fool prices

(Copyright Steve Sainsbury Collection/Rail Thing)

George Osborne - yet another socialist trying to keep consumerism going. Pathetic. Why are British politicians so frightened to let the price mechanism determine the pace of the change from oil to renewables? Why keep subsidising gormless motorists rather than let the market dictate quicker pick up of mass transit development and change the amount we drive?

And what do you make of the BBC giving air time to idiots (of the conspiracy theory persuasion) whimpering that garages put up fuel by 1p a litre yesterday morning as if they had foreknowledge of what was probably the biggest surprise in the budget? What world do these dickheads live in and why do the BBC pander to them?

So the idiocracy continues to get ludicrously cheap petrol, still go for growth and still push their bullshit conspiracy theories.

Never have I felt so needed or wanted!

the new consumer reality

Shopping just after Yule is always a bit of a soulless affair but this year seems worse than ever. Okay, the above is Woolworths, but even a trip to Tesco today revealed empty aisles, tat on every shelf and just a general air of despondency, almost as if the average person in the street really has finally realised that the old consumer society - pointless socialism writ large - has vanished almost overnight.

JJB's seems to have closed down overnight. Other units on the same estate remain empty after two years - you have to wonder if they'll ever be let.

Something doesn't ring quite true with this recession. Despite just a tiny percentage drop in output, everything seems to be shuddering to a halt.

I had rather hoped consumerism would continue for another ten or even twenty years, just to allow us to get prepared for the change. Luckily my business is unaffected, I trade worldwide and offer a fantastic service, so if anything I'm busier than ever.

musing

Woolworths and MFI go bust on the same day. Mad allahs go on the rampage in Mumbai deliberately targeting UK and US citizens. What's going on?

Gold and silver look like they are starting their staggering climb as money floods out of equities and into real cash.

Suddenly in the US and Europe the suburbs are beginning to die, their shops dying, their businesses collapsing and the social fabric, once held together by the glue of rising house prices, easy credit, conspicuous consumption and cultural marxism, falling apart quicker than one can document it.

And this is only the beginning. But is it the REAL beginning? Has the 'economic' crisis cloaked the real crisis that we all know is coming. We expected the end of consumerism and easy living (socialism) to be heralded by oil shortages and/or terrible climatic disasters. But the economy, in all its subtlety and cold-bloodedness, is calling the first shots, the 'externalities' ignored by your middle class shits manifesting themselves like this (looming depression) rather than through the glamour of fist fights on the forecourts or hurricanes in the home counties. They are coming, it's just we'll be more shabbily dressed than I was expecting ...

cabot circus settles down

We popped to Cabot Circus yesterday. It has improved enormously from our first visit. The crowds are down and the shops are just about empty. The restaurants are busy still, and that was what we went for. Until Cabot Bristol city centre seemed almost devoid of decent eating places. Now we're spoilt for choice.

These developments are a problem for all forward-thinking people. The leftie scum are anti any sort of consumerism and will condemn absolutely any development. The hippies are so apart from normal people that they can't even grasp the concept of somewhere like Cabot.

The real forward-thinking people, the grounded working class right wing greens, know that places like this are LOVED by 95% of the population. The 'problem' is to make them sustainable and stay relevant to the communities they serve. Providing a cosmopolitan eating experience is one step, getting rid of all those crap shops and replacing them with hardware outlets, sustainable energy shops, seed stores and all the other stuff we'll need in the future is the next step. And for fucks sake GET A BLOODY TRAMWAY RUNNING TO IT AND THROUGH IT!

Also posted to future economics

comment

Oh dear! When things are chugging along calmly Panther churns out post after post, but when the shit hits the fan I'm much more likely to be watching the news, Bloomberg and the markets. And what a week or so it's been! First Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch, today it's Lloyds possible buy out of HBOS. The markets dither and don't always reflect the long term reality, but the drift is down.

So what's the long term view? My own faith in capitalism will never be shaken, but I'm glad that we're beginning to see the end of this Thatcherite socialist populist 'capitalism', that's really just consumerism for sheep fuelled by cheap credit and tat. I think this is the beginning of the end for so-called 'globalisation' and a robust rebirth of genuine, small-scale, artisanal capitalism, funded by wealth rather than debt. The death of the dollar (and many other fiat currencies) is getting closer by the day, the death of pointless jobs will follow and the growth of the family as unit of production is on the rise. Our towns and villages will begin to fill with shops, business units and real people, our railways will be reinstated and energy will be produced in the UK, not imported at high prices from stupid places like Russia and the Middle East.

This is a major, pre-Transition, change to our society, and not before time.