Englund

At least five times, a biological catastrophe has engulfed the planet, killing off the vast majority of species from water and land over a relatively short geological interval. The most famous of these mass extinction events — when an asteroid slammed into Earth 66 million years ago, dooming the dinosaurs and many other species — is also the most recent. But scientists say it won’t be the last. Many researchers argue we’re in the middle of a sixth mass extinction, caused not by a city-size space rock but by the overgrowth and transformative behavior of a single species — Homo sapiens. Humans have destroyed habitats and unleashed a climate crisis. Calculations in a September study published in the journal PNAS have suggested that groups of related animal species are disappearing at a rate 35% times higher than the normally expected rate. And while every mass extinction has winners and losers, there is no reason to assume that human beings in this case would be among the survivors. Micha...

https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-timeline-of-the-mass-extinction-events-on-earth.html Extinction risk from climate change https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_risk_from_climate_change Mass Extinctions and CO2 levels https://johnenglander.net/mass-extinctions-and-co2-levels/ Another link between CO2 and mass extinctions of species Another link between CO2 and mass extinctions of species (theconversation.com)

  Anthropogenic climate change interacting with these other stressors could thus cause a global catastrophe, in a worldwide societal collapse. Kemp  et al.  [ 1 ] have reminded us that although we have reasons to suspect it, such potential collapsing futures are rarely studied and poorly understood.  The closest research is the search for evidence of tipping dynamics and estimating thresholds, timescales and impacts of potential tipping points [ 4 ]. We advocate for considering them while using the available knowledge acquired from historical and prehistorical examples of local and regional collapses, transformations and resilience of human societies also driven by climate and unsustainable use of resources Climate change together with turbulent political rivalries and resource mismanagement that have hindered solving underlying problems have played key roles in the collapse or transformation of numerous previous human societies. This needed research must also c...

A common belief is that the climate in 2050 will be significantly different from today. Step by step the climate will change. It will not be like today in the year 2049 to be catastrophic the year after. Before humanity (and animals and nature) completely perish, a lot of unpleasant things (eg heat waves, hurricanes and migrations) will happen. Maybe as early as 2040? My tip is that whoever is then sitting with a bond with 3.63 percent interest, which matures 13 years later, will have made a considerable loss. On top of all the other misery. Rolf Englund 4 July 2023 And when more people realize this, the value of the bonds will fall (and thus the interest rate will rise) long before then, of course..   Swedish version Englund: Hur kan USA sälja 3,63 procentiga obligationer som förfaller 2053? (englundmacro.blogspot.com)

Katastrofåret 536 kan tydligt avläsas i en nästan obefintlig tillväxt av årsringarna i skogens träd över nästan hela norra halvklotet.  https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:31690/FULLTEXT03.pdf 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2019/08/1177-bc-year-civilization-collapsed.html

“black swan,” used to describe high-profile, but hard-to-predict and rare events that are beyond the realm of normal expectations The phrase is sometimes used to describe the economic meltdown of 2008. Because of their character, it is suggested there’s not much we can do to avert them. Yet a recent article in the world’s best magazine, The Economist of London, challenges the focus of many pundits and analysts on black swans. “This kind of thinking makes things worse by encouraging fatalism, rejecting accountability, and giving the nod to short-termism and willful ignorance.”  We should be thinking more, The Economist suggests, about “gray rhinos.” In the world of government and policy, gray rhinos are “highly likely, high-impact risks that are a matter of when, not if,” the article states. Gray rhinos are a “metaphor for missing the big, obvious thing that’s coming at you.”  https://fcw.com/blogs/lectern/2021/01/kelman-covid-black-swans-gray-rhinos.aspx?m=1 Nicholas Nassim Ta...

Thursday marked the 100th trading day since the stock market’s pandemic panic low on March 23 — and by one measure the subsequent rebound is the strongest in nearly 90 years. Both the current rally and the 1933 rebound follow historically steep selloffs that accompanied global cataclysms. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-stock-market-hasnt-made-a-move-this-big-since-1933-11597337248

Budget constraints have gone missing. That presents both danger and opportunity This new epoch has four defining features.  The first is the jaw-dropping scale of today’s government borrowing The second feature is the whirring of the printing presses. The third aspect of the new age. Together the Fed and Treasury are now backstopping 11% of America’s entire stock of business debt. The final feature is the most important: Low inflation is the fundamental reason not to worry about public debt Yet the new era also presents grave risks. If inflation jumps unexpectedly the entire edifice of debt will shake The Economist 23 July 2020 See also:  https://www.economist.com/briefing/2020/07/25/the-covid-19-pandemic-is-forcing-a-rethink-in-macroeconomics Stephanie Kelton - en av mina Gurus The Deficit Myth:  Modern Monetary Theory Englund 2020-07-19

Det skriver Carl-Johan Westholm apropå EU-kommissionens återhämtningsprogram.  Övriga EU:s länder manas nu till att ställa upp med miljardsubventioner till främst Italien, som många anser har misskött sin ekonomi genom att inte ha hanterat följderna av den gemensamma valutan. SvD 10 juli 2020 Jag (CJW)tillhörde dem som röstade nej, inte så mycket för att jag trodde att det skulle bli allvarliga konsekvenser av en gemensam valuta (där misstog jag mig) utan för att jag inte gillar tanken på Europas Förenta Stater. Timbro har legat lågt i Europadiskussionen, liksom de flesta andra free market think tanks i Europa. Frågan är känslig, nästan icke-existerande. EU-finansierade tankesmedjor öser däremot på med EU-entusiastiska projekt. Maj 2013

