There was one super El Nino in 1925-26 and with it came the Mississippi disaster in 1927 and obviously starvation, human displacement etc things we hear about in SE Asia and all too often ignore.
In the late 1920's USA, it all led to Hooverville, the wall street crash and the great depression later on.
The toxic mix of speculation and wages poverty ran the economy into the ditch. Yes, that's when the roaring 20's became a global car crash. Nobody will say there's a link, but then I'm a nobody. I think it's a glaringly obvious link.
I've been commenting on the likelihood of history repeating itself for a while and this really does feel like the ducks are getting in a repetitous row.
So what's different about this time.
Well speculation is high, that's for sure. Ask SpaceX how hard it is to raise money to fly rockets around earth. What kind of revenue will sustain that if nobody has any income.
Ask the economists who know that this game of Monopoly is reaching it's conclusion. There are a few global winners who now have trillions and an army of billionaires who continue to believe they know best where to spend their riches.
So with the general rise in poverty approaching revolutionary levels will El Nino and it's consequences result in food and in particular water being as scarce as somebody predicted in the film the Big Short.
I think yes. What people still find hard to believe about COVID is how quickly a national emergency could shut down countries and continents.
Water shortages are not unknown while the extension of hosepipe bans to flushing toilet and running water bans sounds fat fetched, but in a national emergency rationing happens. If the reservoirs are empty there's no water to pump. No hydro stations to run, no electricity for the global cloud. Well we need the cloud don't we.
I look at comparisons to excess and I see it in sports. The roaring 20's saw concentrations of wealth in the USA and with a general breakdown in society.
From speakeasies and alcohol to the normalising of violence. The bad guys were not the ones drinking and dancing, or were they.
By day upholding the law for society to see and by night partying until dawn, yes simply flaunting it because that decadence of double standards, self deception was now real.
I'm not accusing our politicians globally of partying while Rome is burning, I think that's a given. Rome is certainly burning. We have genocide after genocide and we stand by. There's an occasional intervention in places randomly chosen like Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan, while the Balkans, Gaza, Lebanon Myanmar, Rwanda and so many more I'm unaware of go off without even a couple of inches in newspapers. The workers genocides whereby miners will employ people without regard for their safety. The world grieves for these disasters ignorant of their complicity.
The renewed surge to record levels of wealth inequality come with reduction in compassion. It becomes patronising. Virtue signaling as one billionaire passes half their fortune away. When I say passes, I mean pass. Pass it to a family member to manage on behalf of a trust for things we need to see done.
I'm rambling again as I see the scene is set for the perfect storm. The collapse heralds disaster and opportunity. Opportunity to get ahead of it and also a new bunch of opportunities. A new bunch of opportunists to entertain patronise or abuse us.
They'll take our skills and explain they get the lions share because they're our agents, our agents of change. Really, to some the agent of change, to others about entrepreneur and to the skilled worker another tax collector.
I don't care if it's me at Stocktrades, Uber with cab or bike workers, water companies or the government.
I knew we were only as good as the people we had. We tried to reward that loyalty. I didn't deserve extra because I knew it was the staff who deserved the bonus. We had all worked in our various ways to deliver the work successfully. Why should I take a cut every time they turned up and did their job.
I think when Virgin took 3p to sell a 10p deadbeat it was excessive but they sold 300 whereas Groucho, Ripping or record shak might only sell 25. The Tayside Bar in Dundee charged nothing and I always spent the money with Brian. We understood the circular economy. I didn't grudge paying virgin £9 when they gave me £21. I knew that was half the printing costs for the next issue. I did think it was excessive. They were our news Agent, let's face it ours was rarely news.
The world knows we live in an era of money. We know this and how it inevitably leads to wealth inequality as it did 100 years ago. The great depression and it's global reverberation resulted in a world war. No great surprise really. Poverty leads to louder voices being heard, especially those spouting lies and hatred. Not much to cheer an old man like me then.
There will be other opportunists and that's what I'm picturing. I'm wanting to find the good ones. I'm not wanting to discover another lot of people traffickers. I can see them buying cruise liners as people stop doing cruises. If there's little food and drink, I can't see the cruise industry growing.
For those about to sell cruise companies, just wait. The crisis will be in 3 years. We know Rome is burning but Carnival will continue to rise for another 2 years so just be patient.
I remember August 2006 and the banking crisis. I seemed to be the only one having a Cassandra moment that day. There was a rise in mortgage defaults. 200,000 had failed. It was a huge surge based on low start mortgages in the USA. The figures were on a straight line towards 5m defaulting in 18 months to 2 years. It seemed everyone thought it a good idea to buy 3 homes and rent them out. House prices were falling so keys were being posted through the letterbox and defaults were rising. Agents of change.
I've been trying to articulate this but in my babbling Cassandra way this gift of prophecy never comes with exact timings.
These mini crashes on the road to the almighty one from 2000, to 2007/8, COVID and now 2029/30 seem just so reap and obvious to me.
The link with El Nino and global food prices at a time of increasing wealth inequality will supercharge the poverty trap. The economic migrants from London to the regions of the UK will become a stampede if number 10 North has it's way.
This will seem a relatively boom time for Birmingham Manchester Liverpool Sheffield and Leeds. It will feel quite ironic to see London suffer as a barrista can earn more in Leeds and live locally.
It's an interesting dynamic but all the time during 2027/28 it will only be masking the real underlying issues. Globally there's a big issue, an it'll be sold at a corner near you.
Right, now I better ask some historians whether I'm gibbering rubbish again.
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