Take a deep breath….

This summer I was away from MSM for several weeks – and, lo, upon returning to world news, nothing had changed. A bit depressing really. There had been the opportunity to speak to people on different continents and several themes came through that I think might be of interest to readers of this blog. This is by no means scientific, but just personal impressions:
- a strong sense of unease, that the situation cannot continue indefinitely
- for many of the current 30 – 50 year olds, they will not be “better off” than their parents due to there being fewer opportunities – a sense of the general squeeze
- worry that the younger generation (all who are now coming out of university and younger) are being conned with huge unrepayable loans. Where America leads, the rest follow. Oh, and please don’t get me on the subject of Internships – that hypocritical, devious and despicable form of exploitation. Medieval apprentices received more in return for their time and work. The only to people to receive any benefit are the rich and connceted….

This brings me back to the funny money topic. Most of us in the real world of paying bills for goods and services, working in the goods and services sectors understand money as being a) a means of exchange, b) a store of wealth and c) a means of keeping score. Recently more people are beginning to understand that our credit economy creates money out of thin air. This still leaves the disconnect with the derivatives financial element. I found global GDP as $70 trillion and searching global derivatives tha number $1200 trillion. The exact numbers don’t matter, but the relative size. I still think the “real” economy, what we all need in terms of food, trade etc can be run without the derivatives, but the fear of realising these losses (who will take the cut, guys? Guess what? You and me!) are at the root of the desperate measures to keep things going. I wonder whether our current accounting system is fine for “real” world, but has systemic failures in built when dealing with the present merry-go-round.

I also suspect, but have no proof, that cheap energy has previously been ignored and its demise is now starting to work through and the world economy is not set up to deal with this. Basically we eat oil.

To pour some oil on to the flames of worker issue ;-), here are a couple of links I idly kept from a while ago:

http://www.neweconomics.org/sites/neweconomics.org/files/A_Bit_Rich.pdf

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/07/one-per-cent-wealth-destroyers?newsfeed=true

This has turned out a bit long, and thanks to Nick for persevering. We are reading. I do think that fatigue is setting in, trying to understand what is going on and then finding none, or very few answers. Please do not be discouraged if I don’t often post – sometimes there is nothing sensible to add, or the blog is read at a later date and it’s a bit late to comment. Thanks again for taking the time.

printy printy printy inflation inflation inflation !