Saturday, December 31, 2011

Global Climate Change and Fear and Greed

I suppose it is logical if one just looks at it in terms of supply and demand and basic survival of individuals, families, and species. But, the world actually living through it has been much rougher.

If you look at all this historically it makes the best sense. But, through the eyes of those who have lived it day to day it has been somewhat horrific. I'm trying to think of the best place to start writing about this. It is easy to explain it in terms of what is happening now and harder when I try to put it into historical perspective. So, maybe the best place to start is with the Australian Droughts of 2006 and 2007

Drought in Australia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drought_in_Australia
Jump to Responses during 2006 and 2007‎: The current drought has changed the way Australia treats its water resources. Because of the long-term ...
Droughts in the 19th century - Drought in the 20th century
end quote.
 So, when this happened and it dropped the worldwide supply of grains from 130% of worldwide need to about 110% of worldwide need, this completely changed the dynamics of how food was distributed and priced worldwide. It created a situation where panic was created in the poorer 50% of countries around the globe. This fear spread like wildfire into the upper 50% of income countries and made them think twice about how they spent their money as well. People in the upper 10% reinvested and became less apt to give to charities and started to invest more in gold and Oil and other "Safe" havens. It created a chain reaction that led towards people being more aware of "Surviving" and keeping money socked away in safe havens. This kind of fear then led to the Subprime mortgage collapse and Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns

Bear Stearns - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lehman Brothers - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

which eventually led to people getting underwater in their mortgages and "walking away". This in turn led to banks stopping loaning money and the collapse of "Credit Default Swaps" worldwide.

Credit default swap - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This just made the Global credit problem worse because now banks no longer trusted each other because Credit default swaps were private and were not regulated which endangered not only banks but all businesses, corporations and individuals.

This made U.S. Business who has socked away 2 trillion dollars in profits to not reinvest them because of the instability not only in the U.S. but also abroad. There was no real safe haven anywhere so Businesses large and small in the U.S. laid off 9 million or more people and held onto their money so they might survive until all this blew over (if it ever did). 

This only made common people more freaked out because now people under 30 years of age even with college degrees and student loans couldn't get jobs and started defaulting on their student loans. But if all they had was food stamps while living with their parents in a basement somewhere there wasn't much they could do. So now, we have the student loan system in our country creating bankruptcies right and left in the under 30 (and over 30) crowd of graduates. Next, out of frustration all the people who couldn't find jobs with or without college degrees organized into the Occupy movements in cities worldwide (in at least 1000 cities worldwide). Where all this will take us is anyone's guess at the moment.

But there is another side to this as well. As the number of jobs decreased nepotism (giving jobs to family and friends over others) has increased exponentially worldwide. So, minority groups lost out in this divide and black unemployment has skyrocketed because of this as well. Also, since 75% of the wealth of the middle class in the U.S. was in their homes, when a whole group lost their homes to loss of jobs and adjustable rate mortgages and being underwater about 50% of the wealth of the middle class was lost nationwide and likely throughout Europe as well. This created new problems as whole tracts of houses were abandoned throughout the U.S. Homeless people or drug addicts moved in and sometimes destroyed these houses. Then banks began bulldozing houses to reduce the liability of homeless people and drug addicts burning down these houses or worse.  All this in turn made banks want to loan money even less.

So now, the world, rather than being wealthy, giving and magnanimous has now become afraid, stingy, socking away money, and as a result of this many people are doing without food, clothing, shelter, sanity etc. worldwide. And lastly many many millions of people worldwide are dying of starvation, lack of shelter, lack of clothes and lack of pure and clean water. It is said that up to 10 million people this year worldwide will die from all these things. And as this becomes more widely known it is only going to make all peoples more stingy and socking their money away in more extreme ways. So, what is the solution? Spend money if you can afford it on products or services made in your own country. There is nothing that will help your local area and country more at this point than doing this. So, whenever possible, buy local and support your friends and family and locality wherever that is.

I realized when I went back and reread what I had written that I hadn't put down some of the latest examples of Global Climate Change and Earth Changes:

2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami - Wikipedia, the free ...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Tōhoku_earthquake_and_tsunami
The 2011 earthquake off the Pacific coast of Tohoku (Japanese: 東北地方太平洋沖地震 (Tōhoku chihō Taiheiyō oki jishin)), also known as the 2011 Tohoku ...

  1. News for 2011 philippine floods

  2. USA TODAY
    1. Philippine floods death toll is nearly 1500
      CBS News - 4 days ago
      Flash flood victims cross a river after receiving relief goods in Iligan city, southern Philippines on Christmas day Sunday Dec. 25, 2011. ...
      774 related articles
    3. Philippine Floods Put Popular Leader to Test
      New York Times - 175 related articles 
      end quotes.
      All these problems just this year prevented the manufacture of cars and electronics and other things worldwide. The Thai Floods have continued from about June or July into December 2011. The problems of radiation about 20,000 people dying and the loss of 24 hour a day Electricity for large companies has greatly affected the quantity and quality of cars coming out of Japan and the quality and quantity of electronics coming from all parts of Asia and around the world. Because of our mutually interdependent business community worldwide now, these three events were like throwing a monkey wrench into the worldwide gears of business everywhere. This also increased the cost of doing business which has to be passed on to the consumer at a time when the worldwide consumer can least afford it.

      So, as you can see from all the gathered facts about Global Warming, Fear and Greed worldwide that maybe the only way out of this is to spend a little of what you have socked away for what you really need. Don't spend it all, keep a lot for the rainy days to come, but spend enough, (like many of you did this Christmas) to bring, life, food and hope to your economies around the world, so people feel there is hope so one day even the poorest can have a job and money to spend for food and clothes and shelter for their families too.

      Here is another good source for more information on the Financial Collapse:
      Late-2000s financial crisis
       

Also,  at the above site at wikipedia of Late-2000s financial crisis I found the following on the number of companies that collapsed. Though some car makers are shown as collapsing that is misleading because they were temporarily taken over by the U.S.  Government and now are mostly thriving except for Saab at present.

 

 

 

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