I suspect this will be a busy blogging day. If I can (figure out how to make the recorder work) I will make some recordings and (if I can figure out how to make blogger work) I will post them as MP3s.
If not …
There is some controversy about the usefulness of meetings such as this. Keep in mind that our ‘transition’ – voluntary or otherwise – is a cultural phenomenon more than an economic one. Beware the temptation of power: the reflex is for the establishment effect top- down ‘solutions’ and for citizens to accept them. There is the hubris of the Federal Reserve and the other central banks attempting to ‘defeat’ deflation all by themselves, by the simple means of issuing currency.
Ditto with the so- called ‘tech solutions’ that emerge from the auto and power industries. Nissan or Honda cannot ‘solve’ the energy issues with new models, which are nothing but re- engined versions of old models. The issues is whether there should be Hondas or Nissans at all along with all that goes with them. This is a matter than must deeply penetrate public consciousness and can only take place after frank public discourse.
Right now, the discourse is tentative. The industrial world is in a race with the devil. The time for effective public discussion and its proper framing is shrinking fast. Events will determine outcomes. The failure of politics- as- usual has been sweeping the issue under the rug for so long.
The best comparison is with slavery in the 19th century. Changing well entrenched social structures – mending historical errors – requires public conversation. Slavery became a part of the public conversation long before the Civil War, before the English ended the slave ship trade in 1848 and before the Constitution was enacted in 1787. Slavery’s moral unsoundness was completely exposed to the light of day by years of public conversation prior to the Emancipation Proclamation. Henry Ward Beecher and other abolitionists, John Brown and other radicals, the Stephen Douglas – Abraham Lincoln debates and ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ were part of the public dialog.
The same process is taking place now in the areas of climate change and energy conservation; the morality of destroying the home planet for transient ‘convenience’. The public conversation includes the ASPO conventions.
The conversation is the necessary ‘bottom up’ uncovering of solutions as opposed to ‘top down’ exercises in hubris.
With this in mind, the amount of QE that has already entered the economy as evidenced by the galloping gold price seems to be having the predicted effect in unemployment:
ADP: Private Employment decreases by 39,000 in September
Private-sector employment decreased by 39,000 from August to September on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to the latest ADP National Employment Report® released today. The estimated change of employment from July to August was revised up from the previously reported decline of 10,000 to an increase of 10,000.
The decline in private employment in September confirms a pause in the economic recovery already evident in other data. A deceleration of employment occurred in all the major sectors shown in The ADP Report and for all sizes of payroll.
Unlike the estimate of total establishment employment to be released on Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), today’s ADP National Employment Report does not include the effects of federal hiring — and now firing — for the 2010 Census.
Note: ADP is private nonfarm employment only (no government jobs).
The consensus was for ADP to show an increase of about 23,000 private sector jobs in September, so this was way below consensus.
Steve Keen first made the correlation apparent and the causation linkage is also part of the conversation. If I am right, more QE – the Fed’s attempt to ‘solve’ deflation single- handed – will backfire. Even more so, adding base money inflates asset prices which are not available to those at the bottom of the economic food chain. Bernanke risks turning deflation into depression – which is class war by other means.
Playing with fire, here …