“Only when the last tree is cut, the last fish is caught, and the last river polluted; when to breathe the air is sickening, you will realize that wealth is not in bank accounts and that you can not eat money.”

attributed to Alanis Obomsawin, 1972

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There is a slow dissemination of information explaining the 2008 economic meltdown and the hidden mechanisms that led up to the disasterous situation.

I’ve stood infront of the Shah of Iran, the presidents of Indonesia, Ecuador, Panama, members of the Royal House of Saudi Arabia and I’ve said something like, ‘In this hand I have millions of dollars, for you and your friends if you play our game. In this hand I have a gun, in case you decide not to.’ Now my words were more diplomatic than that, but that was the message.

Perkins, John.

Iceland was of course one of the first countries to go in the 2008 meltdown.

And some say that we are the canary that went into the mine. We were the one that crashed first and should we come out alive then there will be hope for others. And we have come out the other end. And some people say it’s brilliant how unbelievable the recovery is but if nothing changes in the structure itself – it’s not a revolution, and there is nothing great about it. Of course we can resample this Frankenstein monster that just goes on and trashes the earth, and makes the rich more rich. And in the end there’s just going to be a hugh revolution where you know, war or something.

“Reykjavik Rising“, 2014.

To know what is happening now, it is important to remember the mechanisms that were used after the 2008 housing crash, and what effect they will have in the future.

It was back in February of last year that Micheal Burry first warned of high inflation as a consequence of the Fed’s (Federal Reserve Bank) unprecidented money printing. He was tweeting “prepare for inflation, hashtagging doomed to repeat”. And calling out the US government and the Federal Reserve over the trillions of dollars worth of stimulus they had done. […] Fast forward twelve months and we are now running at a red hot inflation rate of 8.6%. […] But what is very interesting is that in the past month or so Micheal Burry has not just been doing victory laps, instead he has been tweeting quite extensively explaining why he believes this economic crisis and subsequent market downturn has only just begun.

“Michael Burry‘s Warning for the 2022 Stock Market Crash“

SOURCES

“Four Horsemen“, 2011. Renegade Inc. Accessed Jan. 17, 2022.

“97% Owned: How is Money Created“, 2012. Independent POV. Accessed Jan. 17, 2022.

“Reykjavik Rising“, 2014. Conscious Collective. Accessed Jan. 17, 2022.

Perkins, John. “An Economic Hit Man Confesses and Calls to Action“, 24.06.2016. TEDxTraverseCity, online lecture. Accessed May 21, 2022.

“Michael Burry’s Warning for the 2022 Stock Market Crash“, 15.06.2022. New Media, online video. Accessed June 22, 2022.

CREAM; Cash Ruins Everything Around Me.

It’s great to see Nick Leeson, a banker that was almost singlehandedly responsible for the fall of Barings Investment Bank while he was living in Singapore in the mid-1990s, talk about “More control, […] and regulation”. Anyway whether you agree with big banking or not he explains that they need more quality regulators to sort out what the financial traders are cooking up in terms of financial instruments. These financial instruments work within the bounds (or grey areas) of the laws and regulations whilst earning the traders large profits. I guess if the financial sector would want to regain the confidence of the general public; financial managers should be held publicly accountable for the losses they have caused the general public and through transparency the public should be informed about what kind of constructions should be avoided in the future.

Tech savvy entrepreneurs take back the network during the Occupy New York movement. They had developed a software / hardware solution to wirelessly network and spread information.

It seems like a very obvious next step for the makers that they develop a portable polling station to improve the accessibility of local voting on issues for instance in an area of a city. Imagine if at the general assembly demonstrators would have been allowed to vote via a server, it would be ingenious and empowering at the same time, minimizing the headache of direct-democracy and making decisions on the spot.

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The following info graphics serve to explain the different aspects of the current global economic crisis in understandable language. Basically governments are over-borrowing to pay for the different facets of government; war, bank-bailouts, economic bailout packages, along with the regular costs of running countries.

When the debt to GDP (ratio to debt) of a country gets too high they have to continue to finance the interest on the government debt, leading to a deficit in national income. GDP being the ‘gross domestic product’, the amount of income per capita (citizen) that a country generates. Eventually the debt gets too high and this means that the country can either default or print more money (causing hyper-inflation).

The system is based on secrecy, because if it was clear how much money major countries are in debt then the financial / investment markets would become unstable, giving the governments unfavorable credit ratings, causing investors to move to other markets and generally causing economic decline. An integrated facet of the current school of economic thought is that the economy must continually be growing in order to pay off the ever growing national debt. If the economy would reach a no growth or decline situation than the interest on national debt could no longer be covered by national income (unless taxes were raised). However a continually growing economy is an irrational thought because the earth and her resources are finite, eventually leading to a no growth situation (which is predictable and agreeable). In this leveled off or no growth situation national debt becomes impossible to pay off. The current economic paradigm is therefore impossible to sustain.

The American 2007 (+/-) homeowner crisis

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Japan’s 2012 Debt Problem Visualized

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Food Speculation

Less to do directly with the crisis but more so about the nature of international business on a large scale. Our current paradigm and system allow for economic exploitation at the cost of regular citizens.

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Current events are unfolding Athens, Greece as a reaction to austerity measures.

Meanwhile Iceland (and their handling of the 2008-2012 economic crisis) has it’s own wikipedia entry.

Futura2000 gives an interesting interview about events early in his life.

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“The Zeitgeist Movement – Orientation Presentation“, 2011. The Zeitgeist Movement. Accessed 22 Jan. 2022.

“Zeitgeist: Moving Forward“, 2011. The Zeitgeist Movement. Accessed 22 Jan. 2022.