46 Comments

There wasn’t really 40 years of improving inflation.

It just got shifted for the last few decades into inflated asset prices, mainly property, the prices of which have been propped up by artificially low interest rates.

These inflated properties prices have generated huge tax revenues for governments (allowing them to expand their sphere of influence) and also allowed people to remortgage whenever they feel like it. At near zero interest rates why wouldn’t they? I mean borrow for free, with rates never likely to rise and prices never likely to fall - who wouldn’t?

Borrowing and realized gains from these inflated assets have led all to believe everything is ok.

This is essentially a Ponzi scheme.

Expand full comment

Good point! Improved inflation on the graph anyway!

Expand full comment

I think the inflation has been deliberately engineered. They've been trying to create inflation (I mean in the sense of higher retail prices indices) for years and have been unable to do so due to the disinflationary effect of globalisation (cheap goods from China and cheap commodities from FSU). They need to inflate away the real value of the debts which they've accumulated since the 1990s when Greenspan was at the Fed and they decided to stop having recessions. COVID lockdowns caused a supply shock (and justified more massive money printing), the war in Ukraine exacerbated it and so has "net zero". Now the world is awash with money and we can't find anything to buy with it. I expect a decade of financial repression as they let inflation rip in low double digits with the central banks constantly "behind the curve" with governments implementing price/rent controls, UBI, forms of rationing and other "sticking plasters" to placate the masses. It'll be a grim time to be alive for many in the West. By the end of it, most of us will literally "own nothing" but I doubt we'll be very "happy" about it.

Expand full comment

Yes. Inflation is great for fixed debts.

On the plus side 5 years ago my mortgage company owned 90% of my house.

Now they own 50%!

The silly buggers only chose to charge me 2% per annum for the privilege.

It's not so bad for those of us living hand to mouth. People with savings are seeing them halve every 7 years at this rate. Rule of 72.

Expand full comment

I was just thinking about that rule of 72. If you run nominal GDP at 12% pa for 10 years with the Government annual deficit running at just under 5%, you halve the debt to GDP ratio in 10 years, say from 100% to about 50%. Do the same trick with house prices and wages. Nominal wages grow at say 9% and house prices crawl along at an average of just under 2% for 10 years and the ratio of house prices to wages falls from say 8 times to 4 times. Under that scenario real wages fall by 3% pa and your standard of living has dropped by more than a quarter over 10 years. Similarly, savers and pensioners get half their wealth wiped out by 10-12% inflation with 3-5% base rates over the same period. All smoke and mirrors to cover up the mess Western governments have made of economic management for the last 25 years, you could say 50 years since the "guns and butter" policies of the 60s in the US forced us all off the gold standard. Elites will hoover up assets from forced sellers as household budgets get squeezed.

Expand full comment

BTW - "the world is awash with money". While M2 leapt up, Velocity of M2 didn't.

I.e. the financial institutions that were receiving the Central Bank printing are hoarding the liquidity rather than passing it on to the businesses and populations that need it. They automatically did a similar thing back in 2007 and I remember the central bankers having to force the banks to pass it on. I've heard of no such diktat to this time. My theory is that they are waiting for asset deleveraging (recession) at which time they will start to asset sweep. A.k.a transfer of wealth from the bourgeoisie and entrepreneurs to the bankers bankers

Expand full comment

It a controlled crash and switcheroo to the new centralised digital currency. It should have occurred at 2008. Governments around the world will/have begun calling for UBI, then CDC will be will be shortly around the corner. The hints will be a couple more interest rate hikes between now and Christmas and then the media will start in on Universal Basic Income, GDP etc and then everyone will get debt wiped in exchange for switching currency. Needs to be sorted before 2027 when the various countries debt bills come due.

Expand full comment

I wonder how many UK people were aware of how much of the cost of fuel goes to the Government? I remember the last sizeable fuel crisis about 20 years ago when it become common knowledge but I don't think it was ever addressed. I think they promised to "freeze" the fuel excise escalator or something.

Expand full comment

In South West Sydney, Australia:

Last week a whole cabbage - about 80% of a basketball - cost $7; today it is $10!!!

Expand full comment

Same in Adelaide. Lucky I work on an organic farm!!😉

Expand full comment

and Sydney was already way over priced before covid. Was shocked the first time my kids came back with change, or better a lack of, from buying a bottle of water. Crazy prices. Wonderful country though. Looking forward to you opening back up fully.

