killing the pound

So the Bank of England have just 'created' £75 billion. That's over £1000 for every single person in the country. So is every single one of us - babes in arms, benefits scroungers, zimmer warriors, my ex-wife - each going to produce another £1000+ in added value?? Of course not. So what will happen is that our money will simply inflate to make up the gap. Pointless.

This is a transfer from savers to losers, from those that work hard to those that are work shy. This race to the bottom is pathetic. It's terribly un-British so no surprise that the tories and the BBC both love it. Oh, and the stock market, that has risen over 3% today. Well of course, because that's where all this extra 'money' will go to. They are a bunch of idiots, all those that think this is 'good news'. In reality it's a disaster.

I read a disturbing piece yesterday froma  US investor who reckons the following European countries are in real danger of collapse. Greece, Italy, Spain, Ireland and Switzerland. Yes, Switzerland! And why? Because they are fiddling their currency. And once people - both in the country and outside - lose faith in their currency then that currency, and country, are fucked. I suppose he'll add the UK to that list today.

So what IS needed?

The first thing is to accept that growth is finished, now and probably for the next few thousand years, until we can create a proper, solar powered economy. So policies that are supposed to 'kick start' growth are a complete waste of time and energy.

The second step is to link the value of our currency to the amount of gold (and silver and copper) that we own. Then our currency should actually be MADE out of this resource. Inflation will vanish, digital money will be a thing of the past, and we will at last have sound money that everybody wants!

The third step is to build a transport system based on rail - railways, even High Speed lines, tramways, industrial lines, ultra light systems - anything that can be powered by electricity or wood-burning steam. Oil will vanish over the next few decades, cars will never be viable again, and air travel will vanish completely. New businesses can then grow up around these new transport systems, giving us an edge over countries that are still tied to oil.

The fourth and final step is something that has to happen inside all of us. Forget a 'career', forget becoming a 'celebrity', forget some sort of natural 'progression' that burns through energy and resources and just leaves you feeling unsatisfied and unhappy. Instead concentrate on acquiring some land, acquiring the skills to make it provide an income, learn how to defend it, get your own water and power laid on, and start building the community around you at the same time. Or become a nurse, teacher or tram driver - professions with a future.

All the rest is, as Arthur Seaton will affirm, propaganda ...

will the chickens be coming home tomorrow?

This was going to be a post on stupidity based around formula one, but today's market developments mean I really do need to allude to them as well! So I'm going to try to struggle through the anaemia and diabetes and hay fever and attempt to blend the two. Don't judge me harshly ...

This appeared on Facebook the other day -

Please vote, we don't want another sport on Sky

Keep F1 coverage on the BBC for ALL races from 2012

Oh dear! I thought it was 2011, not 1961!  

So I responded - very meekly for me!

I love the idea that there's a whole alternative world out there where oil isn't running out, where there will be constant economic growth and where something as unimportant worries people! The idea that there will be anything resembling car racing in ten or twenty years' time is hilarious!

Amazingly this came back to me -

Clearly you know absolutely nothing about the sport, which for a non-fan is to be expected. If you took all the fuel from the cars for the year, and stuck it into a jumbo jet, you wouldn't reach New York with it. The FIA perform a series of initatives to try and keep the sport sustainable, balancing out the carbon effects. Additionally, road cars are now significantly safer today because of past developments through the sport - the energy recovery used in F1 today could have significant benefits for our road cars in the near future. Indeed, London Transport are in discussions with Williams GP regarding their fly-wheel energy recovery.

I suppose you'd have us all passing our free-time by knitting wooly jumpers, and watching cookery programs? I could only suggest that you report back immediately to the drugs company, that the trial batch they sent you last week has caused your brain to malfunction.

Oh dear - I appear to have rattled a hippy's cage!!

Let's analyse this.

Clearly you know absolutely nothing about the sport, which for a non-fan is to be expected. If you took all the fuel from the cars for the year, and stuck it into a jumbo jet, you wouldn't reach New York with it.

Really? I did ask for a source for this amazing claim, but obviously none was forthcoming.

Well I checked and here goes - A fully loaded 747 carries a maximum of 63,705 U.S. gal which is sufficient for an almost 8,000 mile range. Shorter trips or less cargo and it would carry less fuel.

So let's be unscientific and say that it's 4000 miles (discounting the lower fuel weight resulting in even better fuel efficiency) so say 32,000 US gallons.

The average F1 car has an 80 litre tank.

