“If I don’t know – I can’t act” – Knowledge of The Word is Spiritual Power
STOP PRESS: BoE hiked rates by 0.75% (to 3%) on Thursday, confronting the markets’ expectations, which are too high. ZeroHedge: “The BoE is “sending a clear signal that the Bank Rate path expected by the markets ahead of the policy meeting is too high. The outcome contrasts sharply with the hawkish message from Fed’s Powell yesterday and could trigger a further drop of the GBP/USD rate-spread, adding to the headwinds for GBP/USD.” This bodes not too well for both UK mortgages and inflation with the £/USD at £1.138 as at close of business yesterday.
As I predicted in Chapter 13 – the UK is already in recession, and it is predicted that GDP will fall for eight straight quarters until mid-2024. I know TBTP will not acknowledge the ‘D’ word but this is where Britain is today IMHO – look out below! And it’s always worth noting what others say about us – here is South Africa; dailymaverick-uk-chancellor-jokes-about-britains-dismal-economic-situation We have the foreign MSM reporting this – SAD!
AND let’s not forget the mortgage holders. Here are some serious facts: “Karen Noye, mortgage expert at ‘Quilter’ explained: “Let’s assume that yesterday when the base rate was 2.25%, someone on their lender’s SVR was paying 4.25% interest on a £200,000 mortgage over 25 years then they would have been paying about £1,083 per month. Now the base rate has climbed to 3%, the SVR will also climb to a conservative estimate of 5%. That same mortgage at that interest rate would cost £1,169.” /hundreds-of-thousands-will-see-mortgage-interest-rates-of-up-to-8%
FIREWORK NIGHT! Let’s have a few BANGS – 1950s style. These modern industrial fireworks have got nothing on what us kids used to do back in the day. We couldn’t afford to buy our fireworks but we could make mega bangs in several ways. Potassium Nitrate was easily sourced and cheap at the local chemist, charcoal and sulphur (forget the USA spelling, I’m British!) were also available so our gunpowder ‘factory’ was ready to go.
But we could do better than gunpowder by using coal gas: The small ones were cocoa tins with a small hole in the top (1/8th”) and a larger hole in the bottom (1/4”). Fill with gas, fix lid, stand so air can enter underneath, match to the top. A small flame burns until, drawing air in from below, with the flame gradually contracting until the gas/air mixture becomes explosive – then BANG and lid flies off! Let’s do some improvements:
I will leave it to your imagination as to the result of a 45 gal oil drum! Just as the industrial fireworks today have grown bigger and bigger, so were our own aspirations growing each year. It seems to be a function of human nature to grow everything/’progress’ as time passes. Now we have super-yachts bigger than our late Queen’s former ‘HMY Britannia’, skyscrapers to the moon and Sci-Fi weapons. I guess it goes on like this until something ‘breaks’ and gross excess becomes unsustainable, a Great Reset occurs, and we start all over again! Perhaps this is where we are now?
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK: Is the Guardian newspaper truly free of globalists’ influence? I sometimes quote their articles because they appear to be factual and neutral as measured against others which are clearly driven by an agenda. They have no paywall, unlike the Telegraph, Times etc. because they believe in my maxim above. Here is what they say of themselves:
“Unlike many others, the Guardian has no shareholders and no billionaire owner. Just the determination and passion to deliver high-impact global reporting, always free from commercial or political influence. Reporting like this is vital for democracy, for fairness and to demand better from the powerful.
And we provide all this for free, for everyone to read. We do this because we believe in information equality. Greater numbers of people can keep track of the events shaping our world, understand their impact on people and communities, and become inspired to take meaningful action. Millions can benefit from open access to quality, truthful news, regardless of their ability to pay for it.”
However the Guardian is not a supporter of Brexit which leads me to believe that they support the EU. But I know that the EU is an autocracy driven by technocratic diktat which will eventually implode. The EU model is flawed because they are trying to pretend that they have a ‘United States of Europe’ without the unity of a federation like the USA with budgetary control over fiscal policy.
I agree that the Brexit delivered by the criminal clown BoJo was a disaster which will fester until it’s fixed by adopting something like the ‘Norway Option’ and/or EFTA membership like sensible Nordic countries, with whom I share a heritage. The question remains; where do you get your news or don’t you bother with the unreal theatre that is geopolitics & MSM?
