I awoke yesterday, like most any day and prepared myself to help Meta with the grocery shopping.  It was in those waking moments that I turned on my radio and it started.  The Boston Marathon, exploding bombs and the babble of radio mouth pieces rattling on about numbers of people hurt or killed, legs and arms blown off spectators and atheletes and this and that always changing and thus began the information void.  I was happy this day that I did’t get television, don’t have a digital adapter and don’t get cable so I was spared the constant grinding repition or the images of suffering people.  They’re people I don’t know but people as much as anybody in my home town.  I began to get that unsettled feeling as speculation was substitued for facts and the screams, subtle at first, but they would get louder, for blood.  “Send the Drones,” or “Turn them into glass,”   the rage would build until very late when I finally turned of the radio and went to bed.  I tried to sleep but it was not easy.

In the next 24 or 48 or maybe 72 hours a perpetrater will be named and the only real question will be answered, was this domestic or foreign in origin or just some NUT JOB.  Again there will be a startling lack of factual information.  We will go and kill some of them and in a short few years they will come back and kill a few more of us.  Its been like this for 6,000 years and my better off and better educated friends tell me that there is much less killing today then there was even a thousand years ago.  Maybe I’m just in a better seat, have a clearer view and I can’t figure out why it hasn’t stopped.  I feel lost on days like these.  It is a hard thing to understand when the only way we seem to settle our differences is still some form of violence, I guess we aren’t quite as high up the evolutionary ladder as we like to think.

What bothers me the most, though, is what happened to North Korea?  Weren’t they about to nuke Japan or Guam or South Korea or something?  I remember the count down, North Korea was gonna denotate that or test this on the eleventh or the twelvth and then finally the fifteenth and there was all this talk of what the American response should be.  Well did they  launch something or blow something up?  If they did such a thiing and the media didn’t report it…then did it happen?  Was any body paying attention?  Or maybe North Korea really isn’t that big if a threat.  Just another horror show monster/shadow to make families everywhere a little bit more frightened.

I just wish the global self inflicted suffering would stop.  I gues that’s why I am crazy.

Here goes…

I am going to try to keep this short and simple, so let us see how that works out.  I’d like to preface the following by making a general statement of conditions in which all this WhoHah is going on.  It sees to my uneducated eye that there is a global game of chicken going on.  For those who are unfamiliar with the game called chicken I will give you a couple of examples.

Example #1:  two people race their automobiles directly at each other, head on as it were, at top speed and the first one to desist from this course of self destruction is the loser.

Example #2:  Two people stand side by side on train tracks as the locomotive approaches.  The last one to jump from the tracks is the winner.

In some cases neither contested pulls off or jumps out of the way, and the game ends up with a tie and badly injured or dead competitors.  There are plenty of other ways the game can be played and I’m sure your imagination is an ample tool for the use of finding other examples.

This is a huge, global game of chicken with lots of players which is what makes this situation so intense and adds and element of extra stress and chaos.

1.  Bond Bubble, Gold bubble and Shanghai property bubble…bubbles, bubbles everywhere, everyone get ready to head for the hills.

I’m am far from expert in matters economic but it does seem to me that the American bond market, especially government notes has been high for some time.  High bid price on government notes equals low interest rate and this low interest rate is most obvious in mortgage rates.  What ever growth there has been in housing sales, I think, can mostly be attributed to low mortgage rates since the job market really has not begun to recover in a serious way.  Part of the reason the bond market appears so strong is because the Federal Reserve is buying 45 Billion dollars worth of government notes every month along with 45 Billion dollars worth of corporate notes, also every month.  This buying supports current bonds prices and I would not expect and serious fluctuations in prices until the fed stops buying.  I think the corporate notes stand a far higher chance of going completely bust (Mortgage backed securities, Collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) and other highly exotic toxic instruments).

