While the folks clogging the US tattoo parlors may not have noticed, things are beginning to look a little World War one-ish out there. Except the current blossoming world conflict is being fought not with massed troops and tanks but with interest rates and repayment schedules. Germany now dawdles in reply to the gauntlet slammed down Sunday in the Greek referendum (hell) “no” vote. Germany’s immediate strategy, it appears, is to apply some good old fashioned Teutonic todesfurcht — let the Greeks simmer in their own juices for a few days while depositors suck the dwindling cash reserves from the banks and the grocery store shelves empty out. Then what?
Nobody knows. And anything can happen.
One thing we ought to know: both sides in the current skirmish are fighting reality. The Germans foolishly insist that the Greek’s meet their debt obligations. The German’s are just pissing into the wind on that one, a hazardous business for a nation of beer drinkers. The Greeks insist on living the 20th century deluxe industrial age lifestyle, complete with 24/7 electricity, cheap groceries, cushy office jobs, early retirement, and plenty of walking-around money. They’ll be lucky if they land back in the 1800s, comfort-wise.
The Greeks may not recognize this, but they are in the vanguard of a movement that is wrenching the techno-industrial nations back to much older, more local, and simpler living arrangements. The Euro, by contrast, represents the trend that is over: centralization and bigness. The big questions are whether the latter still has enough mojo left to drag out the transition process, and for how long, and how painfully.
World affairs suffer from the disease of terminal excessive complexity. To make matters worse, much of the late-phase complexity operates in the service of accounting fraud of one kind or another. The world’s banking system is mired in the unreality of so many unmeetable obligations, cooked books, three-card-monte swap gimmicks, interest rate euchres, secret arbitrages, market manipulation monkeyshines, and countless other cons, swindles, and hornswoggles that all the auditors ever born could not produce a coherent record of what has been wreaked in the life of this universe (or several parallel universes). Remember Long Term Capital Management? That’s what the world has become.
What happens in the case of untenable complexity is that it tends to unravel fast and furiously. That’s exactly why avalanches and earthquakes happen all at once, not stretched out over a six week period. The global financial scene not so different. It’s just another matrix of linked mutually-supporting relationships that can implode if a few members weaken.
One question worth reflecting on is whether the implosion is actually well underway on-the-ground in real economies, with just the scrim of illusion to make the surface appear intact. That surely seems to be the case in the USA, where the so-called economy has already avalanched into a rubble heap of part-time scut jobs, defaulted college loans, underwater mortgages, and groaning pension funds — with an overlay of pointless and endless motoring.
Over in Euroland, the Greek “no” also implies that every other sovereign nation wallowing in deep financial shit will demand a haircut (and a disinfectant shower). Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, and even France cannot possibly meet their debt obligations. Their citizens are being taunted with currency controls, too, and they have every bit as much potential to go ape-y as the Greeks. Notice you haven’t heard much from their leaders and financial ministers in recent weeks. They are all standing on the sidelines watching the Greeks go through the wringer — but you can be sure they are all making plans of their own.
The failure of the European experiment will be extremely demoralizing to the hopeful citizens of that continent, who emerged from the bloodbath of the early 20th century to become the world’s premier peaceful tourist theme park. I don’t know that they necessarily have to go back to fighting each other on battlefields with things that blow up and destroy human flesh, but they surely have to decentralize and re-fashion some kind of simpler, local way-of-life if they expect to remain civilized.
It’ll happen everywhere. The Japanese are next, of course, and they may be the most fortunate, since they retain more than a few shreds of memory for exactly that mode of life: the Tokugawa shogunate (the Edo period, 1600 – 1853), a manner of high pre-industrial economy and culture that might have persisted indefinitely had not Commodore Perry come knocking on their door, so to speak, in his “black ships.”
Ukraine is about halfway back to being medieval with excellent potential to overshoot even that. The Euroland PIIG(F) nations don’t have the energy resources to extend Modernity, even if the banking system wasn’t terminally ill, and then on top of that they have the ethno-demographic quandary of creeping Muslimization — plus the additional flotillas of desperate boat people arriving daily.
America, count your blessings. Tattoos, obesity, drug use, and shiftlessness are all basically behavioral choices. You don’t need a finance minister or a central banker to overcome those problems.
Plantagenet on Mon, 6th Jul 2015 8:03 pm
The Greeks voted to make the EU forgive their debts and simultaneously lend them more money.
Unfortunately the Greek vote is not binding beyond the borders of Greece.
