The Brink of Bad Times
David Seaton's News Links -- March 17, 2007
seaton-newslinks.blogspot.com
"You can't believe how bad it's going to get before it gets any better."
Jim Rogers - commodities investment guru
My perspective is political, so I look at the coming disaster with that slant. I have the good fortune to know quite a few top Spanish financial folk who have been explaining all the details of the economic situation to me patiently... over and over for years, and although I really can't claim to understand any of this stuff, from my slant I have grabbed on to one or two "hinges" upon which the situation seems to turn... Again, from my particular, political, point of view.
In the article I've clipped below, Jim Rodgers, George Soros old partner says, "This is the end of the liquidity party". He also says, "We haven't had this kind of speculative buying in U.S. history." What does this mean politically?
The world has been swimming in money (liquidity) for years now and many "middle-middle-class" people (defined as people who live from their work and whose principal asset is their family home) have been living way beyond their means and have come to acquire the social attitudes of upper middle class people, (defined as those whose patrimony is deep and layered, with mature stock portfolios, multiple inheritances, land and the "taken with mother's milk" habit of managing all those things). Under this delusion these middle-middle-class" folk, once the "salt of the earth", have come to think of themselves as "players" and have identified with characters such as Bill Gates and Warren Buffet or even Donald (ugh!) Trump, as aspirational, fantasy figures.
So, not only is there going to be a lot actual hardship, but also terrible disillusionment... the end of a dream. Because to add insult to injury, the victims in this crash are going to have salt poured into their wounded self esteem, because the system is going to treat them with all the same compassion with which it treated the stranded black people of New Orleans.
There is this idea, taken from our Christian heritage, that suffering makes people better, even holy. It would be comforting to think that this economic wasteland of broken dreams would wake the victims up and make them more compassionate and raise their consciousness... (hum a few bars of "The International" here if you wish). That like in the days of the Great Depression there would be a surge of brotherhood, (Liberty, equality, fraternity?). Unfortunately suffering can also turn quite a few people into mean spirited sons of bitches. Mean spirited sons of bitches when organized are often called "fascists". |
