globalized money

After 9/11, when President Bush urged Americans to do the patriotic thing, help the economy by going out and spending up big, it irked Lanie that most of the spending Americans did was enriching China and all the other places that our manufacturers had offshored to and she couldn’t see how this was helping us.

"We were told that all the dollars China gained from selling us stuff we didn't really need to buy -- but bought anyway because that's what we were told to -- were coming back to us in investments," says Lanie, "and while it was nice to know, sort of, that the Chinese were investing in our country, it isn't so nice now, in an economic meltdown, to realize that we now longer own our own country.”

"I'm upset that the rest of the world sees Americans as greedy monsters who deserve to suffer an economic meltdown," says Lanie. "The housing bubble and the bailout may not have occurred if Bush hadn't urged shocked Americans after 9/11 to spend up big and incur debt in order to save the economy and the free world."

"It wasn't greed that fuelled the debt, it was patriotism."

"Back in 2001 we were already in an economic slump due to the dotcom bust," explains Lanie. "Hundreds of thousands of people had done their dough investing in dotcoms or had lost their jobs, and if nothing else 9/11 mobilized the country into patriotic action."

"Massive military recruitment drives sopped up the patriotic unemployed, and the rest of us did our bit for Uncle Sam by doing as Bush urged us to do -- go out and spend up big!"

"Had 9/11 not happened, I think Bush and his neocon cronies would have trumped up some other fearful event to whip us into shape," explains Lanie, "because the economy at the time was heading south big time."

"What really irked me was that, apart from housing, all the spending we did enriched China and all the other places that our manufacturers had offshored to -- and I just couldn't see how this was helping us."

"We were told that all the dollars China gained from selling us stuff we didn't really need to buy -- but bought anyway because that's what we were told to -- were coming back to us in investments," says Lanie, "and while it was nice to know, sort of, that the Chinese were investing in our country, it wasn't so nice to imagine that these investments were also being used by Bush and his cronies to fund the invasion of Iraq, line their pockets and do other nasty stuff."

"Anyway, it was the housing spending spree which really did us in," sighs Lanie. "After we had maxed out on our credit cards buying plasmas, electronics and whitegoods we were encouraged to take out equity in our homes to buy more stuff -- in our case a new kitchen and bathroom – and then the sub-prime balloon mortgage industry popped up to encourage poor folk to buy houses they had no hope in hell of ever owning and we started to become worried."

"We were happy to use equity in our home to improve its value -- it was our home, after all, and we intend to live in it forever -- but when the speculators moved in, churning sales for a quick profit, taking advantage of poor folk, and causing house prices to spiral way beyond their true value it was the end of the line."

"Houses are like food -- basic necessities -- you don't mess with them, and if you don't have a job and can't afford them, they should be provided gratis by the state. Isn't that what all enlightened democratic countries do for their poor citizens?"

"Sure, some Americans are greedy monsters just like some people are in other countries, and because we have a bigger population than most countries there are, unfortunately, proportionally more greedy monsters here," says Lanie, "but the vast majority of Americans, like elsewhere, are decent people who are appalled at the financial mismanagement of this country since 9/11."

"When Bush told us to go out and spend, we naively believed that it was the patriotic thing to do," sighs Lanie. "We were all in a state of shock after 9/11 and if getting into debt was what we had to do in order to save our country from terrorists bent on breaking our economy and world trade, then that's what we had to do."

"Greed didn't motivate us to spend up big and get into debt, patriotism did," says Lanie, "and as much as most of us disliked Bush, we trusted that his administration knew what it was doing."

"I blame the Bush administration and weak regulation for the mess that we are in right now," says Lanie. "By encouraging us to spend, and get into debt, the perfect conditions for exploitation were set up."

"Unfortunately, not all Americans are patriotic and, in encouraging a spending spree, the Bush administration created a lot more greedy monsters to crawl out of the woodwork and prey on us," explains Lanie. "And, in a global economy, greedy monsters everywhere were also sucking the dollars out of us."