Jimmy on Mon, 6th Jul 2015 8:27 pm
I like Mr K’s observations on the collapse. I forecast he won’t be so tongue-in-cheek when Israel starts getting it from all sides though. From reading his past rants and raves I feel that Mr K seems to have a soft spot for that bunch known as Israel. Like they’re supposed to be an exception to the big fucking over that humanity has lead themselves to. What’s good for the goose is good for the ganger Mr K. And Israel bought some shitty real estate in a tough neighbourhood.
Makati1 on Mon, 6th Jul 2015 8:53 pm
A good summery of the world, but he was too easy on the major trouble-makers, the US/UK/Israel. Remember, it was the WB and IMF (both arms of the US) that put Greece into this situation with loans they KNEW would not be paid back. All part of the elite long term plan to level the world’s playing field so the Empire/Elite can rule us all.
No? If you disagree, you are not paying attention. Think about the powers behind the US puppet government and you can see the reality of the situation. The US is in the beginning of the leveling process. Remember their comment that we are all “unnecessary eaters”? They only need a few million of us to keep them in style forever, IF they kill off most of us to preserve the remaining resources for themselves … soon.
Now, bring on the rebuttals … lol.
HARM on Mon, 6th Jul 2015 9:31 pm
“The Greeks voted to make the EU forgive their debts and simultaneously lend them more money.”
No, not even the former is totally accurate. The Greek debt is unsustainably large ~360 $BILLION (or $33,000 for every man woman and child) and is = 175% of Greek GDP. Austerity measures have already led to 25% overall unemployment, and is 50% for youth. More austerity will only lead to an even deeper depression and higher unemployment, which will in turn reduce tax revenues.
The situation is totally untenable, and even the Euro bankers are (slowly) starting to realize it. Either bondholders get a severe haircut or they’re likely to get nothing. It sucks, but even a little something is better than a big nothing.
Plantagenet on Mon, 6th Jul 2015 10:00 pm
@ Harm
The next haircut is likely to hit Greeks with savings accounts. The Greek government has already ordered the Greek banks to close. Their next move may well be to seize the money in savings accounts—–thats exactly why so many Greeks have been desperately trying to get their money out of the Greek banks..
BobInget on Mon, 6th Jul 2015 10:44 pm
No one is suicide bombing churches.
Not a single car-bomb.
No Saudi F/16 screaming overhead, dropping US made cluster bombs.
Greek hospitals haven’t run out of almost every medicine.Babies stand a better chance in Greece then the US.
Any Greek is free to leave to find work elsewhere
in Europe. Contrast that with sitting on the ground under a plastic sheet eating 700 calories in a Turkish ‘detention camp’.
Greece:
Go out to a football game even if you are female.
IS:
If you are male and are caught with another man
you won’t be thrown off a tall building.
If you are women you can drive a car to church, even with uncovered head.
Plantagenet on Mon, 6th Jul 2015 11:00 pm
@Bob
Yup.
No doubt that Greek is a European, western, and Christian nation and people in Greece are far better off then those in the Caliphate. Modern Greece was founded when the Greeks overthrow their Muslim Turkish masters and gained their independence — anti-Muslim sentiments in Greece still runs strong.
Cheers!
Richard Ralph Roehl on Mon, 6th Jul 2015 11:26 pm
As Russians bitterly joked during the $talinist era: “The worse, the better!”
And as Amerikans learned in the $ovietnam war era: “Your Honor! We had to burn down the village in order to save it.”
I advocate both.
RRR
Plantagenet on Tue, 7th Jul 2015 12:56 am
RRR
Why harken 50 years back to Vietnam when the same thing is going on today? Obama has already destroyed quite a few villages in Syria and Iraq in order to save them. The latest target of the US bombing campaign designed to destroy cities and villages seems to be Raqqa in Syria—the US launched 16 bombing raids there just yesterday.
apneaman on Tue, 7th Jul 2015 1:09 am
Yo, Earthlings! Hot Enough For You?
http://www.declineoftheempire.com/2015/07/yo-earthlings-hot-enough-for-you.html
Davy on Tue, 7th Jul 2015 2:51 am
The whole process of Greece getting into the EU then remaining there was a farce of corruption, lies, and deceit. The problems were from the start. They fudged their way into the monetary Union in 01. We know Goldman Sachs as a short example of a longish one constructed some dubious vehicles for hiding debt. This allowed Greece to squeeze through the Euro requirements.
After the Greeks were in the European Banks had a field day of money making with and on the Greeks. Then the Greeks had their field day being Greeks. Greeks being Greeks is not so bad except for rich Greeks being Greeks. The country was looted for the next several years because now that Greece was in the Euro the ability for the corrupted wealthy and connected in Greece was wide open to looting. This included their associated European accomplices across Europe. Just hark back to the much touted 2004 Olympic extravaganza. That was a show in more ways than one.
