COPYTELE
The name of the Game is: "Scare the slaves into building their own control grid....always was".
"The Financial Times today carries an op-ed asking, ‘Who will pay for the shift from efficiency to resilience?’, with the sub-heading ‘Western politicians want companies to foot the bill for post-neoliberal economics.’
Then factor in lower immigration, (not a typo) work-force losses from Covid deaths, the many suffering from Long Covid, hard-core cryptonites trading at home, lifestyle changers, early retirees, and ‘quiet quitters’ together, and you could get a much tighter, less productive labour market.
Then add in deglobalisation / onshoring, which by its nature is the opposite of what we saw in the 80s; and mix in military spending across the West which *will* match what was being seen in 80s. As noted yesterday, and warned of many times before that, 2% of GDP on defence is not enough: as Germany says it must assume a leading military role in Europe, Poland is aiming for over 4%.
Yet markets are playing the same always-mean-reverting-to-2%-inflation game of DSGE (DSGE.The outcome of any important macroeconomic policy change is the net effect of forces operating on different parts of the economy. A central challenge facing policymakers is how to assess the relative strength of those forces. Economists have a range of tools that can be used to make such assessments. Dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models are the leading tool for making such assessments in an open and transparent manner.)
Meanwhile, it’s a whole different fantasy role playing game in Europe, as Bloomberg reports the EU will push for 10% power reductions going forward. I was one of several voices pointing out the simple logic that if you won’t ration energy by price then you have to ration by diktat: EU month-to-date September natural gas demand is 16% below the 5-year average, but still needs to be more than double that to achieve the EU’s targeted 15% goal, according to some estimates. What diktat is to be seen then, as aluminium, steel, fertilizer, and greenhouse agriculture are turned off? Which unlucky firms, households, or public services, are to be shuttered or limited for the foreseeable future? And who decides - the Dungeon Master? These are pressing questions.
So are those around reported requests for $1.5 trillion to cover margin calls in the derivatives market Europe is being asked to stump up for energy firms – so far. Who is on the other side of those trades? Are central banks (and taxpayers) on the hook for it given this crisis is structural, not cyclical? How large are the liabilities in the worst case? Is this the most efficient way to deal with this energy crisis? Will said energy derivatives market be shut down too, as some suggest? Playing DSGE&DSGE against that kind of real-world volatility really is escapism.
At least Western energy traders don’t have to worry about accidentally mysteriously falling out of windows, like they do in Russia, or off of their yachts, as they do if they are Russian. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t hidden traps around, because there are."
Not sure about that last statement...but disgraced energy executive in the USSA are probably offered the chance to stage a fake death and retire like Ken Lay and Aubrey Maclendon (whose cheap used Chevy Tahoe crashed into an abutment and blew up yielding "unrecognizable remains" He was a billionaire who drove a 2013 raggedy Tahoe....Suuuuuurrrreeee.
The name of the Game is: "Scare the slaves into building their own control grid....always was".
"The Financial Times today carries an op-ed asking, ‘Who will pay for the shift from efficiency to resilience?’, with the sub-heading ‘Western politicians want companies to foot the bill for post-neoliberal economics.’
Then factor in lower immigration, (not a typo) work-force losses from Covid deaths, the many suffering from Long Covid, hard-core cryptonites trading at home, lifestyle changers, early retirees, and ‘quiet quitters’ together, and you could get a much tighter, less productive labour market.
Then add in deglobalisation / onshoring, which by its nature is the opposite of what we saw in the 80s; and mix in military spending across the West which *will* match what was being seen in 80s. As noted yesterday, and warned of many times before that, 2% of GDP on defence is not enough: as Germany says it must assume a leading military role in Europe, Poland is aiming for over 4%.
Yet markets are playing the same always-mean-reverting-to-2%-inflation game of DSGE (DSGE.The outcome of any important macroeconomic policy change is the net effect of forces operating on different parts of the economy. A central challenge facing policymakers is how to assess the relative strength of those forces. Economists have a range of tools that can be used to make such assessments. Dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models are the leading tool for making such assessments in an open and transparent manner.)
Meanwhile, it’s a whole different fantasy role playing game in Europe, as Bloomberg reports the EU will push for 10% power reductions going forward. I was one of several voices pointing out the simple logic that if you won’t ration energy by price then you have to ration by diktat: EU month-to-date September natural gas demand is 16% below the 5-year average, but still needs to be more than double that to achieve the EU’s targeted 15% goal, according to some estimates. What diktat is to be seen then, as aluminium, steel, fertilizer, and greenhouse agriculture are turned off? Which unlucky firms, households, or public services, are to be shuttered or limited for the foreseeable future? And who decides - the Dungeon Master? These are pressing questions.
So are those around reported requests for $1.5 trillion to cover margin calls in the derivatives market Europe is being asked to stump up for energy firms – so far. Who is on the other side of those trades? Are central banks (and taxpayers) on the hook for it given this crisis is structural, not cyclical? How large are the liabilities in the worst case? Is this the most efficient way to deal with this energy crisis? Will said energy derivatives market be shut down too, as some suggest? Playing DSGE&DSGE against that kind of real-world volatility really is escapism.
At least Western energy traders don’t have to worry about accidentally mysteriously falling out of windows, like they do in Russia, or off of their yachts, as they do if they are Russian. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t hidden traps around, because there are."
Not sure about that last statement...but disgraced energy executive in the USSA are probably offered the chance to stage a fake death and retire like Ken Lay and Aubrey Maclendon (whose cheap used Chevy Tahoe crashed into an abutment and blew up yielding "unrecognizable remains" He was a billionaire who drove a 2013 raggedy Tahoe....Suuuuuurrrreeee.
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