Right now there are occupations against the financial corruption of politics all over the western world. This year saw uprisings and the overthrow of many brutal regimes in the Middle East with more to follow.
2011 was one hell of a year wasn't it? What went on there? How did powerful regimes that held their people in daily terror and religious control suddenly get flipped so quickly? How did NATO engage in a war in North Africa? Why are nations in the Middle East seeming so powerless to control their own populations and those populations of their neighbours? How did 16 cities in the US witness simultaneous yet chaotic protests? How Did the Tea party seize control of the Republican Party so efficiently? What happened with the banks? Why is there no money any more? Why is the news do damned depressing all the time?
2011 - The Year our leaders took their eye off the ball and let it slip that people were effectively worthless to them.
Why do I say this? Isn't this just me spouting Anarchist cant to make myself seem more important? If only....
The western protesters chant “We are the 99%”, implying that the remaining 1% hold all the power, and are content to watch their fellow humanity fall destitute. But that is an over simplification.
When the Egyptian secret police beat Khalid Said to death in Alexandria in June 2010 they could not have known that they had just tipped the balance in Egypt against the regime that employed them. Khalid Said wasn't by any stretch the first death at the hands of the security forces nor would he be the last. But his corpse's image inspired Wael Ghonim to set up the Facebook Group "We are all Khalid Said" - His first post on the group set out their manifesto perfectly:
"Today they killed Khalid. If I don't act for his sake, tomorrow they will kill me."
This movement had a precedent and that precedent was two years earlier in Iran. In 2009 the election result reinstating Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president under Supreme Leader the Islamic cleric Ayatollah Ali Khameini was disputed and some student protested on the streets. It was the usual suspects of radical idealists, modernisers and moderates and should have petered out but for the fact that the very next night Pro-Ahmadinejad paramilitaries raided the University of Tehran and injured many. Result? Millions of protesters and a real anti-government movement.
"Today they killed Khalid. If I don't act for his sake, tomorrow they will kill me."
This movement had a precedent and that precedent was two years earlier in Iran. In 2009 the election result reinstating Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president under Supreme Leader the Islamic cleric Ayatollah Ali Khameini was disputed and some student protested on the streets. It was the usual suspects of radical idealists, modernisers and moderates and should have petered out but for the fact that the very next night Pro-Ahmadinejad paramilitaries raided the University of Tehran and injured many. Result? Millions of protesters and a real anti-government movement.
Whatever my personal bias in this story, the Government of Iran handled this horribly badly, as most Middle Eastern governments tend to because of their authoritarian culture. Exactly one week after the initial raid on Tehran University, a young woman was shot by the same paramilitaries and she bled to death in front of a camera-phone. Nothing could have been worse for the Authorities, the protest movement went from a political opposition to a revolutionary movement complete with its own martyr, which by the way, matters much more in the Islamic world than it does in the West.
The revolution rumbled on for months and the crackdown became more and more brutal with over 4000 detentions and even high ranking clerics, normally untouchable, being arrested to silence their objections. The green revolution in Iran is far from over and I expect that it will reignite this year.
Just after Syria comes to a resolution is my guesstimate. It doesn't suit the US, Russia, China or any of the traditional superpowers to have two big powers in the Middle East destabilised at the same time. It is telling that the normally aloof Saudi Government went on a desperate spending spree to stave off unrest in their Kingdom as the Arab Spring came to Bahrain which is linked to the mainland by a handy bridge. If the House of Saudi lost its grip on power even slightly there was no predicting what would happen to the main source of fossil fuel to the rest of the world.
Irrespective of political leaning, idealogical aspiration or religious sectarianism - nobody wants chaos in the Middle East right now; not even Israel or the Palestinian Authority. What's occurring is a crystallisation of the differences between the ruling class and the younger generations and the middle classes that demand more say over how they are ruled. This wave of sentiment will continue to wash over every country where the citizens get a sniff of how worthless they now are to their rulers - this includes Western nations and the Russian Federation.
