Financial, Economic and Social Mood Update (July 1, 2018)
The US stock market peaked on January 26, 2018 with the Dow Jones 30 Industrials Index reaching 26,617 on that date. The market dropped 3,272 points by April 2, 2018 which was a loss of 12.3 percent of its wealth. Its value on Friday June 29 was no less than 24,302 – just 8.7 percent off its record high. The American economy and the global economy are relatively robust.
44 percent of the human population on earth belongs to the upper or to the middle class. Part of the global lower class is not what one would term destitute – 34 percent of the globe belongs to the “working” lower class. The bottom 22 percent of the human global population is still largely destitute, being either homeless or in lack of “adequate” shelter.
June’s topic largely dealt with imploding (or collapsing) global human population demographics. Much more remains to be said on this monumental problem – which will be discussed at more length in future monthly updates. Gargantuan changes are awaiting us on the economic and financial fronts as well. Populist political trends are putting an immense amount of pressure upon the post-World War 2 European experiment – the European Union or EU.
The dream for the current EU was born shortly before the end of the Second World War, when the exiled governments of the Low Countries (the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg) met in London in 1944. Adolf Hitler’s attempt to unite and rule Europe by the force of German arms would end in the rubble of Germany’s great capital city of Berlin in May 1945. Hitler’s Germany & its extreme right-wing politics were a very severe “reaction” to what had happened after the disaster of the “Great War” of World War One (1914-1918) – when the great nations of Europe began the collective armed suicide which ended in the rubble of Berlin in May 1945.
The “League of Nations” of 1919 was the precursor to the “United Nations” of 1945. The Western Allied powers handed the former Imperial German Empire (1871-1918) and her Central Power axis allies (Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and the Turkish Islamic Ottoman Empire) extremely harsh peace terms – massive confiscation of land, massive financial reparations, total confiscation of colonial possessions, confiscation of most remaining military hardware, severe restrictions on future military strength and the outright elimination of long-existing nation states. On top of this, Weimar Germany and the other defeated nations of World War One were to be diplomatically isolated from 1918 until the ascent of Adolf Hitler in 1933. The highly destructive Treaty of Versailles of 1919 was in stark contrast to what the Allied Nations had done to Napoleonic France at the Congress of Vienna in 1815 – after Napoleon Bonaparte of Imperial France had launched a world war (the Napoleonic Wars of 1791-1815) in the vain attempt to conquer all of Europe – prewar France had been left largely intact along with most of her extensive global colonial empire…………….at the time second in size to the British Empire. Not surprisingly, Napoleon Bonaparte of France was the number one career idol of Adolf Hitler.
Modern Europe is facing outright rebellion against the Euro currency union. We must remember here that much of Western Europe remains under American military occupation following the end of World War 2 in 1945. Indeed American military forces are stationed in more than 100 countries all over the entire world today. In a sense, this overbearing domination can be seen as the successor to the once mighty British colonial Empire – a continuation of Anglo-Saxon world domination which commenced upon the British defeat of the Spanish Naval Armada in August of 1588.
In addition to being under American military occupation, modern Europe has failed in the sense that it does not include Russia and the former countries of the Soviet Union (the USSR or “Union of Soviet Socialist Republics”). The USSR was the tragic successor to the Imperial Russian Empire of the Tsars, born in the violence of the end of World War One and in the bloody communist revolution of 1917. The murderous government of the former USSR terrorized and enslaved its own people, the effects of this being compounded by Germany’s brutal invasion and occupation of the USSR in June 1941. The USSR eventually ended in bankruptcy in 1991 due to failed communist economic policies and due to insanely high levels of military spending – a problem plaguing the USA today. When the USSR collapsed in 1991, there was initially the hope for an end to the destructive “Cold War” which witnessed nuclear brinkmanship and the “client wars” in the bloodied regions of the Korean Peninsula, former French Indo-China (Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia), Afghanistan, the Middle East and the Holy Land of Israel and Palestine.
The major promise which the United States failed to keep after the fall of the USSR in 1991 was the promise to Russia and the successor states of the USSR not to expand the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) – a military alliance born in 1949 with the dual goal of keeping a defeated Germany down and a larger Russia from expanding westward.
We must remind ourselves that European peace cannot and will not be successful without Russia, and that Asian peace cannot and will not be successful without Mainland China. America’s attempt to “punish” Europe, Russia, China plus Canada and Mexico today with protective economic tariffs is not a good long term idea. We need to stop seeing each other as adversaries or worse, as enemies. Another important thing to remember is that national currencies such as the American Dollar, the British Pound and now the European Euro have served to benefit some countries and to impoverish the peoples of many more countries over the long course of recorded human history.
The only “real” currency throughout the long thread of recorded human history on earth has been gold, and to a lesser extent other related precious metals and minerals. Ultimately the paper “fiat currencies” referenced in the preceding paragraph must go and be replaced by modern electronic money backed by gold. Modern technology such as high technology, IT, MIS, artificial intelligence, crypto-currency and the block-chain is here to stay. The old national currencies are “dinosaurs” doomed to eventual extinction much like the brick-and-mortar retail store chains and small regional & community commercial banks being replaced by the onslaught of innovative high technology.
The new American trade tariffs directed against the likes of Europe, China, Japan, Canada and Mexico may work to America’s benefit in the very short term (merely as a negotiating tactic), but eventually America will only lose a trade war. The optimal solution will be to eliminate all tariffs worldwide and to allow the most efficient people, industries, technologies, businesses and countries to thrive.
The European yearning for continental unification, peace and prosperity (in contrast to the destructive wars of the past) will only succeed if more European countries are members of a united Europe. The two largest countries and peoples of Europe are the Germans and the Russians, and a united Europe must include both of them in order to succeed. Today’s Europe and the Europe of the future are and will continue to be markedly different from the Europe of the past. The overall population has grown much older, with far fewer younger people little population growth. Much of Europe’s population growth in recent history has been due to very substantial immigration from outside of the European cultural realm. Like it or not, these are the stark realities of the modern world. People need to accept this and work constructively and peacefully within its constraints.
Yet another important reality of our modern world is the fact that the time of American dominance is rapidly coming to a close, just as British Anglo-Saxon dominance ended after the Second World War. The major global heavyweights of our time and of the future are first and foremost Mainland China and India. The continent and the people who are leading the world into this common future are Asia and the Asians. Just as Europe has no future in the absence of excellent relations between Germany and Russia, so the world has no future without excellent relations with the People’s Republic of China. Like it or not, this is reality. Remember this – fully HALF of all physical goods on earth are now manufactured in Mainland China. Global energy consumption is not much different. China has been home to the world’s number one automotive market since 2009 – and that market is now almost double the size of the world’s second largest automotive market (the USA).
The meeting of the American and the North Korean governments in Singapore for the first time since the cease fire of the Korean War in 1953 is a first step in the right direction. Other attendees of this all important meeting included the governments of both South Korea and Japan. The meeting of the American and the Russian governments in Helsinki, Finland in July 2018 is yet another step in the right direction which will hopefully lead to a more cordial and trusting relationship with Russia. All important issues on the table will include armed conflict in both the Ukraine (the Donbass region) and in the Holy Land (Israel proper, the West Bank of the Jordan River, the Golan Heights, Syria and Iran). Armed conflict must end, military occupation must end and economic sanctions must end. Remember that so-called economic sanctions never harm the political leaders of any society – the people who pay the high price for economic sanctions are the common people.
