My current read is War of the World by historian and Harvard professor Niall Ferguson.
I know, some people get toys and clothes for Christmas, I get malt extract kits and books on war. To each his own, I suppose.
The book opens with John Maynard Keynes' description of Britain in 1901: one could read a morning paper containing dispatches from around the world, could invest in any number of commodities or securities on any number of world exchanges, could travel with relative ease to any country on earth in a matter of days, could mail-order luxuries and necessities from numerous suppliers the world over, etc. Keynes’ introductory words in his Economic Consequences sound a lot like the world today. The eerie thing was that it was all shattered by the short-minded thinking of a few hundred well-connected politicians and bankers in key countries – resulting, of course, in World War I in 1914. It wasn’t until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989 that the world began to recover fully. Now, twenty years later (has it really been that long?) I note with increasing frustration how little is understood about the history and context of this latest international unraveling. Even though a world war is unlikely, it looks like the decisions of a few hundred powerful idiots in Washington and New York will sink the global economy for the sake of their own short-term gain. I’m genuinely upset about the scope of our country’s financial problems and the apparent lack of capable and willing leadership.
I came across this rant last week that summed up my feelings pretty well:
“I am tired of being told that I, and my daughter when she grows up, should pay taxes so that bankers can get $70 billion in bonuses, so banks can use my tax money to buy other banks up like vultures feasting on road kill and so that the guy down the street from me who took out an exotic mortgage to buy a house he couldn't afford can extract $200,000 or more from me and the rest of us in this nation - and keep his house.”
And when you see an investor of Jim Rogers’ experience telling reporters that he’s completely out of the stock market – and staying out – and liquidating his position in the dollar in return for investing in “agricultural commodities,” you know it could get bad.
Agricultural commodities…that’s food folks. Guys like Rogers, Schiff, Denninger, Paul are all talking on a different, more fundamental level than anyone in media. I would bet those two capable Asian reporters have never seen anything but economic boom-times in their lives. The idea of a subsistence society in the West is foreign to them.
No pun intended.
Big head alert: Maybe I’m experiencing a small taste of what Jeremiah felt while watching ancient Israel head down their chosen course. Seriously, I’ve felt a weight on my conscience over the last couple of weeks and it’s become more of a burden than I can reasonably explain. I went to a movie with Julie the other weekend (Taken with Liam Neeson – really good, BTW) and I remember leaving the theatre and realizing for a split-second I had not thought about any of this for two hours. I felt mentally relieved. Of course, once I realized the hard questions had been gone, they immediately rushed back in to fill the void.
Something about Heisenberg at work there. Really now, does anyone know how to shut down the brain and stay conscious?
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