"If we had been told to save and invest in our country ourselves, like the Europeans do, China wouldn't now just about own us," says Lanie. "Our national debt is mind-boggling and I fail to see how printing more money to bail out the banks is going to help."

"On a personal level, I am angry that money that we could have used to pay off our mortgage was spent, instead, on increasing our debt via equity release," says Lanie. "Sure, we have a nicer home now but a bigger slice of it belongs to a bank which, for all I know, may be controlled by some guy in Asia who is just waiting for us to lose our jobs in an economic meltdown and default on our mortgage payments before foreclosing on us.”

“Has anyone ever wondered who is going to buy up all the foreclosed houses at fire sale prices?” asks Lanie. “Immigrants, that’s who’ll buy them. And most of them will be wealthy, cashed up Asians who grew rich on our so-called patriotic spending.”

“That’s globalization for you!”

global oil demand ends easy life

Now that peak oil is coinciding with peak demand from the new global giants of China and India, Kitty is glad that she sold her car and relocated to a cheaper home near public transport years ago but she fears that what remains of her good life is about to come to an abrupt end due to an upcoming global battle for the last barrel of oil (that the West won’t win).

"We've been warned for decades that we're heading for a fuel crisis but nobody believed the boffins or did anything about it -- least of all the government -- we were all so hooked on oil and the easy life,” says Kitty. "Global Big Oil and Auto lobbies must have paid an awful lot of money to stop the government from putting laws into place encouraging alternative fuel sources and modes of transport. Either that, or these lobbies are secretly run by foreign powers who deliberately engineered our demise so that they can take over.”

"I learned the hard way (tech bust job loss before 9/11) that driving my own vehicle is a luxury, not a right or a necessity, and I think a lot of people -- not just low income earners -- are now going to have to face that fact, too."

"With the suburban sprawl spawned by car ownership and cheap fuel, heaps of people are now in trouble because they live too far from public transport."

"Suburban house prices are already rock-bottom thanks to the subprime fiasco, so anyone wanting to sell up and move closer to their workplaces will either have to take a huge loss or rot forever in a place that nobody wants to buy," sighs Kitty. “If people cannot afford to run their cars -- or if the fuel supply is restricted -- how are people going to get to work? And how many businesses will go bust, laying off millions of workers, because of rising fuel costs?”

"I suppose I'm lucky that I sold up and bought in the city seven years ago -- before the massive house price increases,” says Kitty, “and while I’m okay, sort of, I don’t feel too happy about rising food prices -- everything depends on oil, not just transportation but fertilizer, too -- and if I don’t get a pay rise I will be right back where I started seven years ago, having to give up something else as a luxury that I’ve always thought a necessity. What I don’t know, but probably health insurance because it’s my biggest expense right now.”

“Globalization has raised the rest of the world up -- mostly at our expense (in terms of offshored jobs, free trade and overseas development aid which we are still paying to China believe it or not!) -- and now most of us are little better off than the average Chinese or Indian worker, and in many cases a lot worse off judging by the astronomical number of Chinese and Indian tourists flying around the world.”

“With India and China powering up to match if not surpass our fuel needs -- and the rest of the developing nations not far behind -- it stands to reason that with oil supplies already depleted the price of oil will skyrocket (and with it everything else).”

“Everyone concedes, now, that the Iraq invasion was about securing our oil supply and had nothing to do with spreading democracy and, as oil extraction dwindles, there is going to be worse social-political tension around the world than there is already with everyone vying for the last barrel.”

“Honestly, I see massive trouble ahead and it’s all because we bought a dream of an easy life fuelled by cheap oil and infected the Third World with this dream, too, via globalization,” sighs Kitty. “The western world is in debt up to its eyes and China leads the world, followed by India, in purchasing power. There’s no way we can convert to new technologies in time to avert our demise and the shift in world power. We’re finished.”

