Wednesday 27 October 2010

and the winner is...

China!





"Paid for by citizens against government waste": waste?! 40 or 50 years too late.


Carpe diem!

the lateral gearbox


If round doesn't sove it, think square!




Carpe diem!




Thursday 14 October 2010

Do you know Liu Xiaobo?

Last Friday, October 8th 2010 the democratic activist Liu Xiaobo received this year's Peace Nobel Price. This is where he lives, a prison in Jinzhou, North-East China:


British media as most international does not cover much about the country he lives in and really not much about him - all in comparison to the country's size, its influence, its role, its power; the usual headlines are related to the suppression of journalism, shut down blogs and a bit more about the US trying to convince China to appreciate its currency, the Renminbi, better known as Yuan. Here is the reason why:



Unbelievable $1,600,000,000,000 (some sources even say 2,5 trillion) and no debts, no interest on debts, no sovereign bond crunch but pure investment potential, isn't it? The difference makes it twice as much!

China is pouring another $7bn (£4.4bn) into Brazil's oil industry, reigniting fears of a global "land grab" of natural resources. (The Independent)

And the UK is trying to cut some £5bn and close down a number of quangos just because sovereign debts, bad banks and interest payments are killing us; they question our creditworthiness while at the same time our industrial base is shrinking following the US model of neo-liberalism for the last 40 years. Yet, China is back on track:



This is all we (can?) do:


Question: Do you miss Mrs Merkel?

Answer: Germany does not really want to applause its hardest competitor China while it is copying same in taking advantage of an artificially depressed currency (€) allowing it to boost Exports and create another economic miracle; however, this time this miracle is neither sustainable nor will it last very long.


The trend is back to normal, a downward spiral for the US and the rest of the world while China invests in anything possible - including land which you hear and read not much about. China's severe protectionism not only covers for example its currency but also its land which is state owned, so one might be able to lease it, but an individual will never own it. So even China itself goes shopping for land and more elsewhere:
While much of the developed world is baulking at its debts in the aftermath of the financial crisis, China has continued a global spending spree of unprecedented proportions, snapping up everything from oil and gas reserves to mining concessions to agricultural land, with vast reserves of US dollars. (The Independent)

What will be the impact on the Pound once the wars on labour, resources and markets are united in what will be one global trade war sparing no currency and no asset? We might well see a soaring Pound, that's not optimism and won't last that long either, but one or two or three currencies out there will be loosing the war for the weakest one and will (have to) play the counterparts of what will be a crushed $, € and/or ¥. So we better prepare ourselves for rough times to come pretty soon where imports will include a big portion of inflation and challenge our industrial base; rather, what's left of it.


By the way, this is Liu Xiaobo! Why "by the way"? Just because I think that Liu will share the same experience as the Dalai Lama did when he was rewarded the Nobel Peace Price in 1989: nothing changed and China moved forward.


Carpe diem!

Saturday 9 October 2010

coca-cola zero: aspartam: E951

Max Keiser and his latest idea:








...and here is another reason why this seems a good idea:





Carpe diem!



like a dog without a bone...

Into this house we're born,
into this world we're thrown...


Take a long holiday, let your children play...


There is a storm coming up; nobody will tell you as nobody knows, wants to know or wants you to know: 

There is a storm coming up, we will call it an unprecedented one but it will simply be the storm accumulated by the endless and interdependent crunches we caused, cause, watch, and fail to solve even one single one of.

There is a storm coming up which will be our generations' perfect storm and manifest our failures perfectly for the future generations to learn from: hope will die thereafter!






Riders On The Storm lyrics
Songwriters: Krieger, Robbie; Densmore, John; Morrison, Jim; Manzarek, Ray;

Riders on the storm, riders on the storm
Into this house we're born, into this world we're thrown
Like a dog without a bone, an actor out on loan
Riders on the storm

There's a killer on the road, his brain is squirmin' like a toad
Take a long holiday, let your children play
If ya give this man a ride, sweet family will die
Killer on the road, yeah

Girl ya gotta love your man, girl ya gotta love your man
Take him by the hand, make him understand
The world on you depends, our life will never end
Gotta love your man, yeah

Riders on the storm, riders on the storm
Into this house we're born, into this world we're thrown
Like a dog without a bone, an actor out on loan
Riders on the storm

Riders on the storm, riders on the storm
Riders on the storm, riders on the storm



Carpe diem!



Sunday 3 October 2010

$ € £ ¥: it is forlon hope!

I know it seems like currency related topics are taking over, even this blog that would rather discuss solutions to our lives' sustainability issues than what is forlorn hope, anyway; but I should, at least, mention today being a special day for Germany and the rest of Europe.

