|
The grand denial of reality.
People have been conditioned over the past decades into believing that decay is normal, even inevitable, so that the most horrendous changes can be introduced without anyone blinking an eye. Still, the evidence is there that these changes that the society has been conditioned to accept, are neither normal nor healthy.
When the U.S. dollar was taken off the gold standard in 1971, the nation's currency dropped sharply, and eventually lost 60% of its value. In other words, 60% of the nation's wealth disappeared, not because a thief broke in and stole it, but because of a policy change occurred that had turned the nation's currency into a gambling instrument.
Well, "it's all for the good," it was said, "a lower priced dollar is good for exports." There is a strange reasoning behind this argument, though, that doesn't add up in reality. How can an increased give-away at a 60-90% discount, like a fire sale, be good? First, the nation looses half its wealth to speculation, and, then, it gives away all the rest it has at a 60-90% discount rate to the same robbers that had stolen its wealth in the first place.
The killing reality of this process is quietly hidden, for as much as it can be kept hidden. Instead of the lower dollar causing huge inflows of money through new orders, huge outflows devastated the ravished economies, like when oil prices suddenly quadrupled during 1973 oil shock. The export boom never materialized. Instead of the lower dollar causing an export boom, it caused a boom in speculative currency trading and interest rate hikes, in real estate bubbles, and in the financial sector bubbles. It also caused a 50% drop in physical production, as measured by the comparative size of the market basket. The interest rate bubble of the Paul Volker years, caused a blowout of the Savings and Loan industry that killed 711 banks. This also led to the blowout in the stockmarkets in 1987, the infamous Black Monday crash. When the real estate bubble burst, it caused a near blowout of the rest of the banking system, internationally. This blowout is not fully resolved, even now, after years of juggling the books. The consequences of this blowout are actually increasing and may yet trigger a world-financial disintegration.
In addition to this exposure, the stage is presently set for an equally large blowout of the greatest fictitious financial aggregates bubble in history. This this bubble is about to go pop, the world celebrates the economic 'miracle' which the bubble represents to the unwary.
The whole world must be blind! Its physical economy has shrunk to the point that once rich counties can no longer feed their population, causing their children - the hope of their future - to die of malnutrition. How can the society speak of economic miracles when its industries are shedding their work-forces at record rates in an accelerating contraction? How can the society celebrate an economic recovery when unemployment is sky high, homelessness is sky high, crime is booming, poverty is booming, and poor children are denied life-saving medical help because they cannot pay?
The simple reason that the Dow Jones Industrial Average has surpassed all prior limits by a wide margin, there is no cause for celebration. There would be cause for celebration if all the other measurements that define the real status of civilization were at par with the Dow, but they are not. The differential that exists is a measure of the Dow's crash potential, and that one is very large. The celebration of the Dow, that ignores reality, is a celebration of blindness to reality.
Still, there are other signs that should likewise dampen the mood of celebration.
A quick look through the Sunday paper revealed the following four interlocked items:
One article spoke about the closure of four hospitals in the Canadian city of Montreal, under budget restraints. Can people be legislated not to get sick anymore?
Next Page
|| - page index -
|| - chapter index -
|| - Exit -
||
|