The world is owned and driven by the Banksters and their coterie of alphabet soup global enablers cabal like the UN, IMF, WEF, WHO, WTO et al, all of which were created by America after WW2 when they were the only country left standing and set about managing the world with their rules-based international order – ‘Their rules – your orders’ hegemony which ensures continuation of the United States’ global foreign policy, actioned after the collapse of the USSR in 1991, known as: Full Spectrum Dominance which has been at the root of all our problems in the unipolar 21st century.
“We can date the beginning of the war in Ukraine to October 2002, the date that a document published by U.S. oligarchs, the ‘Project for the New American Century’ (PNAC) for the Pentagon, clearly and unambiguously stated U.S. foreign policy for the 21st century “Full Spectrum Dominance” declared by the Pentagon to rule the world. That is, to dominate (militarily of course) the nations, peoples and resources of the entire world. Not “Full Spectrum” or ‘Global Peace, Diplomacy or Cooperation’, but Domination.”
After 30 years of global hell, now a new multipolar world is emerging as the BRICS begin to establish a ‘New World Order ‘for the bulk of the world’s population. How America handles this sea-change in the geopolitics arena will determine what a ‘New World Order’ will look like by 2030. I have stated my own vision of a potential ‘New Emergent Economy’ in Part 1 of my book, ‘The Financial Jigsaw’ which is linked at the end this Letter, as well as updates for Part 2 during the next two years: https://austrianpeter.substack.com/p/the-financial-jigsaw-part-2-localisation?s=w
BREAKING NEWS (last week): Rishi Sunak has become Britain’s third prime minister in as many months as his only rival for the Tory leadership dropped out of the race; but has BoJo gone forever ? I do hope so. We really don’t need a psychologically disturbed, egotistical, narcissistic, psychopathic liar to be in power in the Britain: https://www.theweek.co.uk/business/957079/bank-of-england-interest-rates AND other questions:
- Should there be a general election?
- How Rishi Sunak’s in-laws made their billions
- What will Liz Truss do next?
A victory by the former chancellor over Penny Mordaunt marks “quite some turnaround for a guy who was soundly beaten into second place by Liz Truss during the last Tory leadership contest, just seven bonkers weeks ago”, said Politico’s London Playbook. But Sunak “will not be celebrating long”, Rachel Wearmouth predicted in The New Statesman. Thus Nigel Farage looks back at the Tory Party:
WITH THE UK engulfed in political and economic crisis, some huge challenges lie ahead for the Tory leader – here are some of them:
Stabilise the markets: The tax-slashing mini-budget rolled out only a month ago by Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng caused a panic on the financial markets that led to the duo’s downfall. “The fact that yields are still elevated despite Truss’s departure is a warning sign to her successor,” Martin wrote. “Clearly, the new prime minister will have to work hard to regain the market’s trust. In other words, markets will have a lot of sway on the direction government takes.”
GET the economy back on track: Sunak “will face a long list of economic challenges”, said The New York Times’s London-based business reporter Eshe Nelson. The cost-of-living crisis is being driven by soaring energy prices and 40-year-high inflation compounded by rising interest rates. With a £100bn hole in the public finances causing further misery, the UK economy is expected to be in recession until the middle of 2024. https://www.theweek.co.uk/news/politics/958282/five-challenges-facing-the-next-pm
HOW THE MARKETS SHOULD WORK – A quick Overview:
Crashes are dramatic, but pretty normal. Financial bubbles will always happen because “humans are programmed with herd mentality,” according to Jamie McDonald in the ‘Investors’ Gudiance’. And bubbles almost inevitably lead to crashes, so they’re not something that’ll be ironed out of the system any time soon.
The fraud cycle follows the business cycle. The 4 stages of the business cycle are pessimism, hope, growth, and optimism. And according to Jim Chanos in ‘Ahead of the Curve’, “The fraud cycle follows the business and finance cycle with a lag… Usually, when people begin to get a bit more parsimonious with their capital, they begin to stop funding questionable business models.” Something to look out for.