“Those of us who live in colder climates are going to have to revert to coal or wood to keep us warm in the winter and that’s not going to sit well with the PC climate change crowd, is it?” laughs Kitty. “But when the crunch comes all that climate change propaganda will evaporate – we’ll be fighting for survival, won’t we?”

“All of this reminds me of what happened on Easter Island -- a whole nation died out because nobody had the nous to work out that when the last tree was chopped down they had no means of survival.”

“I guess fifty years ago the world leaders never imagined that China and India with their massive populations would emerge from poverty and grasp the good life with as much if not more greed than we did,” laughs Kitty, “but that’s what globalization is all about, isn’t it?”

“Were our leaders stupid then, or didn’t they care, knowing that they wouldn’t be around to see the good times end?” asks Kitty. “And, to believe that a show of force in oil rich countries is enough to scare them into giving us, rather than other countries, the lion’s share of a scarce commodity is more stupidity.”

“Using superior brute force may have worked centuries ago, but now that we’ve embraced globalization and given away everything, including the secrets of nuclear armaments, we’re no longer superior.”

“Start learning Chinese, guys, you’re going to need it.”

globalization threatens western civilization

Lexie and her husband are struggling to make a living on a small farm and she's furious that all the economic protections that primary producers once received from the government are being lost in the global free trade agreements.

"Globalization has already led to other nations providing goods and services for western nations, and when the West has lost its self-sufficiency it has lost the plot," says Lexie. "Despite whatever the globalists say, without thriving primary and secondary industries, western nations will ultimately become slaves to the nations that provide for them."

"When more jobs go offshore and more industries close, we are at risk of being held ransom by other nations, leading to unprecedented unemployment, starvation, disease and violence," says Lexie. "The rich will survive and prosper - they always do - but masses of ordinary people will become destitute."

"My family will survive because we can live off the land," says Lexie, "but right now we can't make a living providing produce for others when they can buy it cheaper from global markets."

"A global outlook that exports our jobs and western values to the rest of the world may sound noble," says Lewie, "but it will ultimately result in western nations becoming subservient slave nations, providing a source of cheap labor for wealthy eastern and middle-eastern nations. Is this what you want?"

"The third-world immigrants who flocked to the west in the second half of the 20th century may be able to return to their newly rich old nations - especially those who retained dual citizenship and kept close ties with their extended families for such a contingent," says Lexie, "but there will be no hope for the native western populations that allowed themselves to be culturally raped and plundered by the misguided or deliberately destructive acts of their politicians."

"Most westerners are in denial, refusing to believe growing evidence that their civilization is being destroyed," says Lexie. "The west still looks powerful, and looks are what counts, right?"

"Wrong!"

"The western world is in debt, and getting further into debt," sighs Lexie. "The western globalization gurus, like the Roman Emperors, have overextended themselves, and all the fiddling in the world will not shut out the flames of the destruction they have visited on their homelands."

"The people running the western world - the politicians, the bureaucrats and the big business tycoons - are developing an agenda that is as fanatical as that of the Islamic terrorists," says Lexie. "Fundamentally, that agenda boils down to individual enrichment - power and wealth at any cost - and it has no respect whatsoever for the civilization that millions of their ancestors forged and protected with their blood and guts."

"Our nation became great by protecting its citizens, primary producers and manufacturers," says Lexie, "and when our global government succeeds in offshoring the last factory to China, and the last job to India, they will come after the land -- wanting to turf out the farmers and replace the cornfields with condos for the immigrants."

"We're becoming a nation of consumers, drawing more and more money from our only assets -- our house and land -- to buy things from China that we don't really need."

"Well, we're not falling into that trap and we're telling everyone who will listen to get out of debt as fast as they can because when the dollar crashes so will the value of their homes, and if they're forced to sell the only people who can afford to buy their devalued assets will be the Asians."