32,000 US gallons is 121,000 litres. This allows 1500 trips full tank to empty tank.  There are an average of 17 F1 races a year. So this will allow 88 trips each race. So I reckon he could be right - but I'd love to see his original source.

However of course the actual fuel used during a race is a tiny proportion of the fuel used to keep the whole show going ie transport from track to track, support vehicles and, most importantly, the fuel used to get punters to the racetrack! This is why EVERYBODY should be taught basic economics at school!

The FIA perform a series of initatives to try and keep the sport sustainable, balancing out the carbon effects. Additionally, road cars are now significantly safer today because of past developments through the sport - the energy recovery used in F1 today could have significant benefits for our road cars in the near future. Indeed, London Transport are in discussions with Williams GP regarding their fly-wheel energy recovery.

This looks like classic Greenwash to me. Amusing that this most unsustainable of 'sports' has to resort to it, but none of this is 'sustainable'. The end of cheap fuel and the eventual end of all fuel (for cars) will see to that. Our poster totally misses the point, then really descends into one ... and I love the idea that he thinks there will be road cars in the future!! Someone clearly hasn't had their Peak Oil moment yet - what a shock he's going to have!

I suppose you'd have us all passing our free-time by knitting wooly jumpers, and watching cookery programs? I could only suggest that you report back immediately to the drugs company, that the trial batch they sent you last week has caused your brain to malfunction.

Oh dear, here we go! What the fuck is going on in his head here? I think that because I've gently pointed out a few inevitabilities that he thinks there's some agenda here! There obviously isn't, he's probably confusing Peak Oil proponents with those scummy environmentalists. The last sentence is pure stupidity, and although he doesn't know me I suspect he'd want to retract that if he was aware that I need to take around 30 pills a day just to stay alive. Hippy moron!

So from the ridiculous to the sublime let's look at some of the events that have happened in the real world.

A week or so ago those bloated oddballs that run the EU, together with the dipsticks that run Greece, came up with a plan to keep the Greeks in luxury and indolence. 'Kicking the can down the road' is the phrase most commentators have employed to describe this money juggling.

But even I didn't expect it to blow up so quickly. The contagion has moved to Italy and probably Spain. This will pull the Euro apart and push the world back into recession. But what did we expect? Permanent recession now seems to be the only way forward, until we finally all realise that growth has finished, not for good but probably for at least a thousand years. We've obviously reached Peak Oil and those idiots and hippies in power haven't allowed for it. Some of them still talk about growth as if it's an option. It isn't. Once energy and commodity inputs start to level off and then fall all those caught with debt are NEVER going to clear it. That applies to individuals, families, companies and countries.

So we need a radical reappraisal NOW, not this constant nostalgic fiddling with a system that has died. How long will the politicians take to realise it? I don't know but those who understand it the quickest have the best chance of surviving this and taking their countries with it. There's not one British politician who gets it yet, at least the US has Ron Paul!

So, what next? The same advice as always - clear your debts, buy seeds, hand tools, gold, silver and land. Learn real skills and crafts that don't need energy inputs (other than elbow grease) and start putting down deep roots in your community.

the death of banking

We have a retarded government. They don't have a clue.

The economy has changed forever. Yet still, like the nostalgists they are, they are looking backwards for answers. We got in this situation because people had become hooked on credit and had lost touch with their roots. If you earned £100 you spent £120, and your foolproof investment, your home, would always make up the shortfall, because everybody knows that house prices only ever go up.

Oh dear. This was never going to work was it?

So what are our dear 'leaders' doing now? Are they going back on the gold standard, encouraging us to grow our own food, pumping billions into developing and expanding our rail and tram networks, looking for energy indepdence, increasing interest rates to encourage savings and encourage banks to lend? Are they reducing the money supply to restrict unsecured credit? Are they fuck! They are doing the exact opposite.

I'm more convinced each day that this is the crisis preceding Peak Oil and that the economy can't be mended because the fundamentals have shifted. I might be wrong, but everything this 'government' does seems to make it more certain.

the quick death of the pound

It seems incredible that the pound is plunging so quickly - but it was forecast months ago by those in the know.

The fact is it's now about 95% certain that the UK will (at last!) join the Euro within 1 to 2 years - if the EU will let us.

Why a third world pisspot of a country like the UK needs its own currency is a mystery to me. Most of us travel, live or work in Europe these days, we've become Europeans over the last ten years, thanks to Easyjet, the better weather and Brits turning their backs on racism and other socialistic conceits.