We really have an event represented by realities at two levels. On the one level we have the institutional corruption of an entire country within a decaying global system. The other level is at the level of country and her resources. Greece is in many ways a poor country in a modern sense and always has been. They have been living beyond their energy budget that is apparent. Most of the rest of world has been also but oil and globalism has allowed this wealth bing. Now that we are at limits along with marginalized returns to our technology and complexity places like Greece and elsewhere are not keeping up.
Places that are still well placed for example Germany cannot make room for these laggards without themselves sacrificing anymore. So many places globally are in the same position form either consumption excesses or population excesses or both. We are seeing the Asian miracle stall. The American pseudo-empire is crumbling. All those areas with populations far in excess of carrying capacity are increasingly unstable in the third world. We now see a European continent that is destabilizing. Several European countries are not far from the Greek situation.
This situation is important to me because I am a doomer and prepper. I am looking for a clue and an edge to the great shift coming. Like Kunstler said avalanches are sudden by nature yet they build over time. Water phase change takes time for the energy to accumulate then the chaos and turbulence of the steam happens.
We as a global people are water boiling and we are nearing the turbulence and the steam phase. The chaos and randomness of this process will make any predictions on the when and how difficult. Even with Greece now I imagine a Euro-fudge deal will be made which is typical. If not Greece will become third world and in many ways collapsed. Going from a first world country to a third world country is collapse at multiple levels. It will be interesting to see if Europe keeps Greece. I have sympathy for the common man in Greece but in the future there will be little room for sympathy because we are all going to be in this struggle.
Our oil account is depleting and our financial networks have been gutted by debt and corruption. Our social fabric is steadily being destroyed by wealth transfer and social decay. World population grows uncontrollably. China and Asia continues to suck resources down a drain of excessive consumption as their population explodes. The rich west in decay is crumbling. We are in the end game it is just a matter of time. That is the big issue for me. This ultimate issue is time frame not if. I am trying to understand the 1-10 years aspect of collapse.
Davy on Tue, 7th Jul 2015 3:49 am
Looks like China is having a Greek headache too. Any Ideas Mak? You are the Asian experts and you have been curiously quiet lately. Are you packing your three suitcases for the farm?
“The more resources authorities commit to propping up the stock market, the more they ratchet up the potential fall-out risks should the market continue to collapse,” said Andrew Wood, an analyst at BMI Research. “This could give rise to a crisis of confidence in the authorities’ ability to support both the stock market and the real economy.”
And with 888 stocks down and only 29 up – PBOC is gonna need a bigger boat fund
And
As we noted prerviously – psychology has shifted… every government-driven ramp is sold into by as many retail locals and foreign professionals as possible… and remember the local professionals are now stuck with losses as they are not allowed to sell.
Which explains why downside vol costs explode… (if you’re not allowed to sell stocks… what’s your next move?)
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-07-06/chinese-stocks-open-down-hard-vix-hits-record-high-nasdaq-down-40-highs
Beery on Tue, 7th Jul 2015 5:18 am
I had no idea that tattoos were a problem on the magnitude of obesity, drug use, and shiftlessness. Until that point, Kunstler was sounding pretty brilliant. If he thinks tattoos are a threat to America’s health, I wonder what he’d think of my nose ring?
adamx on Tue, 7th Jul 2015 7:37 am
Kunstler seems like a really fun guy (sarcasm). “Old man yells at cloud” personified. I can’t imagine him doing well in the future, when he’s going to be dependent on all those young people with tattoos who smoke jazz cigarettes.
The fetishization of Edo Japan is a bit funny to me, as someone with a degree in Japanese. The Edo era was very modern and there were cracks at the seams, politically, that would never have allowed the era to go as it did for much longer. Land speculation, mass communication, all sorts of things we see as “modern” were very much in motion during Edo Japan. The reason Japan was able to modernize so fast was partly because they were ALREADY very modern in most ways. Too bad so many people can’t see past the kimono.
Edo Japan was as sustainable as Europe of the same time period (keep in mind that industrialization was still a new project with very limited reach even in the mid 1800s). Which is to say, economies dependent on agriculture with limited foreign trade tend to be pretty sustainable. And Japan is far, far, far from what it was in 1868. Just as we all are.
rockman on Tue, 7th Jul 2015 9:38 am
Bob – “Any Greek is free to leave to find work elsewhere”. Just a side bar you might find interesting: a major Greek “export” is marine engineers. My daughter works at the US embassy in Athens and I was shocked by how many visas she has issued to Greeks who had gotten such a degree. Apparently graduating from one of their many marine engineering institutes is the prize ticket out of the dismal situation in the country.