Expand full comment

There is only one reason for Sydney being overpriced: legal and illegal money flowing into property and businesses from China. Many investors from China illegally bought apartments and left them vacant, like they do in China.

In supermarkets a 1.5L bottle of spring water costs $0.85. Many people drink straight from the tap.

Expand full comment

This may be a silly question but what's wrong with the tap water in Sidney? A modern industrial nation such as Australia surely has state-of-the-art treatment facilities?

Expand full comment

I lived there and maybe the problem is the heat: stored water at those temperatures is always going to taste different from pure water from a deep freshwater Scottish Loch, and maybe needs heavier chemical treatment too.

Expand full comment

I am surprised you asked that question. They don't sell home water filters for nothing. Sure, they have some treatment. Even they admitted that the treatment does NOT eliminate gunk. They treat and test to ensure the water is "safe" to drink.

The water tastes different from a bottle water. It has a "taste".

From the last treatment point through the pipes to the tap is not being treated. Surely that is sufficient in and of itself to doubt the quality of the water.

Have you noticed that dirt accumulated on the lip and cap of a bottle which was used to contain tap water? How did the dirt get there if the bottle was closed immediately after use?

The biggest problem with tap water is , of course, the fluoride. The pee and poo in it are natural!

Expand full comment

Sounds awful to me, honestly. We don't have that problem here, not even in the cities and they drink their own recycled water. 'Course, we don't flouridate tap water and since freshwater is so abundant, buying bottled water is seen as, well it's silly really but as a bit snobbish, as in "reg'lar good ole' groundwater not goodnuff for'is lordship is it?". Even I can't help thinking "Oh you dainty little pom" when I see a man buy Evian or Perrier here.

In most of Sweden, lake water and water from streams and rivers is clean enough to drink as-is, though boiling and using a linen cloth to filter out birch pollen and such is of course never wrong. Where I live, I can just walk across the yard and drink from a well-spring, the aquifer is so close to the ground half the yard becomes a sandy bog during snowmelt.

Expand full comment

Tapwater in Scotland is cool and delicious: thats one benefit.

Expand full comment

Do they put fluoride in it?

Have you compared its taste to a genuine bottle of spring water? Especially if it in a glass bottle?

Expand full comment

Same thing in Toronto, due to their massive purchases of real estate at top dollar, Canadians cannot afford to live there.

Expand full comment

I bought some fancy soft spread = butter/rapeseed oil yesterday: £10 for 1 kg. Ouch!

Expand full comment

Our butter costs more than $10/kg.

Expand full comment
Comment deleted
June 22, 2022
Comment deleted
Expand full comment

The key is to confine your opinions to SPECIFIC individuals and circumstances, backed up with facts and reasons. Thus, they have no basis to play their cards. If they do, you do the same! I don't know why the gringos don't play their game as well. (I am of ching DNA and have no qualms in calling a fraud , a fraud, regardless of any skin or beliefs.)

Ask them for their sources of income and wealth to acquire those assets.

If they are not paying their taxes, then they must be dems voters (and often) and red-envelope givers!

Expand full comment

The commenters here would appear to be better economists than the world’s central bankers. But very few criminals are actually competent unless you define competence as destruction, which is what is being engineered in front of our eyes. A controlled demolition is what is being attempted, what we may get is an uncontrolled one. Debt is the Big Problem. It was caused by way too much money created out of thin air - money that was neither earned nor saved. It was simply printed - so many Trillions just in the past dozen years or so as to dwarf all other money printing combined. This was never going to end well. There are only 2 possible outcomes - both catastrophic - 1)Raise interest rates high enough to kill off inflation now, the result being the near term implosion of all asset prices and instant recessions for all economies other than purely agrarian ones or 2) let inflation rip and forestall the implosion perhaps a couple of years or so. Here’s a question for the readers: which option do you think they are going to pick? Here’s a hint: Option 1 would cause the most near term pain(by far) to the Elites because it would deflate asset prices the quickest. Option 2 creates the illusion of rising asset prices(due to currency devaluation and soaring inflation), but it is purely an illusion. Both options end up at the same destination.