Just after Syria comes to a resolution is my guesstimate. It doesn't suit the US, Russia, China or any of the traditional superpowers to have two big powers in the Middle East destabilised at the same time. It is telling that the normally aloof Saudi Government went on a desperate spending spree to stave off unrest in their Kingdom as the Arab Spring came to Bahrain which is linked to the mainland by a handy bridge. If the House of Saudi lost its grip on power even slightly there was no predicting what would happen to the main source of fossil fuel to the rest of the world.
Irrespective of political leaning, idealogical aspiration or religious sectarianism - nobody wants chaos in the Middle East right now; not even Israel or the Palestinian Authority. What's occurring is a crystallisation of the differences between the ruling class and the younger generations and the middle classes that demand more say over how they are ruled. This wave of sentiment will continue to wash over every country where the citizens get a sniff of how worthless they now are to their rulers - this includes Western nations and the Russian Federation.
I mentioned a tipping point earlier in this letter. I said that our current system was designed around human slavery and it cannot adapt to even dirt poor humans no longer being helpless (asymmetric warfare) and the fact that technology does the work of humans better, cheaper and more reliably. That means that we educated, pampered and indulged westerners are largely ineffective in the economic struggle to compete against less developed societies where aspiration is still an immense driving force. Aspiration hasn't been seen In Europe and the US since 2002. Even in less developed nations, cheap labour is getting pricier because western markets are beginning to refuse products made using intimidation, cruelty or any other dehumanising method.
The labour of human beings is no longer worth the price of their chains.
We should be at the dawn of a marvellous new age where mankind is finally able to enjoy en-masse the kind of leisure that we in the West largely enjoy but we're not because we haven't done the homework for that transition to occur. Instead we backed the nag that is financial services and financial services has collapsed like a house of cards under the strain. The philosophy, industry and religion of Free Market Economics is at turns devouring itself or paralysed with fear so ultimately it is shrinking. All the while, those unemployed people in the developed world are still expected to locate employment in a diminishing economy or starve. The current discomfort experienced in the West is the result of a deflation in their combined economies of less than 4% - Imagine if a 10%+ deflation occurs, or more? Is that even possible? Can the economy of the entire west simply implode?
The 1% is just as powerless as the 99%.
The most telling statistic regarding the US economy is the Federal Debt since 2007. (The page I linked to has no liberal part in its DNA whatsoever and so I trust the numbers as they have not been massaged or skewed to make a case for social welfare or any expenditure that might be deemed liberal). The part that I wish to highlight is the 'Monetized Public Debt' as opposed to the Gross Federal Debt (Government spending) and the Debt Held by the Public (Public includes foreign governments). The box I want to show you is at the bottom of this page called "Gross Federal Debt Vs National Debt" That blue section there from 1940 onwards. What isn't it doing?
It isn't fluctuating. It's not rising, nor is it falling to any significant degree. Like an anchor or ballast it appears to be there simply to counterbalance other debt but in real terms its influence is shrinking year on year.
Between the years of end 2007 to now the public debt has more than doubled. The Federal Debt has risen nearly 70% but the Federal Reserve has not attempted to renationalise any of this new deficit to limit its impact upon the US economy. I am sure there is a very intelligent and wise cause for this course of action; it's just....foreign governments outside of the European Continent owe the US very little and cannot be relied upon to be allies when push comes to shove. Add to that, a rival having such a control over the US government, say a nameless repressive monarchy that wants to control the oil market, a brutal theocracy that is friendly with an equally large financial power and looking to deplete uranium beyond the point of use for energy or a one party totalitarian state that is buying up as many resources as it can and you can see the problem. The Federal Reserve is in no position to help the US out of a calling down of that debt because its ballast is realistically negligible. I can logically consider this standard percentage as the cost of running a skeleton government in the time of National Crisis. I would like to hear the evidence to the contrary, I really would, because this looks very much like the endgame I wrote about in the four part open letter. to the 100%.