FT Series The new social contract The Federal Reserve pledged in April to buy trillions of dollars of debt, much of it owed by the corporate sector. This is the second time in just over a decade that the Fed has mobilised the full force of its balance sheet to put a floor under creaking credit markets. FT 10 July 2020

Possible explanations based on crowd psychology, the virality of ideas, and the dynamics of narrative epidemics. After all, stock-market movements are driven largely by investors’ assessments of other investors’ evolving reaction to the news, rather than the news itself. MarketWatch July 7, 2020  Shiller on my site

where there is absolute conviction that the virus will be under control and that massive monetary and fiscal stimuli will reinvigorate the economy,” he said, adding that the market could drop as much as 40% over the next year.  A. Gary Shilling again delivering a gloomy take on what’s next in a recent CNBC interview. MarketWatch 6 July 2020 - I am convinced that the housing bubble is gigantic and will burst before long with massive implications here and abroad. In fact, it's the key to the global economic outlook. Det skrev Gary Shilling den 17 november 2006 . 1929 with good charts

Brussels took the unprecedented move to suspend the application of its “stability and growth pact” at the onset of the crisis, a move designed to avoid punishing countries for their stimulus efforts.  But the slow return to normality has revived calls for a fundamental rethink of the rules which have been a source of constant tension between Brussels and eurozone capitals in recent years. FT 7 July  2020 A big step towards fiscal federalism in Europe When the euro was born everyone knew that sooner or later a crisis would occur. It was also clear that the stability and growth pact was – as I have said before – “stupid” Romano Prodi FT May 20 2010

We knew pandemics happen and can have big consequences. No one knew in 2019 one was coming in 2020. It was what my friend Nassim Taleb called a “Black Swan” in his 2007 book with that title. Taleb attacks (the correct word) the social sciences (in particular economics) which uses standard Gaussian bell curves to "prove" their points. Everything has to fit within the curve. There is little room in the neat world of the bell curve for events that are far from the center.  He creates a world he calls Mediocristan which is the world of white swans, bell curves, and predictability. He contrasts this with Extremistan which is the world of chaos, fractal geometry, power laws, Black Swans, and where the unpredictable happens. Let's look at 1987, 1998, and 2000 [and now 2008]. Each period had rather solid US economies preceding them. All had rather significant disruptions. And each one saw the Fed open the liquidity flood gates. John Mauldin 3 July 2020 Taleb Black Swan ...

Tim Congdon, an economist who tracks money supply figures, said the growth in deposits in the US and around the world had been “unprecedented in modern peacetime history”.  He warned that at some point, such moves would lead to “a significant uptick in inflation” FT 5 July 2020

In today’s world, citizenship needs to have three aspects:  loyalty to democratic political and legal institutions and the values of open debate and mutual tolerance that underpin them;  concern for the ability of all fellow citizens to lead a fulfilled life; and the wish to create an economy that allows the citizens and their institutions to flourish. Martin Wolf FT 6 July 2020 medborgare.englund@gmail.com Medborgare mot EMU

Våren 2021 är smittspridningen i Sverige låg, men med kraftiga regionala utbrott. Allmänheten är uppgiven och pandemin tränger undan långsiktiga politiska frågor. Den ekonomiska krisen fördjupas med allt fler varsel samtidigt som permitterade inte kan återgå till arbetet. Ojämlikheten i samhället ökar vilket leder till missnöje och polarisering.  Högt skuldsatta hushåll tvingas sälja sina bostäder och antalet vräkningar ökar liksom konkurserna. Svensk ekonomi är i ett läge som påminner om 90-talskrisen. DN 3 juli 2020 Göran Persson om 90-talet: Vi gjorde mycket fel, naturligtvis. Kanske borde vi ha sparat lite mindre SvD 7 maj 2017 Kronkursförsvaret och 90-talskrisen

The second slump was in the 1980s, when a string of countries defaulted on their foreign debts after international interest rates soared. (När Volcker höjde räntan för att  besegra inflationen.) Dictatorships, which had prevailed in the region, yielded to elected democratic governments in eight countries between 1982 and 1989. The Economist 27 July 2020 Volcker startade sedelpressarna, inte Greenspan. Om skuldkrisen i Latinamerika på 1980-talet på min website

One innocent explanation for the extraordinary bounce back in global equity markets in the second quarter is that investors have concluded that the worst of the pandemic is over and that recovery is within reach. A less innocent — but all too plausible — alternative reading is that investors now believe central banks will exercise complete control over asset prices for the foreseeable future. could ensure a lasting decoupling of equity prices from ailing economies. In a recent paper for the Brookings Institution, Sage Belz and David Wessel A pick-up in inflation is a far more probable outcome than markets currently allow.  It is, moreover, part of the solution to countries’ excessive debt burdens. John Plender FT 30 June 2020

Preparedness is one of things that governments are for If a coronal mass ejection (cme) were to hit, all sorts of satellite systems needed for navigation, communications and warnings of missile attacks would be at risk.  Large parts of the planet could face months or even years without reliable grid electricity The Economist 25 June 2020