implemented regardless of who had won the recent general election. But even that plan will barely scratch the surface.

The media and the politicians talk about a deficit of £163 billion pounds. They also talk about a budget plan to cut the debt by half in four years. THAT IS A LIE !

£163 billion is just THIS YEARS debt.

Their plan will only reduce the year on year debt to £85 billion by 2014.

The total outstanding debt is already £908 billion ( http://www.debtbombshell.com/ ) rising to £1375 billion by 2014.

That’s equivalent to £53,000 per tax payer.Imagine how long it will take the average person to save that.

Or imagine receiving a tax bill for that amount.

Just the interest on our debt for this year will be £43 billion. That's £1,900 for each and every household in the UK.

Remember this debt was largely created by bad practices in the Private financial services sector. All that has happened is that PLC debts have been transferred to Public Debt which will be addressed through 'Austerity Programs'.