Sure, we can get to the details about deflation and how the market is going two do in a moment.
But before we go there, check out the story out of the UK on how old people’s profiles are being put online so that care givers can make bids on how much they will charge the UK government to take care of them! Another step toward Soylent Green.
Maybe I am just overly sensitive to the perversions of government and computing because I’m been focusing so much research time lately on what I call “compunism” – which is what happens when computers take over from what used to be thinking humans.
Once upon a time in the world, being a senior was a sort of badge of honor. You got to be old by making the right choices. And there was either loving family to live with at the end of the work life, a small two bedroom home on a few acres for gardening…you know, the kind of death with dignity of storybook lore.
No more. Now, in crass computer-driven Life, we see oldsters being auctioned off as revenue sources where we’re pretty sure they will save some money for government, but not without some great personal sacrifice – starting with their pride and dignity – in the Unemployed Kingdom.
Lest we gloat, it will be here soon enough.
Uber/Google
Not like Compunism is well-understood, though. The fact that capitalism, communism, and almost any other “ism” you can name is being superseded by computer-driven variants (hence my word “Compunism”) even some of the best and brightest don’t fully understand the collision.
Take the NY Times story about Google – which put $250-million into Uber – the taxi replacement that’s head-on with Lyft.
Both Uber and Google grok future well…it’s just that in the end, we have to wonder if Uber will see its human resource be reduced to computational transport with the Google autonomous car program?
Who needs a driver when you have a processor?
And, in the meantime, we stand by projections made some months back that precisely this kind of unexpected displacement will drive structural unemployment past 30% before 2025 and that leaves The Big Policy Question No One Wants To Ask (TBPQNOWTA):
“Who will pay for all this crap?”
The answer – which I’ve been explaining for years – is simple:
Machines must be taxed.
Not on their unit output, but on how many humans they replace. Otherwise, in a 100% automated world, there’s no way to pay the social costs and the world falls apart.
Which is it likely to do, anyway…
Angela’s War Flight
The German Chancellor(ette) is in Washington this morning where she’s going to tell the Golfer in Chief that it’s time to bring back Cold War Rhetoric…saying that Vlad Putin has his eyes on the rest of Eastern Europe.
Not that that she’d be wrong, except, let me think here…
Wasn’t it whatshername over at State who was passing out cookies to Maiden a little over a year ago in order to stir up the shit in the EUkraine so that the Merkelites could find another fool to rope into the Ponzi Scheme that is the EU?
So what now?
Well, Merkel has a plan it seems to bump up defense spending to help the German economy recover because the word DEFLATION is showing up all over hell and gone.
China to surpass EU and North America by 2017 in the industrial robot race.
And while one Google headline said A tidal wave of global capital is looking for safety, Merkel would be pleased to see some of that go to Germany.
And why not? War has always been a growth industry.
But don’t mind me…I’m just pointing to a possible housing bubble collapse in New Zealand as still move evidence that global deflation isn’t just a story in the news flow: It is the story.
Unless…
You want to see how the Swiss HSBC folks are being screwed to the media wall for helping all those tax cheats for all those years.
Life Under Compunism: Data-Shopping Climate
Not to drive the point underlying most news too deeply today, but here’s another data shopping story about how the “crisis” in global warming is just data-shopping at its finest.
Put PhD. after your name, walk in with stacks of “data”…who’s going to review the model which is so complex the authors don’t even know how it works?
Still, if the compunists at the top of the computerized social order need a global tax, let’s call it a crisis and all pony up.
If you’re not up to speed on how data-shopping works on climate, go read this bit from Climate Depot and the linked article:
Just marvelous, huh?
Compunism Explains It All
Yep: Industrialism, capitalism, communism, humanitarianism, socialism…all the “isms” you care to list are all being swept away before our eyes the the pervasive computing reality is now online.
And it explains why humans are acting a bit wonky including what?
Fifty Shades of Grey: Surge in adventurous shoppers looking for sex toys, lingerie and bondage gear
I’d tell you that computers are driving humans crazy.
But then that would be beating my point, wouldn’t it.
Markets in the Meantime
Dow futures are down 80, gold and silver up. Baltic Dry dropped down to 554, so a huge market decline will be along later on this winter or spring. Or not. The computers haven’t told us yet.
Tax machine? We are unable to tax the wealthy in this land & these days so that’s not going to happen.
“War has always been a growth industry”.
War, like fracking pays well but is best played in someone else’s back yard.
Deflation is GOOD for people on fixed or small incomes – Inflation is bad. Deflation is BAD for investors (especially with the deflated value of the dollar) – inflation, getting bigger and bigger and more costly – good for investors – Wall Streeters and Banksters making more money – can hand out dividends – and who cares if people don’t have jobs – just invest in the companies and live off that.
My understanding is that Merkel “stands alone”. That is to say, the Deutschgov is pro NATO/anti Putin while the corporations that create the wealth that feeds the Deutschgov are very, very P.O.ed about the impact all this posturing / sanctioning is having on their bottom lines. Who will win? Stay tuned.
Is it a matter of Directorate 153 leading with the data output or the data output leading Directorate 153? If the input data is with rigged or false data then the output would not square with real observation. The GIGO problem is a multiplier. Garbage in, Garbage out.
To quote Hommer Simpson, ” There are three ways to do things. The right way, the wrong way, and the Max Power (networked) way. Which is the wrong way…only faster.