Shanghai Property Bubble?  Who the hell can tell, China keeps those types of numbers very close to the vest, but even if the real estate market there takes a turn for the worse property is still and tangible asset.  It may be worth less but it will still be worth something.  Its hard to say the same thing about the unregulated market in corporate paper.  In order for some one to go to jail for fraud, fraud has to be illegal.  It doesn’t appear to me at this time that there are any serious laws against corporate fraud.

Gold Bubble?  Again gold will always have some value under a normal economic downturn/collapse.  If I were going to watch the gold market it would be to keep an eye in gold buying habits of the major central banks globally.  Its important to note when gold buying on the behalf of these large central banks, private or public, begins to pick up.  I’ll get to why that is important later.

1. Rumors of, threatening to or actual war.

I think its is important to understand the politics and economics of war.  It use to be that there were these geopolitical entities that were know as great powers.  This would be pre world war two and the great powers were also, in certain circles, referred to as the empires.  The was the English empire, the Dutch, the French empire, the German empire, the Japanese Empire and the two rising empires, the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R..  By the decade or so after the end of world war two all the empires but the U.S.A. and The U.S.S.R. had collapsed. The cold war came to an end around 1989 leaving a one super power world as Paul Wolfowitz one famously phrased it in a new York times article.  In his opinion and the opinion of many others both in government and not, felt that we were the new Roman Empire and we should do everything in our power to keep it that way.  No one used the term or phrase great power any more, there is a word or phrase they use now but rarely do they say it over the airwaves.

 

As economic and social tensions rise expect more tiny squabbles between the Nuclear powers and smaller less well armed countries.  For the record there are a surprising number of Nuclear powers in the world today.  India, Israel, the U.S., Russia, China, England, France, Australia, Pakistan, Belarus, Moldova, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Germany, Poland, The Czech republic, Slovakia, South Africa, Cuba and nominally North Korea.  We live in a world that is beginning to look tri-polar.  The three principal poles being the U.S., China/Russia, and South America (I know it sounds crazy).  The euro Zone or the E.U. is being pulled between The U.S. and The U.K. on one side and Russia on the other and I have no idea how much longer it can take such pressure before either becoming political isolated, note not economic, or possibly splitting between the two.  Also some thing I have been hearing lately is the term the Non-aligned nations.  The phrase sounds like something from a science fiction program on the television.  But this is a real term and apparently there a 70 countries that belong to the is group referred to as the non-aligned Nations.

So expect to hear a great deal of talk about war, there should be a chorus or saber rattling.  The louder and more dangerous sounding it gets the higher the odds they are trying to get you’re attention away from something else.  That is like this deal with North Korea declaring war on South Korea.  We shall see how far this goes…just remember that the U.S carried on joint military maneuvers with the army or R.O.K. ( My friends in the Military who have been deployed to Korea have stated the ROK military forces are some hard warriors) on the southern boarder of North Korea and the U.S. included Nuclear capable B-52s.  How do you suppose North Korea is going to react?  We have already compared them to Hitler with that Axis of Evil statement so I imagine they are a bit nervous.  Military Maneuvers and counter military maneuvers are a way of different countries send in each other a message.

You can choose to send a message the way North Korea did by talking real loud about all the shit your gonna do to your enemies.  Or you can do what the U.S, likes to do which is roll out the hard ware in clear sight and point it at them and say don’t worry its just practice, wink, wink, nudge, nudge.  Military maneuvers were carried out for some time by Iraq before they invaded Kuwait, the U.S. carried out maneuvers before counter invading Kuwait, we carried out military maneuvers before OIF.  We are carrying out Naval maneuvers now in the Persian gulf, there are so many U.S. naval vessels maneuvering in that gulf that it does in crease the risk of and accident.  I know this much, if I was Iran I would be shaking in my boots .  If they weren’t trying to develop a nuclear weapon before they sure as hell are now.  This should be the fare you expect over the next several months starting to  cool down around the beginning of November.  If there is any military action it will be small units being dispatched to deal with small poorly armed non nuclear third world nations, reference, Mali.  Nuclear weapons have permanently changed the way we fight wars.  For the first time certain human nations are capable of destroying everything we recognize as human civilization globally.  Don’t kid yourself either, living in an underground bunker or 90 or more years, depending on how crazy everything gets is no walk in the park.  Human beings don’t get along well with each other when they are both living in cramped conditions and forced to put up with each other’s bull shit.  Hard words and saber rattling between nuclear armed nations is always a real attention grabber.  First the stress created bumps impulse spending up, people just can’t leave it alone, get it out of their heads choosing one of three camps, general, the nuke ‘em till the glow camp, the disarmament camp, and the “end times” are here run for the hills camp.  In none of these cases are the people paying any particular attention to what else might go on.  I myself feel that actual war between nuclear nations is not only highly unlikely but actually could only happen through an accidental escalation.  You’d have to be pretty simple to think that if you managed to survive a full exchange your life would resemble in any way what it does today.  More importantly it violates Arrow’s rational choice theory, in the simplest terms, people wouldn’t be rich any more and that’s un-American.

