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?

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.

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'.

PEAK OIL - A big story the media refuse to report on.

Unfortunately fuel prices will continue to rise and rise and rise.

Within the next few years (10 at most) the price will be out of reach for all but the wealthiest and elite classes around the globe.

We have already passed a significant milestone in the post 'gold standard' petro-economy. That point is known by economists as 'Peak Oil'.

Essentially when that point was reached, the world entered an era where the demand for and production of oil exceeded the volumes of newly discovered reserves.

Over time this problem will be compounded due to emerging market countries insatiable demand for energy.

It took 200 million years for the sun to convert carbon to plant and animal waste and subsequently to oil. It has taken just over 100 years for cars etc to reach the 'Peak Oil' point with a relatively gentle upward demand slope and a steep new reserves curve.

Looking at the numbers now, 10 years is actually optimistic regarding the affordability of the remaining reserves.

As we are probably as greedy as our parents and grandparents, I don't hold out much hope for an alternative scenario to emerge.

Google 'Peak Oil' for more information.

Comments welcomed and encouraged.





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