The global stock markets' big dump yesterday has long-frustrated Bears salivating. Everyone knows the market has traded up for months on thin volume and heavy intervention by the Federal Reserve, so it makes a certain sense to expect the markets to cascade downward once the charade ends.
Bureaucratic complexity leads to a death-spiral collapse; self-orhanizing complexity retains the assets of complexity and the adaptability of organic networks.
Rising prices driven by speculation is not the same as organic inflation, and diverting national income to the banks will not create organic inflation.
My longtime friend G.F.B. recently asked me: "If you really expect the dollar and the financial system to collapse, why not max out your credit cards and live large, knowing you'll never have to pay the money back?"
Regardless of their ideological persuasion, pundits and politicos reliably repeat the mantra that "small business is the engine of jobs growth." The mantra is followed by the pundit-politico's belief that a "small business jobs boom is right around the corner."
Here is "the story" about the current state of renewable energy, oil and the relative importance of the Mideast supplies of oil. I think these charts are self-explanatory:
A 10% rise in food prices in a household that spends 10% on food (a typical upper-middle class U.S. household) results in a "statistical noise" 1% increase in the family budget. In a family budget with 40% devoted to food, a 10% increase in food meaningfully crimps household spending. A doubling of food prices would be catastrophic.
