Thursday, 21 February 2008
Now we are getting somewhere...
Wednesday, 6 February 2008
ISM Nonmanufacturing Index Will Narrate Deflationary Collapse
entertainment business, and construction, dropped off a cliff
yesterday, and is certainly the one to watch for signs of radical
deflation. Having no faith whatsoever in its "accuracy" should not
deter us from reading it for nervous volatility, and even signs of
aphasic silences. The reason is that this index seems to track a
peculiar variety of dying simulacra in the global economy. What do
real estate, financial services, hollywood, and the construction
business have in common? They rely for their livelihood on
controlling access to "skills" and "values" that are either mired in
crisises of self-doubt or are rapidly democratizing as we speak;
respectively: location (real estate), capital growth (financial
services), entertainment (obviously), craftsmanship (construction).
If learning to live means learning to be skeptical enough about these
"skills" and "values" to be able to chose either to become good at
them or resist their hegemony, then this whole sector will be well
and truly done-for - at least in its current modality.
What of manufacturing, then?
Sunday, 3 February 2008
Impossible Probabilities
Bullish on Depression
"But overall, subprime loans were designed for, and snapped up by, the poor. According to a recent study from United for a Fair Economy, 55 percent of subprime loans went to African Americans and 17 percent to whites. Among whites, they went far more frequently to low-income people than to the wealthy -- 39 percent compared with 24 percent."
What do you call it when the poorest people in society cost the elite over 2 trillion dollars in a few short months? When they cause so massive a deflation that houses become affordable for the first time in a generation?
Localize food and energy production(oil scarcity may yet do this on its own), globalize cultural production (internet, etc.) and its all over. The economy - if we can even call it that - would be wholly unrecognizable. Feudalism or a green and free utopia? Neither, probably.
Things are suddenly looking slightly more Jeffersonian than Marxian - which makes me very nervous.