wake up call – Dreamyoga

While the world is caught up in a Bruce Springsteen “Glory Days” rose-tinted-sepia version {drama} of what America might once again become, not much is moving forward. The capitalist evangelist nation has admitted it is no longer competitive and is thinking sanctions to protect its internal markets. Your average American is unwilling to work for the same pay as someone less corpulent.

The war in Ukraine and the barbarity in Gaza continue apace. The world watches, sits on its hands and talks but does not. Humanity is very stuck and harping on about the Glory Days will not help no matter how many Bud Lights you refuse to drink. There has been no genuine lead from the USA for near a decade. Unsurprisingly the economic miracle foreseen by the Brexit soap-boxers has not propelled the UK into becoming a world economic superpower. Cunning plans may not be well thought out.

There is a huge leadership vacuum in the world today.

In my opinion humanity is need of an almighty wake up call to re-start the “save the planet” agenda and to overcome the for profit climate change nay-sayers. The equation is simple choose to be “comfortable” now and do fuck all, then pay very dearly later. This manifesto will get you elected in a “popularist” sense.

Here we have decided to see if it is possible to get anything done to ameliorate my hips. We have decided not to attempt to sell and move. The idea being that two new hips is about a year if the waiting time is a few months. I can’t find data on French wait times. Nor do I know if it is even possible. At the end of the month, we shall have a little more information. Best guess is the earliest operation would be after the summer. If it was UK best case scenario is six months wait with up to two years possible / probable. I could spend a huge chunk of remaining life savings and get it done privately in Hampshire, near the ferry port.

At the moment we are on hold and in limbo. Things are up in the air with no answers. We share that stuck-ness with the world. The news on television is very repetitive, a daily Groundhog Day. I don’t care who is on Love Island nor what percentage of GDP the UK will devote to defence.

Humanity needs an almighty wakeup call…

When Israel launched its revenge attack on Gaza last year, I predicted that maybe 2% of the Gazan population would be killed and this figure has already been surpassed. There have been more that 5% injured. Apparently, this kind of slaughter is “allowable” without much adverse comment to the contrary by western leaders. 7% of the population killed or injured does not meet the criterion of genocide, according to some.

If not, what does?

If you would have asked me five years ago if this kind of slaughter could happen in our times, I would have said no because it was beyond my ken that a highly armed power would be allowed to kick the living shit out of an impoverished and nearly defenceless neighbour. The giant kills the minnow, the bully beats up the unpopular geek who dared to answer back.

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It looks like Putin is winning the war of attrition in Ukraine. They are running out of men to draft. The Russians know attrition better than any – Stalingrad.

As the year draws to a close, I am not optimistic for 2025.

The paradigm of governmental borrowing to finance public expenditure is looking ever shakier. Living on tick is not a great idea. Several countries like Zambia, Argentina, Bhutan, Japan, Greece, Sudan, USA and UK have national debt in excess of GDP. {IMF sourced} France too.

The populations in Europe and parts of Asia age and the demographic time bomb of too few children per woman is ticking ominously. There simply is not enough money to sustain our current ways of life.

People want popular policies to get into power, but there ain’t the dosh. Harsh decisions are avoided and put off. It seems humanity is very blinkered.

Orange-boi is mooting a trade war, his credit rating is probably worse than China’s. He has caused several of his own businesses to fail, six bankruptcies. I am not sure that these wars are a good idea and I do not trust his judgement. I understand that he may like chaos.

USA GDP is ~30,000 billion, current account balance is about 1000 billion in the red. There could be a cash flow problem for them. It is paying around 3% of GDP in interest close to 1000 billion dollars. Government revenue is ~ 10,000 billion dollars per year, government expenditure ~ 11,000 billion dollars. That is a 1000 billion overspend.

UK GDP is about 3500 billion dollars and current account balance is overdrawn by ~ 100 billion dollars.

These figures are beyond my ken. 100 billion in aid to Ukraine from USA does not seem to much but it is ~1% of revenue.

I am not sure that loan financing for vanity projects is a good idea.

Cash flow problems are difficult to solve and markets are very jittery.

When things move too far from equilibrium anharmonic behaviour sets in and some non-linearities come into effect. What these may be is beyond our ken. A downgrade in credit rating means more expensive borrowing which if funded by more borrowing is not a virtuous circle.

A number of key figures are exhibiting flakiness Yoon Sook Yeol and Macron with his unneeded elections. There are a lot of instabilities. Where is Merkel when you need her?

My pet theory is that because of increased climate change induced “disasters” household and auto insurance will increase substantially and may become prohibitively expensive. Ours has gone up by governmental decree! Because of insurance costs, places will become inhabitable which will raise house prices elsewhere. People have already mooted that the French might move North to places with a milder oceanic climate like Brittany.

Governments already straining financially will increasingly struggle to mitigate and clean up. The blame game will be played when everyone is not ready to take responsibility and make the necessary adjustments to their life “style”. It might impede their Instagram story.

My gut feeling is that the shit must really hit the fan before people will even begin to countenance radical change.

The scale of what may lie ahead is beyond our ken. What people are doing is crossing their fingers and hoping for the best. There are climate change deniers who like the sound of their own voice.

The rule of thumb is that when you are in a hole it is best to stop digging. Hoping for the fairy godmother whilst buying some more semi-automatic assault rifles will not stop tornadoes or floods.

My guess is that humanity is heading for a really profound wake up call which will be beyond our current ken.

Tag: wake up call

Stuck, On Hold and In Limbo

Beyond Your/our Ken?