MY BOOK, “The Financial Jigsaw”, is published at my academic network. Scroll for full view: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/358117070_THE_FINANCIAL_JIGSAW_-_PART_1_-_4th_Edition_2020 Email for a free PDF at: [email protected]
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK: So the EU, already in the middle of the worst energy crisis since 1973 and likely worse, is now pushing to eliminate imports of Russian coal. Capital Exploits has some questions:
- Who are they going to find to replace that coal?
- Is the EU not aware that there is no spare capacity in the big coal exporting nations?
- Did nobody tell the Europeans that coal is base load?
- Are they not aware they can’t get any more gas to offset the deficiency in coal?
If you thought that there is an issue with respect to security of oil supplies, security over supplies of coal is a different dimension. Indonesia, Australia, and Russia accounted for some 75% of world coal trade in 2019. But wait. There is more — a blockade of Russian oil? This is becoming scarier by the day!” https://www.lewrockwell.com/2022/05/no_author/can-europe-survive-without-russian-coal-and-oil-heres-what-it-means-for-skyrocketing-prices/
BREAKING NEWS: It was only last week that the Bank of England forecast inflation reaching 10% by the end of this year. I think we can trash that one in the light of this week’s revelation. “UK inflation soared to 9% in April – its highest level for more than 40 years – as the rising cost of gas and electricity pushed household energy bills to record levels. The escalating cost of food and transport also contributed to the rising cost of living, deepening the crisis affecting millions of low and middle-income families.
The latest data from the consumer prices index shows a marked increase from March, when the rate was 7%, and February, when it was 6.2%. It will fuel demands for the chancellor to step up help for the most vulnerable with a new package of support.” It’s getting worse very fast now; https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/may/18/uk-inflation-soars-to-highest-level-in-more-than-40-years So, how are people managing? “Families struggling to cope with energy bills are seeking shelter in McDonald’s, with one charity saying hard-pressed parents and children are spending their evenings in the fast food restaurants, relying on the facilities as an emergency kitchen, bathroom and living room.” At least the BigMac has one useful attribute: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/may/17/energy-bills-struggling-families-pushed-to-seek-refuge-in-mcdonalds
JUST HOW SCREWED is the British economy has become apparent at a meeting of the Treasury Select Committee where Andrew Bailey, the governor of the Bank of England, deputy governor Dave Ramsden, and Michael Saunders and Jonathan Haskel, two economist wonks on the monetary policy committee, were giving evidence. The committee chair, Mel Stride, got things rolling by asking why the Bank of England had got its inflation forecasts so hopelessly wrong and whether it should have taken more action on increasing interest rates to ease the pressure.
Bailey is a typical city banker, living in an ivory tower, who epitomises dullness. Someone not even his close friends and family find it easy to stay awake for. He speaks with a golden voice so for him to sound even slightly panicky is enough to set alarm bells ringing. It was like this, he said. At least 80% of the underlying causes of inflation he had no control over. He could only sit back and let the rise in energy prices and the war in Ukraine do its worst. He was powerless. Accept for the things he cannot change.
Yes, but Stride was not happy with this at all. He needed more certainty. He needed to know that the Bank of England had a clue what it was doing. Bailey looked him in the eye before slowly replying. You could summon all the hindsight you wanted, but even then you could drag in a couple of punters from the street, who knew nothing about economics, and they probably wouldn’t do any worse than his gang of ‘economists’. Darts and dartboards come to mind.
It wasn’t just that 80% of the economy was a lawless jungle, far removed from any pathetic monetary levers he might try to use. It was also that he didn’t really have much of a clue about the 20% he would normally have some chance of controlling in times of less magical thinking. There was Covid in China. He had no idea how that was going to play out.
And he had no idea why so many people had left the labour force. It could be that they all had long Covid. Or it could just be that hundreds of thousands had reckoned everything was so shit under the Tories that once lockdown ended they couldn’t be arsed to go back to work; far better to put their feet up and take their chances at home.
“I don’t want to panic you,” Bailey said. But he clearly did, because he then went on to point out that there would soon be a food crisis. Wheat prices had gone up 25% in a matter of months. We were all going to starve. And the least we could all do is to not ask for a pay rise. That way the least well-off would be the first to go. Call it natural selection. And all the more grift for him, though he was at pains to point out that he too had taken a wage freeze. Somehow he’d struggle by on £575,000 a year.
Labour’s Ali wondered how the MPC felt about being scapegoated by Liam Fox and other right-wing Tories for not having done more to combat inflation. Bailey shrugged. He could live with it. If the Tories really wanted to undermine the Bank’s independence and let the chancellor have a go, they could be his guest. Though nothing Rishi Sunak had done on the cost-of-living crisis should have given them any reason to think he had any answers. The man was even more useless than him.
The session meandered on for the best part of two hours with everyone in a state of denial. No one really wanted to acknowledge just how fucked the economy was or that no one had a clue what to do about it. Just hope things would return to normal at some point in the future and that some of us would be alive to see it. Don’t talk about the 80% or the 20% for that matter, just try to think of a happy place and whistle in the wind. The Apocalypse has come early: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/may/16/apocalyptic-food-prices
SO WITH NO CAPTAIN on the Bridge, the ship of state is foundering – how will our infrastructure fare? Let’s have a look at South Africa for guidance where political corruption prevails, elites rob the public purse and politicians are interested only in lining their own pockets (sound familiar?). Soweto Orlando Station Don’t think it can’t happen here in Britain.
