'Envy' is also behind economic bubbles. Thinking of the word 'bubble' I almost called this column 'Born Again bubbleites'. So what is my definition of a 'bubbleite' (or bubble-addicts)? It is somebody who sees nothing amiss with the theories of a 'system' financed by IOUs, and regards debt bondage as a necessity to prosper - with envy.
Our system is a multi-layer pyramid. The upper level depends entirely on the lower one and so on. Despite the so many layers, there are clearly three categories comprised under the label of 'Born Again Bubbleites'.
The Guru-Bubbleites whose jobs are to make Wallstreeters as rich as possible, as quickly as possible, and which the common man depends upon to have food on his plate and a roof over his head. The Gurus are ready to do whatever it costs to make you believe that a well-managed monetary injection is key to sustain employment. Alas this game is a sneaky one because too much money chasing too few goods always causes inflationary pressures, which in the long run lead to currency devaluation if not destruction. Actually and among the very few who dare send a warning once in a while, we find Adrian Blundell-Wignal, a senior official from the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) who argues that a g-i-a-n-t bubble threatens the world economy. He was followed closely by Goldman Sachs guru wondering as to whether 'Is America becoming a global credit risk?' If everything was doing so well, why did ECB and Fed inject $150 billion into jittery market this week?
''No one really knows how big the current credit problems are,''
said Charles Diebel, head of European rate strategy
at Nomura International Plc in London in a note e-mailed
after the ECB announced its liquidity-providing operation.
''This is undermining confidence in the system as a
whole and hence the reaction this morning.''
Again, if the global economy engineered by the monetary scientists was indeed rolling why did the Asian Stocks Plunge on Credit Fears recently? Although media complicity in the cover-ups is fading due to the Internet, the Guru Bubbleites still can get away with their sins. While they will be first looking for scapegoats when things fall completely apart. While many people wonder about the housing market, which is compared to the 'Tulip mania' by the U.S. Senate Committee, they ignore that their fate has already been decided.
Then come the Cheerful-Bubbleites or the 'icons of success envy': according to the geniuses listed in Fortune 500, Right now it is as good as it gets, says Rik Kirkland who wrote 'The Greatest Economic Boom Ever' for the magazine. Like me, Kirkland must have been scratching his head for a while. I too remember the last global good time in the 1970s and how it ended. Kirkland adds:
... a lot could go wrong. And it may not feel like a day at
the beach to most Americans.
The Cheerful-Bubbleites never listen to any bad reports officially. They are much more preoccupied with their glamorous image of 'envied business people' and exploiting the so many loopholes (with the help of their wealth managers) the system has created for their discretion.
The Puppet-Bubbleites, which are the consumers feeding the multi-layer social pyramid by working hard and dreaming of success envy. They want to feel rich even if this implies having 2 or 3 jobs, living from paycheck to paycheck and buying from China while piling on debts every day more and more. The common man has no idea about the true meaning of 'inflation'. This is a world issue, no matter the culture or race. They applaud every time a lawmaker promises to delivers more IOUs. As a result there are now 600 T-R-I-L-L-I-O-N in unfunded liabilities at all levels of the global economy.
As you read this, all major central banks are flushing the system with liquidity to reassure everybody that things are under control. BoJ, for example, has already siphoned off a total of 3.6 trillion yen between Tuesday and Wednesday last week. One trillion yens is about 8,607,867,997 dollars, so do the math. Remember what I stated earlier: there were $150Bn injected by the EBC and the Fed in concerto and today (as of August 23) the Fed added another 17.25 billion dollars into the financial system in three actions. Unfortunately with 600 trillion debts and rationally speaking, how can one believe that doing even more debts and bailing out Wall Street is actually a sign of sanity?
I fully agree with Kevin Duffy who concluded that the markets are now on crack... or some powerful opiate. Choose your poison. Dire warning: when the world economy will be about to crash down, they will ask the world taxpayers to bailout the world Banks under the guise to preserve employment. This is the end of the 'money envy' as we know it.
Philosophical insight:
Although Man is the most evolved creature on Earth, unlike animals he doesn't and cannot know what is good for him intuitively. He has always relied on empiricism and knowledge. Every man moves ahead according to his own understanding. Among so many warnings that have come and go, even the most rational insights have rarely been taken into account. As a matter of fact, the ruling class is allowed to rule because information is hindered. But this is no excuse to avoid the sorry state of world affairs. At some point the 'blame-envy' game will have to cease. Man was born to be the master of himself, as long as he follows the concepts of 'no force, no fraud'.
1 | 2