Demographics are THE big picture. Declining population numbers have a cascading effect, Felix Zulauf told Raoul Pal. “Economic growth is population growth plus productivity growth,” he said. “And productivity is another problem, because we create ever more zombie companies. And zombie companies reduce productivity growth.”
This time just might be different. “The market had a comfort blanket for the last 20 years, which is the Fed,” Roger Hirst told Damian Horner in ‘Make or Break’. “[But] today, there are a lot of things which most of us in reality in our investing lives have never seen, so we’re scrambling around, trying to work out what the hell’s going on.”
The US dollar might eat everything. The US dollar has an outsized impact, and when it is going up – like now — it means the US is outperforming, and emerging markets and commodities are often underperforming. And according to Roger Hirst and others, it could be a wrecking ball that crashes financial assets and the economy…
BUT THE MARKETS ARE NOT WORKING as expected: After a long illness the death of free markets a few weeks ago was announced in London. In its comatose state, the last flicker of life was extinguished by the sacking of the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, Kwasi Kwarteng, and the reversal of bungled policies designed to liberate the British economy from increasing state control. The blob killed it off — an apt term for the amorphous WEFminster (bought politicians) and Whitehall (civil service) Establishment that tried to prevent Brexit.
The blob would prefer to get rid of her so that it can pursue, unfettered, its agenda of increasing the state’s control over the people, closer integration with European governments, and even a reversal of Brexit. In the absence of unexpected developments, individual freedom only remains to be finally buried.
As Ludwig von Mises put it in an essay entitled ‘A Critique of Interventionism’ written in 1930: “Only the naive ‘inflationists’ could believe that government could enrich mankind through fiat money. Government cannot create anything; its orders cannot even evict anything from the world of reality, but they can evict from the world of the permissible. Government cannot make man richer, but it can make him poorer. “
Furthermore, it is almost certain that when the currency collapse becomes fact will we be ignorant of the follow-on consequences so vividly described in Hayek’s ‘The Road to Serfdom’. It chronicled the likely political developments that follow a government’s impoverishment of the masses by inflation. Our political leaders, hiding their coordinated attack on everyone’s freedom, are beginning to realise that their tenure is ending in crisis.
The political and bureaucratic classes will attempt to retain their power and control. In their ‘New Great Reset’, they are even planning to take total control of bank credit away from commercial banks by the introduction of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs). If this seems extreme, these plans are echoed by the ‘World Economic Forum’ (WEF), one of the acolytes of which told us we will ‘Own Nothing and be Happy.‘
The error, in my view, is to regard economics as a natural science, subject to the laws of mathematics; and not a human science, having its roots in psychology. And every time this misconception is challenged by markets, the statist answer is to impose more restrictions on humanity. The blob, the Establishment that controls governments, now enforces its authority through fear of the consequences of any divergence from its Groupthink.
The amorphous blob’s control extends to international cooperation with similar statist organisations. G20 meetings are the ultimate in Groupthink synchronisation, where meetings between leaders, as well as subsidiary meetings between finance ministers and central bankers, coordinate mutually agreed state control on the world stage. Any leader who does not conform to the script comes in for condemnation [and maybe assassination]. We can be certain that at the Treasury, in line with the Bank of England, a common Keynesian Groupthink will prevail.
With a high degree of confidence, we can forecast that they will reintroduce Quantitative Easing (QE), offer banks loan guarantees, rescue failing banks and double down on suppressing interest rates. They are already managing prices and subsidising production in energy, actions likely to be extended to other consumer products. Initially, the public will want any scheme to be successful.
