Friday, January 04, 2008

Happy New Fear

A New Year naturally enough brings a new crop of calamitous predictions of what’s going to happen in the next twelve months

So far this year, I’ve especially enjoyed this piece in
The New York Times (thanks for the link LP)...


In 2008, a 100 Percent Chance of Alarm

You’re in for very bad weather. In 2008, your television will bring you image after frightening image of natural havoc linked to global warming. You will be told that such bizarre weather must be a sign of dangerous climate change - and that these images are a mere preview of what’s in store unless we act quickly to cool the planet.

Unfortunately, I can’t be more specific. I don’t know if disaster will come by flood or drought, hurricane or blizzard, fire or ice. Nor do I have any idea how much the planet will warm this year or what that means for your local forecast. Long-term climate models cannot explain short-term weather.

But there’s bound to be some weird weather somewhere…


ripped from LWTC247


I also enjoyed reading this article in the
Washington Times on the growing phenomenon of SJS, Sudden Jihad Syndrome...


'Sudden jihad syndrome' poses domestic risk

Sympathy for al Qaeda has produced "sudden jihad syndrome" in domestic terror cells unaffiliated with foreign terrorists and people seeking to carry out attacks in the U.S., a law-enforcement intelligence analysis says.


The Dec. 6 report by the Texas Public Safety Department's Bureau of Information Analysis warns officials not to dismiss individual or homegrown terror cells as "wannabes," saying they pose a credible threat to homeland security.


"Oftentimes, these attackers are dismissed as suffering from mental health issues, but their own words and writings reveal an affiliation with Islamic supremacy or an affinity for Islamic extremism," said the report, which was distributed to federal, state and local law enforcement in Texas. "As a result, law enforcement should not be too quick to judge their attacks as having no nexus to terrorism."…



Sadly, I suspect that only one of the two articles quoted above is a spoof

-

As well as the now traditional scary New Year Man Made Climate Change and Terror!! predictions in the mainstream media, we’re also now being treated to a higher dose of Impending Global Financial Meltdown than we’ve been accustomed to in recent years…

Apparently, it’s just as well that the world is getting warmer as millions of us are about to be kicked out of our houses

And even if we manage to hang onto our homes we couldn’t afford to heat them anyway

Because, you see, all the oil is just about to run out

That’s why, apparently, the price of oil has just nicked $100 a barrel



apparently, the gold is running out too…



and the Euros, they’re in short supply as well apparently…



and Roubles…


In fact, the only commodity the world appears to have more of than it needs is dollars and, increasingly, pounds

But They still keep printing the fucking things

There’s no doubt that supply issues are affecting the price of certain commodities. However, as the mainstream media is doing virtually without exception, to make reference to commodity inflation without referring to the fact that the Fed, the Bank of England and the ECB are stealing from us all by devaluing the worth of our savings and wages by printing money like there’s no tomorrow is an outright and calculated lie.

If fresh, steaming horseshit were traded on an international exchange I could knock up a graph of the dollar price of that rising over the last three years as well

And, as we all know, there’s definitely no shortage of that


You get a lot less horseshit for your dollar these days...

.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Damn Stef,

I was on our wonderfully underpriced tube coming back this evening and reading one of the bearish articles on the housing market.

What pisses me off the most is when they predict the sad news that house prices are falling and then tell you the other sad news that first time buyers can't get 'on the ladder'!

Excuse my less than Christlike outburst but WTF?! So supermarket cuts prices and that's a good thing but low house prices isn't?

Oh and thanks for making it harder for me to save but easier for me to bend over and allow you to shove another great unaffordable loan up my arsehole!

Stef said...

Houses will be cheaper by the end of the year but that won't be much comfort to budding housebuyers and savers as everything else is set to be a lot, and I mean a lot, more expensive

Excuse my less than Christlike outburst but WTF?!

Actually, not less than Christlike at at all.

The one time he is recorded as losing his rag and slipping from nonviolent to violent mode is when confronted by the money changers - arguably the act which precipitated his execution

Christ was not a big fan of usury

So, rest assured that outbursts in this context are scriptually sound

Anonymous said...

I would diagnose Los Americanos with 'Syndrome Creation Syndrome'. And quite a case of a chronically syndrome, that is.

Anonymous said...

Hmm, has anybody considered that, instead of all these things going up, it might be that the dollar is going down ?... or has everybody become so americanised that they can no longer figure that out for themselves?

S

Anonymous said...

Just slightly connected...

Stef said...

@tony - good one ;)

@anon -

Hmm, has anybody considered that, instead of all these things going up, it might be that the dollar is going down ?... or has everybody become so americanised that they can no longer figure that out for themselves?

well quite

and the answer is not everyone - there are lots of people swopping their dollars for other currencies or hard assets - it's just that the English-speaking media isn't talking about it very much. Resource depletion is their story and they're sticking to it