1. Globalization.

I’ve said it before and I’m going to say it again, Globalization happened.  Globalization isn’t about controlling the masses, population control or violation of a nations sovereign status except when it comes to business.  That means that the Globalists want final say on things like: Wages, Environmental controls, taxes, tariffs, Work place safety or any other thing that might reduce profits as these individuals are all about making money.  If you want to shoot each other fine, they’ll sell guns to both sides, you want to have wild uncontrolled sex with any thing that moves they sell you the cure, you want medical care, they sell you the insurances, you want a car, well they’ll sell you the insurance, the car and the gasoline and it goes on.  But Globalism, which has been in the works since the 1890 here in the U.S and abroad has run into some trouble.  With Global capital and jobs flooding into the third world and developing nations has caused a increase in demand for fuel (Oil, Natural gas, Coal) which has put an upward pressure on prices making the global agenda less profitable.  This combined with the bombing of sovereign nations treasury through the use of “Toxic assets” which water shed down to the State/Providence and even the Local level.  This last 10 or 13 years has been one of the greatest profit taking cycles ever seen in the history of capitalism.  As it becomes more apparent to the average citizen of any country that these few very wealth people have managed to rewrite the laws so that what would have been considered a crime is no longer and there is no longer a normal recourse to affect change they, the citizenry, are beginning to push back.  This is frightening to the severely wealthy as they are way out numbered.  To put it simply Globalism is in serious trouble, and it was such a nice scheme too.

1. Don’t any body blink!

So there you go, we now are familiar with all the players in this huge global game of chicken.  International private banks are playing chicken with the few remaining state run central banks and with governments all around the world.  Governments are playing chicken with each other and their own citizens, private financial institutions and the huge transnational corporations.  And they all are playing chicken with what is left of labor.  I think the biggest fear we have to face is all these military Maneuvers going on, The U.S. and Japan with China making counter maneuvers, The U.s and south Korea with North Korea carrying out counter Maneuvers and threatening nuclear war and the American maneuvers in the Persia gulf with Iran carrying out counter maneuvers  If any of you feel like praying or meditating the work on there not being an accident.  An accident, a mid air collision, a live round hitting a hospital or a military until and everything could easily spiral out of control and no one wants that.  So pray or meditate that there is no accident and pray or meditate that if there is one, cooler heads prevail.

1. The Nexus.

Karl Marx’s most important idea is a thing called class consciousness.  It kind of goes like this, if all the working people, from the top paid to the middle class and the working class down to the poor, the ones who control the 10% realize that they all work and they are not the problem, that they are on the same side and not enemies is when serious change takes place with in any governing system.  The wealthy owners are fully well aware of this concept and use it against us all the time, turning the poor against the middle and the middle against the upper middle, during this process over the last 40 years they have managed to destroy the working class and you guys in the middle should very well know by know they have their sights set on you.  What to do about it though?