In fact, the only remaining market with some of the financial clout, the ethical integrity and sufficient positive disposition towards the US to take some of the strain remains the European Continent. What a pity then that the Eurozone is currently under idealogical and speculative bombardment from the twin big guns of Wall Street and the City of London.
This is how to lose friends and alienate people at the worst possible moment.
Money has been found out as nothing more than a measuring system for confidence. In short, money is a confidence trick, a scam.
Harsh words but true.
Given that any economy can be subject to stresses through the International Bond Market and given that the only remaining depository for wealth is banking, (Luxury goods and Property having overheated and popped in 2008) then everything you and I work for can be cancelled out by an oversight by a trader or an aggressive policy by rival nations and there's nothing we can do about that.
Given that any economy can be subject to stresses through the International Bond Market and given that the only remaining depository for wealth is banking, (Luxury goods and Property having overheated and popped in 2008) then everything you and I work for can be cancelled out by an oversight by a trader or an aggressive policy by rival nations and there's nothing we can do about that.
Any wealth we give to the financial complex ceases to be our property at that moment. If I take wealth, say my house and I sell it. I am paid by cheque by the buyer and I must pay that cheque into a bank to redeem it. Now If I want access that wealth I can only be paid in bank notes. My house is gone and I have the right to access a certain amount of paper notes. Goody! Loads of people want these paper notes, don't they?
What if the currency collapses? Well then I realise that a house is better than a case full of paper. But, until this inevitable collapse occurs (see the explosion of Debt Held by the Public above) I will play along with the make believe that money actually has a real world worth.
It doesn't Money is a species of debt. the bank's entire function is to manage not wealth but debt. Being a depository of wealth is of very little value to banks but charging interest on loans is very profitable indeed. Or was very profitable until large numbers of people discovered they couldn't pay the interest demanded. Banks had no option but to foreclose and were left with a large portfolio of unsellable houses that deteriorate because of remaining empty over a long period of time.
What if the currency collapses? Well then I realise that a house is better than a case full of paper. But, until this inevitable collapse occurs (see the explosion of Debt Held by the Public above) I will play along with the make believe that money actually has a real world worth.
It doesn't Money is a species of debt. the bank's entire function is to manage not wealth but debt. Being a depository of wealth is of very little value to banks but charging interest on loans is very profitable indeed. Or was very profitable until large numbers of people discovered they couldn't pay the interest demanded. Banks had no option but to foreclose and were left with a large portfolio of unsellable houses that deteriorate because of remaining empty over a long period of time.
Clearly, allowing this situation continue that can lead only to a collapse is leading us nowhere. Even those people that profit from the misery of others now recognise that this is a diminishing honey pot and they will ultimately end up looking for another income stream. There is only so much vulture capitalism an economy can tolerate until the actual good stock, the part of the market that can potentially grow and thrive, gets raided and cut back. How can business employ more people in a diminishing marketplace when they have to show a profit for their activity in order to be permitted to continue that activity, no matter how beneficial that activity is to the wider society?
Economy is not Society.
Society is what people build when they congregate together to live and thrive. Economy is the measurement of a society's readiness to be harvested of wealth by outside organisations such as banks, insurance corporations and the marketers of financial products.
This is why I assert that money and the luxuries money can buy do NOT represent wealth. Yachts don't actually create jobs and bring people together so they might thrive.
This is why I assert that money and the luxuries money can buy do NOT represent wealth. Yachts don't actually create jobs and bring people together so they might thrive.
I asserted that the Era of Debt is over. This isn't a hope or a dream but a very real phenomenon. Those that have debt in their lives are doing everything they can to eradicate it. Historically, the anti-capitalists have been on the fringes of society and have been largely a fairly unrealistic bunch, banging drums and rolling their hair into dreadlocks but this fringe has now been bolstered by a more mainstream population and they all get the whole "Debt = Debt" message.
The more you buy with banking products (credit cards, store cards, banknotes etc.) the less security you have in the deal. More and more people are seeking out an alternative to credit purchases with hidden charges.
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