On November 15, 1923, a combination of a notional fix of one trillion German Reichsmark to one Rentenmark, backed by a promise that the quantity of Rentenmark would be strictly limited, was sufficient to stabilise the currency situation. And as for free markets rising Phoenix-like from the ashes of fiat currency destruction — that cannot be taken for granted. It is far too early to consider a resurrection of practical economics, sound money, or economic progress based on free markets. Here’s the long copy for those having the time to read it: https://www.dollarcollapse.com/alasdair-macleod-free-markets-last-stand/
THE FOREGOING ANALYSIS is a précis of an article by ‘Gold Money’. These ‘gold-bugs’ believe that a return to a gold standard will be THE solution after a fiat currency collapse. I have posted this so that you can understand what conventional thinkers believe. I don’t believe that this will happen in the coming years following a Reset – this is how I calculate the outcome and acknowledge that my good friend and colleague at BOOM Economics & Finance has the true answer. His Editorial in 2019 explains what is really going on: https://boomfinanceandeconomics.wordpress.com/2019/12/15/boom-as-at-15th-december-2019/
INFLATION WATCH: According to Scottish Friendly, household savings have fallen 74% year-on-year as real returns plummet to their lowest level since 1976. The average household saved just £17 a week in Q3 2022, compared to £66 a week in the same period last year. The study by Scottish Friendly and the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr) found the real annual return on savings fell to negative 9% in July, the lowest level since February 1976 (-9.5%). Things were only slightly better in September, after interest rates increased, when the real annual returns on savings stood at negative 8.9%: Useful information here to help you plan your budget: https://www.yourmoney.com/saving-banking/real-returns-on-savings-plummet-as-inflation-surges/ Food is the essence of our life-styles and our diet is crucial. GB News advises:
SURVIVAL MONITOR: Dealing with your personal money management, I ALWAYS recommend that you use a credit card for all major purchases, especially those on the internet. You may ask WHY? Because: “…Those who paid by credit card will be covered by Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act. This means that if you pay for something costing £100 or more on your credit card and the goods don’t arrive, your card provider is jointly responsible with the retailer regarding refunding you. To make a claim, contact your credit card provider”.
Here is an example from ‘Made.com’ which is about to go bust, in common with a whole load of companies in the coming months and years as an economic depression gathers strength going forward into the decade. “If you paid for an item with Made.com with a debit card, you’ll be covered by chargeback rules. Chargeback can be used to reclaim cash for goods and services that have been paid for by debit card but don’t arrive.” Check out this salutary lesson for consumers and the hidden traps: https://www.yourmoney.com/household-bills/made-com-close-to-collapse/
THE NARRATIVE BATTLE: ‘Climate Scam follows the Covid Scam.’ The President of Climate Intelligence (“CLINTEL”), Guus Berkhout, has published a message to all the people of the world. His message is simple: There is no climate emergency.
For decades, the public has been flooded with fear-mongering stories from climate alarmists who claim “catastrophic doom” due to increasing carbon dioxide (CO2) levels from human activities. The climate alarmists deliberately cause panic, “time is running out,” they claim. The solution, climate alarmists say, is the “net zero” policy.
Thousands of scientists disagree. As of 1 October 2022, more than 1,400 scientists from around the world have signed the ‘World Climate Declaration’ which begins: “Climate science should be less political, while climate policies should be more scientific.” Check the reality: https://expose-news.com/2022/10/27/there-is-no-climate-emergency-clintel/
UNTIL NEXT WEEK: For more, read: “The Financial Jigsaw”: Scroll: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/358117070_THE_FINANCIAL_JIGSAW_-_PART_1_-_4th_Edition_2020 including regular updates. Archive & Finance articles are HERE For free PDF copy e-Books, Parts 1 & 2, email; [email protected]
COVID & FINANCE LINKS: [I will not be commenting specifically on Covid in future because my colleague covers daily updates at his websites]: SPREAD THE WORD: YOUR DAILY COVID NEWS (cmnnews.org)
BOOM Finance & Economics (boomfinanceandeconomics.com)
BOOM Finance and Economics | Designed for Critical Thinkers — UPDATED WEEKLY (wordpress.com)
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
PROTECT & SURVIVE: https://substack.com/profile/29503050-protect-and-survive?utm_source=user-menu SPREAD THE WORD:
I like Farage, but I’d like him a lot more if he acknowledged that Russia is fighting for sovereignty and independence from the Global American Empire.
Agreed Iska – some say that Nigel and others at GB News are controlled opposition. I have tested it by emailing my Letters over the last month or so and daring them to reply, suggesting that if I didn’t hear from them – I would assume that they are indeed controlled opposition….
Needless to say – not even a Tweet in reply QED.
He lost my trust when he so quickly conceded on Brexit.