“There are parts of Gauteng where the trains have not been operating for at least two years. Infrastructure owned and operated by the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) has been consistently vandalised and stolen. Factor in widespread corruption at the agency and the losses run into billions of rands. But what we rarely see is how the mismanagement of one of the country’s most valuable assets affects ordinary commuters, especially the poor. We started out at Mlamlankuzi station in Orlando. When we got there, we couldn’t believe what we saw. The last time I saw this station, it was clean and functioning. But what I saw on 1 May was horrible. There are pigs and goats living in the station. It’s their home. The gates are long gone — there is long grass and weeds and no toilets. Everything has been smashed or looted.
[The ‘security’ guard] told us about the day the station was vandalised. “I never saw a thing like that before. A crowd of people came to the station… some were singing. Everyone was taking whatever they wanted. I saw my community destroying their own station — the place where they were getting transport to work or wherever they wanted to go. They came during daylight… they didn’t even hide themselves.” When you notice the roads breaking up with potholes, sunken covers and surface failure, the railroads may come next. Here is a tour of how a country becomes a failed state: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-05-05-sowetos-once-bustling-train-stations-lie-in-ruin-its-as-if-they-were-bombed-in-a-war
BUT WHAT’S ‘REALITY’ like in the Western world? Kit Knightly has a good analysis: “Did you know the economy was booming? This may come as a shock to anyone out there who a) is alive or b) has to buy things, but it’s definitely true. MSNBC and the New York Times said so. Now, booming economy deniers, Russian bots or anti-vaxxers will doubtless point to all the “evidence” that the US economy is not booming [or UK and EU]. They’ll probably point out:
- That inflation is at a 40 year high, and likely to keep on rising
- That the current price of gas is the highest ever in US history.
- That the US is expected to enter a recession by the end of the year.
- That house prices are increasing so fast that experts are predicting a “housing bubble”.
- That “homeless camps” and “tent cities” with populations in the thousands are popping up in dozens of cities.
- That the “crippling sanctions” placed on Russia seem to have “accidentally backfired” and hurt the US economy badly.
- That moves are afoot which could see major oil trades being done in Yuan, not dollars
Clearly, this is all just conspiracy theories and nonsense. The economy really is booming. Oh, and in more good news the chocolate ration has increased from 30 grams a week to 20. That’s enough sarcasm for now. It’s time to circle back to reality, because that is what’s missing here.” Some hard hitting reality as long as you don’t want to put your head in the sand like 80% of us: https://off-guardian.org/2022/04/05/bidens-booming-economy-is-just-another-front-in-the-medias-war-on-reality/
COLLAPSE MONITOR: Recession fears are swirling through the markets again, as rising inflation and snarled supply chains hit economies, driving up the cost of living and hitting company profits. This week, US stocks posted the biggest daily drop in almost two years, on concerns that economic growth will falter as central bankers look to raise interest rates to stem the surge in inflation. Fed chair Jerome Powell’s determination to keep lifting borrowing costs until inflation falls meaningfully has rattled Wall Street, and is likely to push European and UK markets lower too. We can only wait and see where the bottom lies; in the meantime I’m staying low.
THE NARRATIVE BATTLE: Steve Kirsch has a great challenge to the medical authorities. “Let’s make it simple. Here are five ways that public health officials and the medical community could silence me and all my colleagues:
- Show us the mistake(s) in the HART report and show us the CORRECT analysis or the correct data.
- Point out the error in Joel Smalley’s death data analysis and show us the CORRECT analysis.
- Explain to me why my local newspaper and local politicians refuse to investigate a report of 6 deaths in a Palo Alto nursing home after just 9 vaccinations.
- Publish a complete list of the names of all kids under 18 killed by the COVID vaccines and a list of those killed by COVID itself (not “with” COVID). You’ll find that the first list is longer than the second list.
- Next, explain why everyone should be vaccinating their kids.
There are hundreds of thousands of COVID vaccine victims in America today. Many have 10 or more symptoms, all associated with the vaccine that started shortly after vaccination. The NIH has said publicly that there is no link between the vax and vaccine victims. In short, they threw all the vaccine injured under the bus. Explain to us what caused hundreds of thousands of people to all develop similar debilitating adverse events after being vaccinated. If it wasn’t the vaccine, what was it?” https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/two-simple-ways-to-take-down-all
A PLEA FOR PEACE IN THE WORLD: “IF I DON’T KNOW – I CAN’T ACT” – Information and knowledge should be free to everyone. Those less fortunate, who are unable to pay, are often those most in need. MAKING A DONATION will spread knowledge and understanding far and wide and empower humanity to keep the peace: https://www.gofundme.com/f/fnahvp-free-book
UNTIL NEXT WEEK: Tell Your Truth to Power: PROTECT & SURVIVE: https://substack.com/profile/29503050-protect-and-survive?utm_source=user-menu ALSO SPREAD THE WORD: YOUR DAILY COVID NEWS (cmnnews.org)
Peter, has the UK still any coal mines in operation?
I only learned from the energy crisis stories that Germany had shut down all of theirs [for hard coal], some years ago. Now they only have one major brown coal surface mine still in operation in East Germany, which the globull warmists have been trying to torpedo for years too.
Sounds like economic & fossil fuel suicide to me. The big question is; what will the USA do to avoid suicide or is it to late?
AP – what will the US and other country citizens do when they find out energy source and price manipulation was done on purpose in a coordinated fashion?
I don’t think they will ever find out – the elites are pretty good at covering up their work. For all the exposure of the Covid scam they continue on their merry way – nobody ever goes to jail – IMHO the fix is in.
The last deep mine closed in 2016 and the Bradley Mine in County Durham, an open cast mine, closed in 2020. The only English mines operating now are small private ones; Britain imports it’s coal needs from Russia and US, but for how long, who knows?
There are reserves that can be tapped but for now. There are still a handful of small mines operating in Scotland and Wales. But their days too are numbered. The Ffos-y-fran Land Reclamation Scheme in Merthyr Tydfil will be the last of those to close in October 2022.