Green Shoots Of Recovery Genetically Modified
The total of the Plain People of England in gainful, non-Black Market employment is currently 29.11 million according to National Statistics Online (NSO), the people who keep giving us fictitious figures for our models.
2.26 million are on the Dole.
NSO have form, but we'll take them at their word here.
The most recent fake, by the way, was the hiding of the economic contraction in the 1st Quarter by pretending UK Plc shrank by 1.9% when, in Reality, it shrivelled by 2.4%.
Foucault: "'Truth' is linked in a circular relation with systems of power which produce and sustain it, and to effects of power which it induces and which extend it. A 'regime' of truth."
Anyway.
Our rather pithy point is simply this.
As more and more workers are 'persuaded' to take gardening leave and other Orwellian ruptures of the employment contract like wage freezes, wage cuts and loopholed varieties of unpaid leave, the Real impact of the Depression is being shrouded in NSO Blind Spots - areas of the economic hyperreality that are part of the spectacle, and consequently are not to be told.
Just some back of the envelope stuff.
If 50% of UK employees take an average of one month unpaid toil this year, then the Real impact, all things considered, is an 'extra' 1 million unemployed.
Obviously, for various reasons, this is highly approximated.
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If we so desired, we could provide you with such weightings for the territories in which we take a trading interest, but we're not going to, so there...
Following The Intellectual Black Hole Of Globalisation, Solar Systemisation Needs To Be Considered
Paul Krugman, last years' Nobel economist: "A big lesson from past bubbles is that recovery is export-led which is not helpful unless we can find another planet to export to."
Leaves Beginning To Brown On Green Shoots Of Recovery Nonsense
The Financial Times this morning gave us two headlines:
"Markets Head For Best Quarter In 20 Years"
and
"UK economy shrinks most in 50 years"
Indeed, the FTSE All World rose fully 21% in the last quarter.
During the worst Bear Market in history from 1930 to 1932, there were FIVE rallies of 20% or more.
Oh, and if you hyperreally wish to be taken in by the mainstream media calm, consider this from The Economist: "It must be admitted that, while economists think they have learned the lessons of the 1930s about how to avoid a Depression, stimulus packages on this scale have simply not been tried before. We don't know how they'll work, or what the side-effects will be."
The Tightrope - Financial Funambulism - A Reprise
On March 11th 2009, we gave you the following truly wonderful stuff...
"Stretched between the two great edifices of Friedmanism and its, as yet, unnamed offspring is The Tightrope.
Our Global Financial System (OGFS) is walking across The Tightrope at this very moment.
On the left of our intrepid anti-hero is the Abyss of Deflation.
On the right, the Hyperreality of Hyperinflation.
OGFS is desperate to avoid the Abyss of Deflation and is printing money to prevent any risk of Stagflation as the populace cannot be repeatedly fleeced within a stagflated environment.
Unfortunately, each spin of the printing press adds weight to the balancing rod held by OGFS, making the likelihood of the Hyperreality of Hyperinflation more Real.
Oh, and just to make the whole process more entertaining in a Gladiators-stylee, The Tightrope gradually narrows as OGFS approaches the goal AND the Monster from the Deep occasionally violently twists The Tightrope itself in an attempt to send OGFS into the Hyperreality of Hyperinflation.
Martin Wolf of the Financial Times: "Liberalisation contained the seeds of its own downfall.""
Still spot on.
On June 26th, John Authers, the Financial Times Investment Editor put it all in grown-up speak in his article entitled "John Authers On A Daredevil Balancing Act For The World Economy" (see: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f3ffc5fc-62b1-11de-b1c9-00144feabdc0.html).
He has even coined a name for the predicament - the Blondin Effect, after legendary French funambulist Charles Blondin.
Top one...
Grey Hairs Trample On Green Shoots Of Recovery Just As Leaves Begin Falling
The Economist: "According to the IMF's calculations, the present value of the fiscal cost of the ageing of the population is ten times that of the financial crisis."
A Depression.
A Demographic Time-Bomb.
A Destruction of the Ecology.
We will all be out there licking road clean wit' tongue...
'New' Insecticide, Moral Hazard, Helping To Sustain The Friedmanist Weed
As elastoplast continues to be applied to the 19 financial institutions deemed "too big to fail", 10 of the 19 have repaid their TARP bailout to allow a more eager participation in the marketplace.
The upper tier immediately publicised their 'achievement' as competitive play resurfaced eloquently.
Just a point about this charade...
American banks can choose between keeping the toxic assets on their balance sheets at a value of their choosing or selling them to the government written down to a fair price.
As The Economist revealed: "... it is not difficult to imagine which they'll pick."
Skewed Incentives Expose Idiocy Of Free Market Innovation
"By purchasing a material amount of a firms' debt in conjunction with a disproportionately large number of credit default swap contracts, rapacious lenders (usually hedge funds) can render bankruptcy more attractive than solvency" - The Economist.
To make the rich work harder, you pay them more.
To make the poor work harder, you pay them less.
Jean Baudrillard: "When there is no longer any internal reference system within which exchange can take place..., you get into an exponential phase, a phase of speculative disorder."
First Intemperate Ray Of 'Gold-Curled Phoebus' Seen Under Western Skies
$2.5-3.0 trillion of emerging market debt falls due during 2009.
As the main sport is monitoring the major nations lining up at the Competitive Devaluation Of Currency Stakes, in order to make their particular exports more attractive to the customers on Hyperion, we should remember that this is exactly what occurred in the 1930s.
Additionally, the World Bank believe that seventeen of the G20 countries have undertaken protectionist measures since Slack Jaw saved the World.
The IMF is taking a central role in this intellectually incoherent venture.
The creation of IMF bonds is attracting people away from the dollar - this quasi-currency is catchily termed Special Drawing Rights.
Now, 85% is needed to carry any IMF motion and the US has 16.7% of the voting rights.
Effectively, a veto on salvation...
That the IMF has been rebranded to save the bottom of the pyramid is truly a contrarian neohyperreality.
Chomsky's model is worth repeating here...
The IMF reaches a 'deal' with a Third World dictator; if the debt defaults, the lenders make plenty of money because it was a risky loan at high interest rate etc; the loanees are protected in their profit; the population of the indebted country are targeted for harsh structural adjustments to pay back the debt.
The IMF is, at heart, the credit community's enforcer, driven with a US veto.
Incidentally, the 'medicine' prescribed to the Emerging Nations is exactly the opposite of that apportioned to the Grievously Indebted Rich Nations.
Jean-François Lyotard: "Of course, decision makers reject the performance criteria themselves."
Slavoj Žižek: "... if people no longer treat this piece of metal as money, if they no longer believe in it as money, it no longer is money."
Baudrillard, referring to the "Great Game of Exchange": "... all current strategies boil down to this: passing around the debt, the credit, the unreal, the unnameable thing that you cannot get rid of."
Musical chairs...
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