Expand full comment

There's an easy answer why everyone here, no matter their eductional or vocational backgrounds, are better economists than bankers or even "real" economists:

We all earn and spend our own money. Bankers and economy-theorists spend OPM, other people's money.

As for options, I'll go with 3):

Perpetuate a state of financial crisis for middleincome and lower for as long as possible, while rolling out changes to law and tax code which further isolates and protects the upper classes and the 0.1%, all the while implementing more and more of chinese style state capitalism, where the state protects those that own 90% of the economy.

Then, you'll have a middle class of managerial types deathly afraid of being punted to the state of worker or even lumpen-proletariat, so they'll quickly shelter under the mother hen of the corporate state. The workers will as always be fed whatever tripe keeps them disorganised and set against eachother (for the UK, expect race and religion to be the big one - 'Rivers of Blood' was bang on the money, wasn't it?), and the lumpenproletariat is only good for recruiting soldiers and street-level coppers from: loyal to anyone who pays, and with a very vindictive and revanchist streak making the a right terror to the masses. Think of Alex' two droogs who end up being policemen.

It's the 20s a'right, but not the 1920s, oh no. Say hello to the Victorian age, take two.

Expand full comment

People do not understand well enough that all this economic destruction is being perpetrated on purpose, to force us onto a green agenda.

Expand full comment

I don't think this is incompetence. I think this is the intentional destruction of the world economy to usher in a single digital world currency - Covid policies; the Ukraine-Russia conflict and their impact in fuel, energy and food; climate policies are all moving towards that goal. Time will tell if I am being an alarmist conspiracy theorist!

Expand full comment

I wonder are the elites trying to find the sweet spot of how much they can stress the great unwashed before civil unrest?

Expand full comment

And here we have the cause of this:

Our fossil fuel energy predicament, including why the correct story is rarely told https://ourfiniteworld.com/2021/11/10/our-fossil-fuel-energy-predicament-including-why-the-correct-story-is-rarely-told/

Expand full comment

It isn't so much that the fossil fuels are no longer there: there is plenty.

The point is that they are becoming much more expensive to extract, that many cities are choked with smog, and that the climate is warming too fast with serious consequences (more air conditioning = more fuel burned).

Not just peak oil, but also the energy cost of extracting energy itself. (surplus energy economics) https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/

Expand full comment

Climate change has been happening since time began - I am a student of ancient history and there are many times when climate changed so rapidly (within decades) that large areas went from fertile land to desert...

This is a multi million dollar investment made by one of the main faces of the climate change movement ... notice how it is barely above sea level:

https://i.insider.com/582a02ba46e27a34478b61d0

The same man behind this Belize resort ... flies on a private jet....

Can you guess his name?

Leo D______.

Now why would he invest in something that he believes will soon be under water?

Al Gore bought a mega mansion a few years ago that will also be underwater - if his predictions come true (this time around).

And yes - plenty of oil remains -- too expensive. As we are seeing $5 per gallon diesel is causing rampant inflation - and this will collapse the global economy.

Expand full comment

In my most simple view there is not enough economic activity to pay these massive debts (in the form of bills and bonds) so its currency expansion (no bills or bonds are issued) until the economy collapses from the inflation (the massive markets in the middle can't afford the higher prices), which is happening, then deflation with notable exception to those few critical scarcer resources needed to fuel the hierarchy (those who aren't productive). Then there will be nothing left for money holders to invest in. Since no one has a shire to defend, with the people who have been fashioned into the market having nothing, will happily eat bugs to start up the next investment cycle for those who knew enough to squirrel away some of that money.

Expand full comment

bugs are actually incredibly pricey to produce: it will not catch on.

Expand full comment

I'm not sure where bug farming is on the cost scale, but an area like England having 10X+ more population than the land can support its bugs (unless other countries continue to export to the island which is the jeopardy) until there is not enough energy to build and fuel the machines. As an aside all ag is now at least equally dependent on the machines.

Expand full comment

Also, the fascists don't like to operate in the free market economy and will have government buy the bugs, so cost is not an issue until the governments start failing (which is soon enough).

Expand full comment

The actual animal isn't bugs of any kind - it's mealworms. And those are very easy to farm.

