The earth moved for me!

In the thread to my previous post, Hank, a regular visitor, suggested I try to smile a little more. Alas, I cannot.  For the first time in my life I am seriously worried.  I really do feel the earth shifting slightly beneath my feet.  I lived through the Cuban missile crisis in the '60s when the Russian fleet moved slowly but inexorably towards the waiting American fleet like two gunslingers walking towards each other in a dusty western town.  That was very definitely a squeaky time but, perhaps because I was a young man and therefore convinced of my immortality, I could not believe that a nuclear holocaust was really going to happen.

Today, I have a different fear.  The current economic troubles with Bank liquidity evaporating, and the price of commodities going up and up, seems to me to be the first minor shock waves preceding a major catastrophe.  Please don't ask me how this will play out, not least because better minds than mine are equally unable to predict the end game.  As a City operator pointed out on the radio this morning, the whole capitalist system depends utterly on credit, and if Banks won't even lend to each other, we are in dire trouble.  It is an indication of the complete uselessness of Gordon Brown that he seems to have thought that he could march the bosses of the big Banks into No. 10 and start laying down the law to them.  They, of course, are as useless as he is and it is their profligate lending (with the encouragement of the politicians)  that has lead us to the edge of the precipice whilst simultaneously earning them huge bonuses.  But in the last few hands of poker to be played before the storm hits, they hold all the aces and Brown has nothing to back his hand except bluster.  He ends up looking like the bluffer he always was and still is.

The high price of commodities is already causing riots in various countries around the globe.  In certain cases the overthrow of some regimes would be an outcome devoutly to be wished for but unfortunately governments brought in via mob action are usually worse than the outgoing rascals.  We are already seeing one malignant outcome from all this 'green cancer' that has spread through the world with the switch to so-called 'green fuels' which is now adding to the shortage of basic foods, so that once again, poor third world people starve so that rich westerners can feel good about themselves.

As the economic noose tightens in this country the effects are likely to be 'interesting' - in the sense of the old Chinese saying that it is a curse to live in interesting times!  Eleven years of New Labour profligacy, which has outdone the Banks at their worst, will now have to end sharply with unforeseeable results.  The unavoidable contraction of the economy and the end of the state's ability to chuck money at problems will have consequences whose outcomes are unpredictable.  As always the axe will fall firstly on those who should be spared such as the armed forces and the prison service, but in the end the welfare gravy-train, too, will have to be de-coupled and the howls of anguish will be deafening.  The sufferers are likely to take political action to make their feelings plain and it is in this maelstrom that the rats will flock out from under the floorboards.  Agitators from the extreme Right and Left (always Brothers and Sisters under the skin) will step forward with instant cures for all of our ills.  Had this been an older Britain, I would not have worried but instead put my faith in our innate sense of orderliness and our recognition of traditional structures to support our society.  But today we have a New Britain whose indigenous population is already so feckless and amoral that it almost amounts to a mob-in-waiting.  Throw into the mix a huge foreign minority whose whole ethos, culture and history is utterly alien to the traditional British way of life and you have the makings for an explosion of mammoth proportions.  In my life I have been wrong about very many more things than I have been right so let's hope I'm running true to form!

Er, have a nice day!

Comments

[dearieme]

I decided that Apocalypse was at hand and took an early retirement offer. At least I got my tax-free lump sum so that I could clear almost all our debts, and got the pension into payment. This may prove to be an ultra daft move, of course; who knows? We've had a decent loft ladder installed so that we can conveniently store tinned food, and we're going to cultivate the kitchen garden more productively. We may eat an awful lot of Jerusalem artichoke soup next winter.

[David Duff]

Shrewd move, 'DM'.

[Tatyana]

Never tried Artichoke soup. I guess, it's possible to eat anything, at the time of shortage...like birch skin or artichokes...

I think I will move to mid-continent. Where they still have underground bunkers, remnants of the 50's, with built-in perimeter shelves for suplies and autonomic alarm system. And it's invisible for Google Maps. Yeah, that would be money wisely spent.
Of course, I'll have to learn how to drive. And shoot rifles. And acquire some useful profession...who needs an interior designer in the wilderness?

[David Duff]

I shouldn't worry too much, Tatyana, I have the distinct impression that you are invulnerable - with or without a rifle!