BobInget on Tue, 7th Jul 2015 2:35 pm
I tried, unsuccessfully, to point up the difference between financial crisis and human holocaust.
Greece gets buckets of ‘ink’ while millions go hungry, homeless and unnoticed.
There’s high probability Saudi Arabia already has nuclear weapons. Even higher probability Israel does.
Apneaman on Tue, 7th Jul 2015 3:44 pm
adamx, what do you think of this (if you can spare the time) as an intro lecture to Japanese language and literature for the lay person? I love this guys “Myths of the American Mind” lectures. Very entertaining.
Japanese Language and Literature
An exploration of the cultural and linguistic history of Japan. Part of the Languages and Literatures series presented by Wesley Cecil PhD. at Peninsula College.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YecXCUULnEM
Cassie on Tue, 7th Jul 2015 4:03 pm
“Even higher probability Israel does.”
Yes, 100% is pretty high.
Speculawyer on Tue, 7th Jul 2015 4:10 pm
He sounds more and more like the cranky old man that he is with ever new blog posting.
Speculawyer on Tue, 7th Jul 2015 4:17 pm
The way the Greek situation should resolve itself is that Germany should look at all the cheap labor available in Greece and open up their next automobile plant in Greece to take advantage of the cheap labor.
But the various countries are still to Nationalist and operate on stereotypes such that the Greeks are stuck with a stagnant economy that runs on tourism and an overbloated public sector.
So I think a lot of Greek people need to move & find jobs elsewhere.
Speculawyer on Tue, 7th Jul 2015 4:19 pm
“I had no idea that tattoos were a problem on the magnitude of obesity, drug use, and shiftlessness. Until that point, Kunstler was sounding pretty brilliant.”
So he sounded brilliant up until the 7th word? Sounds about right. 😉
jjhman on Tue, 7th Jul 2015 6:17 pm
I stopped reading Kunstler some years ago. He can be pretty amusing the first couple of reads but after a while it all sounds the same: “Everybody is totally screwed but Israel is saintly”
Davy on Tue, 7th Jul 2015 8:29 pm
Kunstler is fun up to a point. The guy is smart and still valuable to a doomer like me. He is especially good with systematic financial issues. I see him lacking in the geopolitical arena. He is poor with the Asian side of the coin.
Kunstler’s criticism of the US population is a bit unfair and generalizes like so many here on our board. Is this anti-American pander? some maybe. Some seems to be because he is a Yankee asshole who hates the south and lower classes. I am in the Dolomites of Italy now at my new wife’s village and I see the same shit at the common man level as the US. I see sustainability still here but being globalized away as in the US. This is slower and less dramatic but even up here in the mountains globalism is killing sustainability of a people and a way of life.
The US is in advanced decay coming from a unique American ability to decay faster than other global regions from greater wealth, wealth inequality, and velocity of cultural change. Many anti-Americans love to generalize Americans on this point. Saying all of America is Kunstleresque but that is a hate and resentment agenda. You can boot the outliers in America and you get a core that is as good as any other region. I acknowledge that statement with the caveat of accelerating decay. It won’t be long and even the core US will be eutrophic.
Kunstler has a place in my heart because his book “Long Emergency” solidified my doom and prep back in 2005. Before then I was on to something and different from my peers because I knew about peak oil, overpopulation, and climate change as a short list of several collapse issues. Yet, at the time I did not have the continuity of the systematic combination of all these things in an approaching end game.
Kunstler brought that together in 05. He correctly was onto the 08 crisis and I was right on board doing the talk and the walk. That folks was almost collapse and almost happened. Most today dismiss it as just another bump in the road and old news.
I respect Kunstler for his consistency but I acknowledge he is getting stale. I am here every day for a long time now. Many of us are getting stale including me. Yet, I feel we are near a phase change so is the staleness consistency and conviction or irrelevance? I feel we are on to something and my investment in this board is because we are sifting through current events for clues and an edge. As a doomer and prepper this is important. As a student and sometimes teacher of doom and prep this is my life.
apneaman on Tue, 7th Jul 2015 8:57 pm
Not me Davy, I’m as fresh as a Daisy and ready to Doom like the Dickens till me last breath. I actually don’t know what a Dickens is, but I just like the way it sounds.