The Mail/Guardian knuckledraggers have always whimpered that it's because we'll no longer have the queen on our coins. Sadly that's not true as the pattern coinage above proves. The other monarchies within the EU all show their monarchs heads on their coins, why wouldn't the UK? Or do the Mail/Guardian types really believe all the baa baa black sheep/English flags banned drivel?

Even the Euro is a currency of its time. As Peak Oil takes hold then the flight to gold will become unstoppable, as will the development of parallel local currencies, such as the Totnes and Lewes pounds. And I still fancy the Swiss Franc, the ultimate local currency!

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 ...

interesting times

What the fuck is going on? How could apparently professional people, some with an economics background, drop interest rates by 1½%? It's madness - and here's why.

The banks are cash poor, that's why they are not lending to each other, let alone anyone else. To increase their balance sheets they need to draw in cash - and lots of it. To get that cash they need to offer high interest rates. Interest rates should be going UP, not down.

The second part of the equation is that the world is in an economic mess because of cheap credit. Yet our idiot government's cure is - make credit cheaper.

This is a potent moment of danger for the UK.

Those companies that depend on cheap credit, rather than cash reserves, should GO TO THE WALL, not be bailed out by this weak government.

Again, to flourish, hold gold, silver, oil shares with value, land, skills, seeds and friends. This is going to get a LOT worse.

Also posted to future economics

reality bites!

It's been fun watching the markets the last few weeks. As an economist this has been a once-in-a-lifetime experience, history as it happens. (It helps being debt-free, renting, out of stocks and into gold and silver!)

But what does it all mean? The USA's slide into socialism has been as surprising as it's been amusing, watching the rednecks having to confront the results of their love of debt and ignorance by using the tired old techniques of Lenin and Roosevelt. It's pathetic watching it.

Meltdown will not be averted no matter how much cash is thrown at the system. The old debt-financed globalised consumer 'capitalism' will die. In its place will arise REAL capitalism. Businesses funded by savings, run on a small scale from sustainable premises, sending their goods to market by train, tram and canal, utilising local currencies and hopefully not being taxed to the hilt by unimaginative bureaucratic self-appointed governments. That is what the post-Peak Oil world will look like. Who knows, this may even be the beginning of the end of global warming ...

morons

The Bank of England fucked up again today. They didn't raise interest rates.

To rebuild our shattered economy after 20-odd years of Credit Cruncher abuses aided by craven governments we need to rebuild our national balance sheet, and the best asset class is cash in a strong currency. We get that two ways - by building a strong industrial base that underpins a strong currency, and by encouraging our citizens to be thrifty and SAVE. We're not going to do that with interest rates so low. My money's going into gold, silver and land, REAL money.

These fuckers still haven't learned the lesson. We need economists running the country, not idiot politicians whose only interest is in keeping the sheep grazing.

Expect REAALY bad economic news over the next year or two, and to avoid it just read this blog!

watershed, bad weather, weddings, cash

A few more shots of progress on the garden railway! Next job is to build the garden wall.

Oh, I'm getting married on Saturday!

We bought a nice little escape chalet today, hidden in the woods near Clevedon, a little wedding present to ourselves. The aim is to make it just about self sufficient in water, power and food.

We had October style gales last night that played havoc with my potato plants. A little warning that no matter how carefully we plan for Peak Oil Climate Change can still kick us in the teeth!

My strategy of renting, investing in gold and silver and not having any debt seems to be paying off now that the long-expected credit crunch is hitting home.

I'll be back in a couple of weeks ....

the new reality

Britain's new reality is starting to take shape. Falling house prices, 38% of adults frightened they can't repay their debts, petrol and diesel starting to become expensive, the spectres of unemployment and inflation on the horizon.

The lucky ones are those who rent and have no debt, who have recession-proof businesses and have stored at least part of their wealth in physical gold and silver. And the clever ones are already positioning themselves for life in post-oil Britain. A life of tools, networks, gold, silver, trees, skills and books. The crunch is now only a few years away now, you can see the signs of decay everywhere.

The real clue is costs. Watch everything get dearer in step with the rising costs of energy. We're seeing socialism re-emerge as people start to doubt their own ability to get through it. The lorry drivers are the arch communist scum at the moment, begging their government to subsidise their idiotic and anachronistic lifestyle.

There's no point in turning to 'government'. It will collapse everywhere as the costs continue to rise and as chaos enters the system. We all need to harden ourselves for the tasks to come and build our communities - no government is going to help us, they'll hardly be able to help themselves. We need to build our localised, solar-powered economies and if necessary create local defence forces to stop the hippies, socialists, peak-oil deniers and middle-class losers from trying to butt in.