Interesting Times

The notion that we are living in a simulation gains traction whenever you take a good look at the world around us.

It's hard to imagine that human beings can be so stupid as to repeat the same mistakes over and over.

After all, past generations have made every mistake possible in the hope that we won't have to. And yet, if you look at what's going on now, its apparent history has experienced it all before.

That means we have a pretty good idea of how it ends.

Soggy government eventually collapses and it replaced by a crunchier one. Wars tend to escalate until the level of destruction sees one side or another say the price is too high. Debasing currency through excessing spending and too much debt destroys the financial system.

In every scenario, the end happens much more suddenly than many predict and the resultant hard times tend to spur a return to the virtues of old.

That's what I expect to happen in the next decade or so. Hard times will wake us up to the incredible folly of recent decades.

That folly has accelerated in recent years as we are now told to deny truth, science, religion and our own senses when they don't fit with the elites vision.

While the foolishness of mankind does seem cyclical, like the perpetual rerun of Seinfeld episodes, it's more likely to be because of human nature rather than being part of a Truman Show experiment.

You see, each generation knows less about the past than previous ones.

Hence it doesn't take long for the lessons of history to be dismissed or simply disappear.

Policy failures of yesteryear are rekindled and some new recruit declares it wasn't done properly then, so this time it will be different. It seldom is.

In more recent times, the 'ideas' are increasingly desperate, as the need to cover up the sins of the past becomes greater.

Everything you thought you knew, about politics, current affairs, leadership and finance appears to be crumbling before our eyes.

Those we trusted the most turned out to be the biggest liars, colluding with others to keep us in the dark.

It's still happening, and while most attention seems focussed on the political environment currently, there are dark financial storms brewing in the background.

While stockmarkets hit record highs and economies are supposedly buoyant, there's bailouts, rate reductions and special financing taking place.

These are signs that things are not good behind the scenes.

Some suggest that a major bank is in severe financial stress (akin to 2008). Fingers are being pointed at Bank of America or Japanese bank Norinchukin. If one or the other collapses, the ramifications will be felt globally.

There are also whispers behind the curtain that some very big hedge funds are caught on the wrong side of the China trade.

It was in 1998 that Hedge Fund Long Term Capital Management threatened to bring the financial system to it's knees. That could easily happen again.

Of course the whispers could be all wrong, or they could take many months to play out, but it does seem the public front is hiding some forthcoming financial pain.

“History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again."
Maya Angelou