Sunday
“How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked. “Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.” Ernest Hemingway
The Age of Plenty that is now concluding can be loosely generalized as that of:
1/ Ever-increasing prosperity,
2/ currency faith – the belief that the paper in one’s wallet is money,
3/ institutional certainty – that the stabilizing institutions, established over centuries as the foundations of Western Civ., will continue forever,
4/ world trade that forever supplies cheap goods,
4/ continuous technological advances,
5/ ever-increasing real estate value – particularly, but not only, in the commercial sector,
6/ the gush of credit, either from banks or private sources. Credit is going to become MUCH harder to obtain as asset values collapse – i.e., as there is less capital available,
7/ the end of endless cash for hair-brained climate schemes to stop the sky from falling. The humungous boondoggle of the anti-carbon warriors will gradually fade away to be replaced by an embarrassed silence on the subject,
8/ men and women who like to dress up as the opposite sex. They will hide away their costumes, and
9/ W.E.F. delusions of constructing a new age whereby an enlightened elite (them – stop laughing) lord it over the rest of us. These fantasists are, in some ways, even more batty than the sexual and climate weirdos.
There will be many more changes right across the spectrum of existence as we return to the reality that life was not designed to be easy and just staying alive is tough. The Age of Plenty that we are now exiting was built on the foundation of a deeply flawed faux-money system and political promises based on ignorance of both money and economics. While it worked it was wonderful for everyone. Now that it has stopped working as it was always going to, it will be a nightmare for most – including the self-proclaimed ‘elites’.
The good news is that it is not only the climate, gender and W.E.F. loonies who will retreat into the shadows. Obesity, pharmaceutical drugs masquerading as medicine, mumbo-jumbologists (psychiatrists/psychologists) and the willingness, nay eagerness, to hand the task of individual survival over to governments, along with many other peculiarities of our age will fade into hard-to-believe, historical oddities.
When researching the 19th century Gold standard in England, I was struck by one profound difference between then and now – i.e., between honest money and dishonest money. It was that successful election to parliament under the Gold standard was for those who promised to spend the least. Under an honest monetary system, everyone understood that any government expenditure would, could, only come out of their own pockets. That is why there were so few wars in the 19th century.
We have forgotten that lesson, but are about to relearn it. The bill for the profligacy of the past 100 years has come due.
The next few years are going to be rather interesting.