As expected China does not miss any chance to stay on top of the game and therefore will help Greece with a €3.6bn fund designated to buy Chinese ships. Interest will be ultra low, so Greece will be able to undercut international shipping rates running the latest state-of-the-art-ships even more. China gets its money back which is nothing else but those USD bonds which the US are printing, printing and again printing - in what obviously are totally uncontrolled but desperate processes (from 3 minutes in the video becomes really painful for Madame Inspector General for the Federal Reserve Coleman!):



Yes, the video dates back to 2009, March; but yes, the ECB, the BoE and the BoJ are all busy sucking up (their own) bonds, approving dozens of Bad Banks while pressing return, return, return - nothing else but the modern, though very green alternative, of printing money ponziing the scheme!

That wouldn' bother me too much; what really bothers me is the fact that while some countries seek their rescue in printing, others print and at the same time implement cuts that threaten social peace while all the custs of this world won't catch up with what is thrown into black holes and banksters' pockets.

This could all be cut short: new banks, new money, corrected rules, all said already long ago! Alone, now it needs new currencies as well! So, what's next? The longer we wait the more damage will be done.
The human races' stupidity to not being able to keep pace learning while progressing is closing in on the worst case scenario.

But then there seems to be one country on the edge of a continent, far away, one human race, that understood the rules and regulations of what it was allowed and invited to play with faster and better than all the others combined: China! The one and only global player which has now, watching its rivals' disintegration, decided to spur domestic demand to stabilise economy.

The rest is putting funny text over aging generations' hymns.




Carpe diem!

Friday 1 October 2010

it is the race to the bottom...

Finally some experts and insiders are taking this currency war for what it is, a race for cheap labour and a war on jobs! From 2:45 it starts to become interesting - but you read most of the arguments earlier in this blog.





It is a matter of time, only, until the Pound will be effected. Latest when one of the PIIGS fails or Germany can't sign the next cheque it will become dramatic, really volatile and totally unpredictable. Of course, they will try to delay this as long as possible because once they fail German export will be collapsing. The big players have taken all precautions possible, the rest will have to shrink and fight for survival.

Carpe diem!


trade war or tradewar?

Following yesterday's video on Peter Schiff and his "so funny" look at repaying debts I received a video (Newsy) on a number of experts discussing the possible consequences for the US economy caused by the Levin/Yuan Bill; it being bark or bite?





All true, but late, very late, somehow too late, isn't it? Paul Krugman puts it into the right context but then even he is coming in 76 minutes past twelve with his wisdom.

Trade war? Fine! In its "cold" and unlimited form this goes on ever since the ones that are now called Neo-Libs have started to globalise what was global anyway but controlled; true, often over controlled, i.e. protected by rules and rights, by duties and customs, export and import regulations. With other words, the Neo-Libs shot way beyond what was supposed to describe "open markets" but eliminated all controls; they banned protection leaving everything and anybody unprotected and highly praised  the "free markets' society" as the master of all religions.

There is some parallelism in the procedures and methods to how the biggest nonsense..., the EURO, was born and imposed upon a bunch of economies that couldn't be any more different and had proved so ever since 1949. Still, the EURO was a means to a similar end.

In what one could describe a joint-venture like community of interests the Neo-Libs joined up with the guardians of those emerging markets that offered the most liberty, i.e. possibilities. Above all China (PRoC) with its reddish-brown regulated paper currency and negligible social rights and cost offered all of that and more and was/is paradise for transferring jobs boosting global payers' margins; at the same time they allowed know-how, formerly utmost protected and safe guarded, to cross all borders and contracts at will but by purpose! Here is an example of how openly China follows its aims today! There are many more examples from toys to clothes, PCs to mobiles, airplanes to trains. And then there is the military expense.

Don't anybody think that this is to criticise China or blame it of being unfair or suchlike! The opposite, think about the path China took the last two, three, four decades - sure, invited and supported by those who trade(-d) in coffin ships, that sold our assets and souls - but with China taking every single opportunity to climb the stairs unflinching and fearlessly mutating from what once was a farming Red China into the number one work-bench, exporter and financier of the world; if one digs deep enough one will find China amongst the top three, max five, in any of the races for any kind of resource from energy to ore and food to water, not to forget: land.

So a bill accusing China of predatory currency policy is the one and only globalism joke; I hear China laughing but thinking while not expecting to be paid back. It is all very old news and if anything it underlines the impotence of a  desperate world power choking on its accumulating failures and its professional and/or ignorant and/or seduced politicians competing for a warm seat.

If the problem was to be really addressed it had to be a global approach to same setting global rules - something that neither Brussels wants to address in reference to the EU and an imploding EURO nor the US and its Neo-Liberal intelligence dislodged far from Joe Blow.

That's how near or far we all are from globalism.


Carpe diem.