Quoting Evil-pedia:

"For every 100 grams of raw mealworm larvae, 206 calories and anywhere from 14 to 25 grams of protein are contained.[11] Mealworm larvae contain levels of potassium, copper, sodium, selenium, iron and zinc that rival that of beef. Mealworms contain essential linoleic acids as well. They also have greater vitamin content by weight compared to beef, B12 not included."

As of last year, they are apporved as food in the EUSSR.

The phrase: "Lovely grub, mum" takes on a whole new meaning, yes?

Expand full comment

Hahahahaha! Mealworns will get very boring, so then crickets on the side? Bugs, its what's for breakfast!

Expand full comment

don't they live and wriggle and breed on rotting flesh, decaying grain, or worse?

But that isn't my main objection, they are just sloshy maggots, and I would be happy using them as bait for fish or to feed my chickens, but not with my Sunday lunch.

Expand full comment

Yep, they eat pretty much anything organic. They are even used in some areas of waste treatment, and wouldn't you believe it, those raised for human consumption are being given hormonal treatment so as to grow bigger, to about an inch long or more.

I think the general idea is to breed, prehaps even modify, the worms and make an edible paste from them, that will then be moulded to look like real food, the way they do with meat by-products ('gluing' odd bits and pieces together). Main stumbling block is in most nations you /must/ label the contents correctly and seeing "meal worm" as the main one is a hard no-sale for 999 999 out of 1 000 000, so my money is on either that being waived, or re-branding or simply making it mandatory in kindergartens, then schools and nursing homes, then hospitals and finally in supermarkets.

Because us far fewer than one billion westerners must do this you know, so that 6.5 billion chinese, indians, assorted asians and africans can keep eating fish, meat and poulry.

Me, I'm of the attitude that they can have my pölsa (sort of like haggis or hash) when they pry it from my cold dead hands.

Expand full comment

Yes, and that shows that food is far more than the sum of its' parts: my own regional delicacies include real Haggis as well as Black Pudding (blood sausage), and I am happy to eat liver and kidneys too - but I am also partial to sushi and octopus, squid and almost all seafood too.

Turning insects into protein powders might be technically possible, but that doesn't make it very cost-effective or nice. It certainly wont taste as good for you as say, peanut butter, which is also rich in healthy proteins and fats, so almost all texture and flavour will be synthetic. Well, we used to be fed Spam at school when I was a kid: I think it is basically described as 'mechanically retreived pork - i.e. pork slosh - some people love it, I loathed it! I have the same feeling about 'chicken nuggets ' and most burgers. I'll eat pork pie, when made with real meat in jelly: thats tasty.

Expand full comment

Blodpudding (which just to cause confusion is black pudding in english) is a staple of low income swedish households, has been for ages. Fried in a pan, served with boiled cabbage, lingonberries and shredded carrots, and with cold milk for drink.

Mechanically retrieved pork/meat is still proper meat though, often used for stuff like pre-made lappskojs (lobscouse). Also for low-grade sausages as we have no real regulation for what may be called a sausage, as long as the contents are clearly stated. The ones served in communal schools have a "meat" content of about 30%...

As I eat traditional swedish/northern food more or less exclusively, I have neither quibbles nor kibbles with food made from the entire animal - just as long as I know what I'm buying. Donkey, goat, horse, no problem.

There's quite an overlap of Scottish cuisine and Scandinavian. Brose, white pudding, skirlie, all sorts of oat porridge and gruel. The whole "oats as human food" area extends through Finland and the Baltic and northern Poland up into Russia. One can tell a lot about a people from their traditional food and drink(s).

Expand full comment

The 45% 'cost of petrol to supplier' also has a large chunk which is actually tax. I can't recall the exact numbers but well over 60% of total price to consumer is tax I think.

Expand full comment

Of the two pictures, I say the second is worth much more. The first is common knowledge by now, whether by staying informed over the years, or by a current "mugging." But not enough peeps know (or keep in mind?) the massive cost of our overlording public sector.

Speaking of Capitalist revivals, the world (and especially its *one-time* shining-city-on-a-hill) sorely needs a new Mr. Reagan. Would that Mr. Desantis fulfill his seeming promise.

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/sunshine-state-of-mind-florida/

Expand full comment

I know a bloke down in Peckham named Del who can get you a deal on some petrol.

Let's go Brandon!

Expand full comment

"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help." - President Reagan

Expand full comment