Davy on Tue, 7th Jul 2015 9:12 pm
Keep up the good work Ape Man since you came on board I have learned a hell of allot more about climate doom which is the worst of the doom.
apneaman on Tue, 7th Jul 2015 9:30 pm
Sorry ):
Have you noticed how in the last couple of weeks many parts of the Northern hemisphere are in heatwave, drought/water restrictions, on fire and blanketed in smoke? Lot’s of dramatic stories on the MSM, but very little mention of the root cause. Apes are strange people I tell ya. Does not look like there will be any real effort to change, maybe we can’t.
The most important climate story today is the global coal renaissance
“f you only focused on the United States, you might think coal’s days are numbered.
The dirtiest of all fossil fuels once provided more than half of America’s electricity. That has since dropped to 39 percent, thanks to competition from cheap natural gas, a dogged campaign by the Sierra Club to shutter old coal plants, and strict new air pollution regulations. Add in the Obama administration’s upcoming crackdown on CO2 emissions from power plants, and US coal will keep declining in the future.
But that’s not true globally. Far from it. According to data from BP’s Statistical Review of Energy, coal consumption has actually been accelerating worldwide since the end of the 1990s:”
http://www.vox.com/2015/7/7/8908179/coal-global-climate-change
apneaman on Wed, 8th Jul 2015 12:36 am
When the End of Human Civilization Is Your Day Job
Among many climate scientists, gloom has set in. Things are worse than we think, but they can’t really talk about it.
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a36228/ballad-of-the-sad-climatologists-0815/
apneaman on Wed, 8th Jul 2015 1:33 am
China’s stock market has lost 30 percent of its value in a month
http://www.vox.com/2015/7/7/8910293/china-stock-market-crash
Rodster on Wed, 8th Jul 2015 5:29 am
“Among many climate scientists, gloom has set in. Things are worse than we think, but they can’t really talk about it.”
I respect James Corbett and his wealth of knowledge but even HE is skeptical about CO2 based climate change. So not everyone is on board.
As we all know, you can’t dump millions of tons of plastics each year in the ocean along with toxic chemicals and pollutants, pour millions of tons of fossil fuel exhaust in the air and NOT expect some kind of blowback.
Now we’re hearing about weather and climate modification as a means to overt climate catastrophe which “weather warfare has been going on since the mid 50’s.
Yes, we humans are all fucked, no matter if you live in a city, the suburbs or in some jungle.
Rodster on Wed, 8th Jul 2015 5:32 am
In a 100-150 years, Goerge Carlin words will ring true: “Pack your shit folks, you’re going away and you won’t leave much of a trace behind, maybe some plastic, MAYBE”.
peakyeast on Wed, 8th Jul 2015 7:58 am
Our danish summer has been absolutely average.. Even below 🙁
Even if we had 2 days of heatwave.. At least it has been warm-non rainy good weather 2 days this year…
Apneaman on Wed, 8th Jul 2015 10:58 am
Rodster, Is James Corbett a scientist? Does he study atmospheric physics and chemistry? No James is a full time conspiracy theorist video blogger who fits perfectly into the well documented demographic of the majority of climate deniers: white, English speaking, male, politically conservative/libertarian with a high degree of likelihood to believe in multiply conspiracy theories. I will say James gets some of his other analysis right some of the time, but when you claim that every single thing that happens is a conspiracy you are going to be right once in awhile. Broken clock twice a day.
What is Motivated Reasoning? How Does It Work?
“Recently, scholars and commentators have drawn attention to the contribution of “motivated cognition” to diverse political conflicts, including climate change and the birthplace of President Obama. I will offer a few points to help people assess such claims.”
http://www.scienceandreligiontoday.com/2011/05/04/what-is-motivated-reasoning-and-how-does-it-work/
Apneaman on Wed, 8th Jul 2015 11:12 am
Climate denial linked to conspiratorial thinking in new study
Recurrent Fury uncovers the difference between skepticism and conspiratorial denial
“A new study has examined the comments on climate science-denying blogs and found strong evidence of widespread conspiratorial thinking. The study looks at the comments made in response to a previous paper linking science denial and conspiracy theories.
Motivated rejection of science
Three years ago, social scientists Lewandowsky, Oberauer, and Gignac published a paper in the journal Psychological Science titled NASA Faked the Moon Landing—Therefore, (Climate) Science Is a Hoax: An Anatomy of the Motivated Rejection of Science.
The paper detailed the evidence the scientists found that, using survey data provided by visitors to climate blogs, those exhibiting conspiratorial thinking are more likely to be skeptical of scientists’ conclusions about vaccinations, genetically modified foods, and climate change. This result was replicated in a follow-up study using a representative U.S. sample that obtained the same result linking conspiratorial thinking to climate denial.”
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2015/jul/08/climate-denial-linked-to-conspiratorial-thinking-in-new-study