I’ve written and said, the existence of Buddhist monks indicates we can power down with the tranquility of Buddhist monks. And I keep referring to this line, mostly because I’ve had damned few memorable lines that make any sense. My money, though, is on more human, less humane, behavior. Thus, my choice to stake my picket-pin in defense of the landbase and the community near the mud hut.
Now that the Fed has cut interest rates as low as it dares and the economy is still in the tank, the Fed is going public with the strategy it’s been using for the last year: printing money. ‘Cause that worked so well for the Weimar Republic. The strategy led to Germany’s fall and Hitler’s rise. In the present case, it’ll probably delay a world economic collapse for a few weeks or months. But the long-term effects will be horrific. Not that any civilized government has ever cared about long-term effects.
Recent events in Mumbai serve as a reminder, lest there was any doubt at this point, how fragile the world economy has become. The virtual center of globalization, Mumbai serves as call-center central for many of the world’s large companies. If stock traders are paying attention, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the major stock indices shed a quarter of their so-called “value” this week.
It seems I’ve touched a nerve. Maybe a couple of them.
As I indicated in my previous post, we’ve reached the end of economic growth. I pointed to the Financial Times article that leaked the results of the International Energy Agency’s long-awaited study of the depletion rates of the world’s 400 largest oil fields. The bottom line: “Without extra investment to raise production, the natural annual rate of output decline is 9.1 per cent.”