Trust is indeed lost Ken:
https://austrianpeter.substack.com/p/the-financial-jigsaw-part-2-special-ec0?utm_source=email
The best bet Britain has to have a country where consent of the governed is combined with the principle of individual rights is full independence, including from international organizations, and particularly complete separation from the European Union.
Absolutely MC but regrettably the BLOB is bought and paid for. The penetration of WEF operatives into the British political arena is complete and now they have their men in places enough to implement the Biosecurity State. We can survive here in our local economy until the Stasi turn up. Then Plan B is actioned:
https://austrianpeter.substack.com/p/progressing-plan-b-a-quarterly-review?s=w
Thank you very much for the link to the Daily Maverick – I didna even know it existed. I may even plunk down ducats for an annual subsciption
Thanks boron, it’s often worth getting an alternative perspective outside the box. 🙂
Another good recap, Peter. I always look forward to your Saturday updates from across the pond.
Do you think the defeat of Bolsonaro will affect BRICS? It appears Lula will take Brazil the route of Venezuela and I think that would make them less of a desired partner for RICS
Thank you for your kind words TNP – you are always one of my stalwart supporters for which I am most grateful. Yes, the Brazil result reflects the marginal win of Brexit. It appears often that societies are polarised meaning that only a tiny majority on the the margins dictates the course of economic and financial future. The Mid-terms will almost certainly reflect equal polarisation.
Clearly, like Brexit, the elites did not want this result but the outcome may not be presictable at this time. Here is a recent analysis: “Lula also pledges to re-insert Brazil in the international stage, re-engaging with debates on climate change and development. “His emphasis on caring, healing, and rebuilding from the ground up will be crucial as Brazil looks to repair the damage of the last four years.”
Yes, Bolsonaro conceding, when everyone knows he won, will allow commie Lula to wreak havoc…
Cheers, Peter!
I hope your plans are proceeding like a rag-flapper on a down-wind run with a full spinnaker-set. [I am “Hyphen-Man!”]
I’ve spent enough time on both rag-flappers and smudge-pots to know that “Fair Winds and Following Seas” is a perfectly fine statement to wish upon any mariner, no matter if the engine goes up-and-down or round-and-round or if the captain has to worry about jibing and boom travel and shortening sail.
Any interested sailors out there might be heartened to know that there are, indeed, a generation of youth sailors who are respectful of tradition and experience. There is a particular crew I am thinking of who decided to revive the old sailor shanty songs while performing deck duties that required all hands on deck. I’m not an old salt, comparatively, at 56, but such a hat-tip to previous generations was not lost on me.
Wonderful, wonderful! Ooze, you have gladdened the heart of this old Yachtie and reminded me of a 2 week stint on a square-rigger in 2001. The Bosun (a good friend) invited me on board “for a holiday” – I have never worked so hard in all my life. She was the ‘Stavros S Niarchos’, a youth sail-training ship (two masts, actually a Brig), which kept me busy on Red Watch with calls of “all hands to wear ship!” at midnight! It was a character-forming experience.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stavros_S_Niarchos
And we sang the shanties as we called “two, six – heave” (a reference to the numbers two and six on the guns who haul them back to the firing positions). Ah, the life at sea cannot be exceeded IMHO. I am closer to my God out at sea than ever I was on land.
Sailors and their stories… “No lie, there we were… it was blowing a Force 9, if I recall correctly…”
Good on your Bosun mate for extending you the “holiday”invite! Two weeks is the right amount of time to get my mind reset and resume life with a purpose upon my return to solid ground.
How was the food aboard ship? That’s the number one concern, you know. Over the years, I’ve had the range of spoilt fish and gristly meats to a full 7-course meal on freshly starched white linen with silver service. It’s also where I had my first proper English Pudding*!
*[To my fellow Americans: expect looks of sheer disgust and disbelief if you are ever to pour maple syrup on a proper English Pudding. (It wasn’t me! It was the Canadians, I promise!)]
Peter, we’ll be seeing each other in Belize waters and ports-of-call before you can say, “Red-to-Red, Green-to-Green, when in doubt, go in-between.” I’m in the process of relocating to Gulf Coastal Mexico and will be plying coastal waters regularly with my new job.