1. Voting with your dollars, your heart and at the polls.

There has been a great deal of talk that certain counties, who shall remain unnamed, have been trading resources (Including oil) in something other than dollars.  This is causing a rise in tensions among many people but they forget who has the largest arsenal of Nuclear, Bio, Chemical and conventional weapons and that would be the U.S..  There is no serious threat to the dollar’s status as a reserve currency at this time.  Instead view it as a way of complaining about the situation.  The nation in the best position to out pressure on the players is the U.S.  You can do something similar, like shopping at local stores, support local agriculture…its true that some things this will cost more than by from the global big box chains but when you can spend your dollars locally.  As far as presidential elections are concerned you might as well forget about them, both the Democrats and the Republicans are corrupted when it comes to the office of the chief administrator, instead concentrate on local elections, or you Federal representative or Senator and VOTE THIRD PARTY.  VOTE FOR ANY BODY ELSE.  It is the only non-violent way to affect change at the local and federal level.  Forget the brain washing that a vote for the third party is throwing away your vote.  If you want to see something interesting find an almanac and look at what the congress looked like as far as independents compared to DEMs and REPs during the thirties, the last time labor stood a chance.  Of course if you really want to do something crazy you could always try registering as an independent poll watcher and blogging on it.

1.  Things to watch for:

Global business means at some point there might be a global union or some type of global labor organization.  If you start to listen to anything other than the television you begin to here little comments that indicate that such a thing is becoming a possibility.  This would scare the begesus out of the owning class (All they do is own most everything).  This is a possibility and the one nation’s whose citizens stand in the way is the United States.  As long as we would rather have the screw put to us rather than stand up for our selves there will be no effective global union.   The second thing is economic seizures…watch central bank’s gold buying habits.  If the economy starts to collapse globally you better believe the wealthy owning class have something up their sleeves to keep it from flattening completely.  For if it does these very wealthy people will suddenly be poor and find themselves in the same situations that many of us had to live in, and they don’t want that.  So expect a short bank holiday and currency reform, expect the Dollar to come out on top.  I wouldn’t be surprised as we were on a fiat currency until the 1890s when a similar situation occurred, it was how the U.S. financed that gold debt that allow the Federal Reserve to reincarnate a third time.  So we may again find ourselves on a hard currency.  Of course that may not happen at all.  At that point the only way to  deleverage the economy is to burn a lot of bad paper and some good paper.  GLOBAL DEBT BURN OFF, its been done before except this time it would have to be done cooperatively so that all countries big and small come out clean, though there will still be some public debt.  This will crush small investors, hedge funds, insurance companies and very large individual investors alike.  These groups, at least most of them have to be willing to agree and you better believe the global banking system and those who own the 90% are definitely going to get something out of it.  The rest of us won’t care as once every thing is unwound will have an economy again.

Summation, Things to watch in short….

Mortgage rates, I don’t expect them to rise in 2013 but they might start to creep up slightly after triple witching.

Unemployment rate…Might as well ignore this number…instead pay attention to job creation in your own community, city, county or state.

Food and Fuel prices.  I expect food prices to flatten over the summer and start to climb again after August 1^st…If fuel prices, barrel price for oil, especially starts to climb again its not entirely a bad sign… I’m thinking that oil prices will flatten or slightly decline over the summer but I expect a sharp rise late in the year, possibly December.

Saber rattling…North Korea, China, Iran, Syria will probably bounce from one to the other through the year.. as  point of interest keep and eye on west Africa.  That’s where the interesting stuff will be going on.

Gold prices…especially the buying habits of central banks in the West, and the BRIC nations.

Foreclosure rates and housing prices, I expect housing prices in most areas to remain flat but don’t expect foreclosures to go away.  That whole thing is way to much of a mess and no body in any government agency any where really wants to deal with it…Its kind of like shoveling shit, there is just no way to keep it from getting on you.

As Far as THE GLOBAL DEBT BURN OFF goes I wouldn’t expect it this year or 2014, Maybe by 2016 but most likely it will happen just before President Obama leaves office.  As a lame duck president he is in prefect position to pull something like this off.  No President would do it in their first term because it would be their only term.

Don’t take my word for anything, do your own research an take anything you see, hear or read with a large grain of salt.

As Always, be blessed.