“As regards negative rates, QE, sentiment at the G20, UKBetteroffinEU, the Shanghai index, NHS viability, ezone gdp and Italian stats, the answer’s a lie. Now, what was the question again?”
‘Counterintuitive’ is another of those contemporary euphemisms used to replace a spade word. “How can that possibly be so?” was how we used to respond to tosh in my youth. Today we nod politely, and observe that the feedback is “counterintuitive”.
What we really mean is, in the context of experience and other data, it doesn’t add up.
Gold paper tracker values haven’t added up for years. Rarely for me, I decided to put my money where my mouth is in 2011, and listen to gold traders and retailers rather than study the paper sector. I made two years’ salary in ten months. Today, I still try to stay in touch with a few goldies; once again, the stuff is flying off their shelves….despite the yo-yo act its ‘price’ is doing in the current state of vollatillerdee. Here’s a chart that confirms the tracker value of gold is yet another ‘disconnect’:
Even on this bit of Bloomberg output, you will note the egg/chicken confusion (or obfuscation) in the title there: oh right, Ok – so gold rallied and only then did investors pile in. Riyeeet. Look at the increased volumes involved: this isn’t panic, it’s sentiment. It’s lots of commonsensers saying “I don’t believe the Davos/G20 propaganda”.
My oldest life-adage applies: when everyone’s saying blue, watch to see if they do yellow or maybe even red. The latter is always what they really believe.
Exactly the same is true of Dianne Abbott: she says public schools should be abolished, but then sends all her kids there. But there’s no ‘human’ vessel on Earth so overflowing with lachrymose hypocrisy than Jeremy Hunt. You can trace the unexpurgated history of this man’s lifelong dissembling at the dedicated Slog page here, but the Sun headline really is that he’s an incorrigible liar.
Despite the heart-on-sleeve tear jerking Tweets that Hunt puts out at every stage of his increasingly obvious strategy, he quietly pushes NHS Trusts into insolvency, and then whines, “I have no choice but to turn to the private sector”.
The chart below shows the sheer size of the destruction now being wrought:
The Health Secretary has falsified NHS death levels during weekends, pushed Junior Doctors into a corner and then branded them “extreme” for resisting…but even as he does this, he’s working on plans to reduce staff levels still further – in a bid to push anyone with a calling into working abroad just to scrape a living. And then the private sector will move in, and the dedicated NHS staffer will become but a distant memory.
But then, this is no different to the way he falsified Hotcourses staff ratings in order to be rated ‘best employer in London’ by The Times a few years back….using once again his cronies in Newscorp to give him a thoroughly underserved leg up.
When I write about ‘Crash2’, I’m sure those who only occasionally dip into The Slog think the ‘Crash’ I’m talking about is one of fiat currencies and financialised capitalism. But the real crash we’re all living through – even though it has been caused by thousands of gannets who will use any means to achieve ends – is in fact merely a symptom. The ‘end’ of the disease I’m on about is The End of Western Civilisation.
The Slog 