Commentary By Ron Beasley
We have been hearing that the Mayans predicted the end of the world in 2012. Scholars are now saying that's not true:
A new reading of a Mayan tablet mentioning the 2012 date suggests that it refers to the end of an era in the calendar, and not an apocalypse.
The date was "a reflection of the day of creation", Mayan codes researcher Sven Gronemeyer told AP.
The day also marked the return of a Mayan god, Mr Gronemeyer added.
Bolon Yokte, the god of creation and war, was expected to return, according to Mr Gronemeyer's reading of a Mayan text carved into stone 1,300 years ago.
The date marks the end of one of the periods of roughly 400 years into which the Mayan calendar is divided.
I'm not convinced that a Mayan or any other God is going to return in 2012 but it may well represent an end of an era. For the last 40 years or more the worlds finance and economy has been based on ever increasing debt paid for with ever increasing economic growth. That economic growth was fueled with cheap oil. While there is probably a lot of oil left there is little cheap oil left so the economic growth we have experienced is over.
The European Union and the Euro are in a death spiral. The Germans and the French leaders are going to unveil a plan that requires members of the European Union to surrender economic sovereignty to save the too big to fail banks. I suspect this isn't going to fly since it will require treaty changes and there is no indication that the 99 percenters in Europe will go along with this band aid. And band aid it is - it will only kick the inevitable down the road for a few months. So what is the inevitable you ask? The answer - there is a hell of a lot of debt that is never going to be repayed and eventually the banks that hold the debt are going to find they are not to big to fail because the government will not have the resources to cover their losses.
Over at Zero Hedge Charles Hugh Smith says:
It's Your Choice, Europe: Rebel Against the Banks or Accept Debt-Serfdom
The European debt Bubble has burst, and the repricing of risk and debt cannot be put back in the bottle.
It's really this simple, Europe: either rebel against the banks or accept decades of debt-serfdom. All the millions of words published about the European debt crisis can be distilled down a handful of simple dynamics. Once we understand those, then the choice between resistance and debt-serfdom is revealed as the only choice: the rest of the "options" are illusory.
The EURO was never more than a ride at Disney's Fantasy Land.
The euro enabled a short-lived but extremely attractive fantasy: the more productive northern EU economies could mint profits in two ways: A) sell their goods and services to their less productive southern neighbors in quantity because these neighbors were now able to borrow vast sums of money at low (i.e. near-"German") rates of interest, and B) loan these consumer nations these vast sums of money with stupendous leverage, i.e. 1 euro in capital supports 26 euros of lending/debt.
The less productive nations also had a very attractive fantasy: that their present level of productivity (that is, the output of goods and services created by their economies) could be leveraged up via low-interest debt to support a much higher level of consumption and malinvestment in things like villas and luxury autos.
Yes, 2012 may prove the Mayans were right - it may well be the end of an era - a new paradigm. The leverage party is over - get used to it.
"based on ever increasing debt paid for with ever increasing economic growth."
ReplyDeleteWhat? How do you "pay for" debt? And how do you pay for anything with economic growth?
"That economic growth was fueled with cheap oil."
Actually, it was fueled with debt as, for instance, homeowners used the "equity" in over-valued houses as piggy banks.
The Long Count was used by the Maya to document past and future events. Their other calendars were simply too short to document any date beyond 52 years. The 52-year calendar -- known as the "Calendar Round" -- was used as it spans a generation, or the approximate lifetime of an individual.
ReplyDelete@Bill H. - debt is created by the flick of a switch under the fractional reserve loan scheme (scam). New products and services (economic growth) need to be generated to pay for it. Cheap oil allowed the production of these goods and services. SOME people, too poor to be able to generate any new growth, raided their savings to pay the debt.
ReplyDeleteThank you hidflect!
ReplyDelete