I had a feeling you might resonate with a sea shanty. I’ve spent many, many quiet contemplative moments on the forecastle of many ships (over 32, if my count is correct) since 1997, thanking God for the experience every single time. Things happen out there that simply cannot be adequately related with mere words and images.
Seeing the ease with which my fellow shipmates handled 30-meter heavy howsers and specialty Kevlar umbilicals like they were shoestrings while singing a fun sea shanty was affirmation of the idiom, “Many hands make light work.“
I must say that I can’t remember anything memorable about the food so I guess it must have been good old British bland stuff – no frills. And my faithful anemometer did once record Force 8 in the Channel but we were careful to have a port of refuge nearby for when the storm clouds threatened. With wind against a spring tide it becomes very dangerous in these waters with high winds especially in the Alderney Race – wicked stuff.
In fair weather at night mid-Channel, my pleasure was always listening to the BBC shipping forecast at 0045 on the morning watch. Here it is:
AND you can have a laugh at this short advert. It rings bells for me when I was once rescued by the French Navy off Cherbourg one stormy night and they refused to speak English! My maritime French is appalling and lobster pots fouling my prop was far beyond my school-boy French – they thought I was drunk!
See you Ooze on the Spanish Main! And thank you for the memories 🙂 Touché: “Red sky at night, sailor’s delight – red sky in the morning, sailor’s warning”
Cheers for the… good cheer, M8!
I’m still chuckling at the mental image of those French sailors rescuing a sober Englishman appearing as if he were drunk, as you describe it. You do realilze, Peter, that lobstermen are notorious world-wide, yes? [heh-heh]
Those countering forces of tide vs. wind can be dicey, for sure. The Tsugaru Strait between Honshu and Hokkaido has a similar tidal profile, but it is a much smaller stretch of water and not as forbidding at the coastline at Normandy. Seven knot tides? That’s just dangerous, plain and simple.
I see an 140-year-old shipwreck has just been identified at the Alderney Race. If you are interested in knowing more about successful shipwreck hunting, I strongly recommend a book written by David L. Mearns, a Yank residing in the U.K., who has an impeccable record of finding hard-to-locate shipwrecks. The book is titled, appropriately enough, THE SHIPWRECK HUNTER: A LIFETIME OF DISCOVERIES ON THE OCEAN FLOOR (Pegasus Books, 2018).
The BBC Shipping Forecast has a theme? I had no idea. I was expecting the simple “beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beeeeeeeeeeep”that was a leader into the musical fanfare of the 1980’s (?) BBC World Service
That translation software advert has been used by yours truly in at least one ship-board lecture on radio communications. I still chuckle at even the thought of such an absurd situation.
En garde!…. “What do you do with a drunken sailor?” French Navy seem to think that TAUNTING is most appropriate. Did you let those nasty Frogs taunt you like they do to silly English kuh-niggits?
Captain (to his helmsman): What are the rules of the road regarding that very large cargo ship heading towards us?
Helmsman (after a brief consideration): Tonnage rules, cap.
Captain (hesitates, as if to start a lecture, then relaxes): That’s good enough for me.
On a more serious note, do you have any comment that you can post next Saturday regarding the most excellent BBC series from the early 1980’s, YES, MINISTER and the almost as brilliant YES, PRIME MINISTER? Specifically, are there still lessons to be learned from the topics and situations presented within? Humour has always been my favorite method of introducing difficult topics needing serious attention.
Be seeing you!
How about Monty Python with the comic messiah John Cleese? This is a clip I posted a while ago when our new King was born:
So everyone in Britain has a variable rate mortgage? Dumb…
Yes, pyrrhus – very dumb. The Brits have always managed with variable rates (SVR). “One of the major changes to the mortgage market since 1990 has been the introduction and popularity of fixed rate mortgages. Halifax, the UK’s largest mortgage lender, introduced its first fixed rate repayment mortgage in 1989, just before the peak of SVR mortgage rates.”
But we have never had 30yr fixed – the max these days is 5yr and this is going to cause mayhem in the housing market next year as they suddenly go from 2.5% fixed to 6-8% SVR. It’s a repeat of 1974 – 1981 – 1991 – 2001 – 2009 – notice a pattern? (1971 rings a bell?). More euphemisms: they call it the ‘Business Cycle’ – yeah really.