Happy talk from the IMF must be viewed with a cool forensic eye as the western world faces hard times
The UN's economic agency, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), now tells us what the world needs now is less inflation, followed by a bout of "monetary easing", that is the printing of money, that caused inflation in the first place.
Towards the end of the IMF press release it confesses to a more realistic, albeit gloomy view, that "bringing inflation back to target should remain the priority, but we are not there yet".
This was disappointing after such a cheerful start: "According to our latest World Economic Outlook projections," says the IMF, "growth this year and next will hold steady at 3.2 per cent with median headline inflation declining from 2.8 per cent at the end of 2024 to 2.4 per cent at the end of 2025. Most indicators continue to point to a soft landing."
So what we are left with is a cheerful opinion that a soft landing is in the offing, but data indicate hard times lie ahead.
The IMF also said there would be "less economic scarring from the crises of the past four years. But there will be more scarring for low-income countries, which struggle to turn the page from the [Covid] pandemic and cost-of-living crises," the IMF said.
But from where we sit at the heart of shipping in Hong Kong, the Covid crisis, was the result of the bureaucratic panic deliberately spread. Given the low casualty rate, what harm was done was harm done by the officially induced panic rather than Covid itself.
Was panic deliberately fostered? Certainly, the casualty rate was unalarming as deaths were chiefly among the elderly, people one expects to die anyway. Victims were war babies and baby boomers. If they were born in extraordinarily high numbers, then it as hardly surprising they would die in extraordinarily high numbers 70 years later.
We had already been through SARS scare, which was said to be more deadly or worse than Covid. When one heard this disputed, Google was asked which was worse. But instead of answering directly, it said: "Covid cases can range from mild to severe, while SARS cases, in general, were more severe. But Covid is transmitted more easily."
That hardly answered the question. But one thing was clear. Experts did not want to say, indicating that in terms of deadliness, there seemed little difference between the two. Very few wore masks for SARS. But they pulled out all stops for Covid.
A crane driver caught the flu, and the Port of Shanghai shut down. And so it continued, a virtual case study of how the cure can be worse than the disease. In our shipping world, gone were our two traditional peak seasons - back to school and Christmas. Now everything was a peak season as factories never knowing when they would be shut down, worked 24/7 to get as much shipped as they could. Worse still, China, Canada, Australia even confined people to de facto house arrest under weird "shelter-in-place" laws.
The new bureaucratically-induced inefficiencies brought massive profits for those servicing customers who had to resort to costly emergency measures to sustain themselves throughout the Covid scare. Even school teachers got more than a year's paid leave supported by tax dollars.
The long and the short of it was that no one except bureaucrats and the Deep State agencies beyond in the media and the universities believe these experts anymore.
While some can delight at news that Donald Trump's popularity grows while corrupt courts smear him, or that Nigel Farage of Brexit fame may one day replace the tired Conservative government, or that French and Dutch farmers are in open rebellion. But this battle is far from won. No, Armageddon lies ahead. These peddlers of vaccines that don't vaccinate know what lies ahead for them if the people win. The outcome may equal - even surpass - the importance of the defeat of communism and the end of the Cold War.
What's to be done? That's the central question. First, let's assume that the Deep State, the media, academic, bureaucratic complex, aka, the Administrative State - is out to disarm the people, and reduce to penury all opposition. Feminists are the biggest threat, as they are the chief beneficiaries of the new diversity, equity and inclusion doctrine, because it outlaws the team-building nature of men. Equity protects feminists from competence as it insists on proportional participation in rewards and inclusion of all competent and incompetent alike. Free speech is to be curtailed because it causes divisiveness and disturbs the peace.
November's enemy knows what's in store if the people win. Former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy gave a glimpse of the great purge ahead. He had discovered that while firing civil servants for cause individually, is so fraught with litigation that it makes the job impossible. But getting rid of whole departments on the basis of cost-effectiveness, is a simpler task. It's as easy as getting a bill signed by the President.
Mr Ramaswamy first suggested ridding the world of the FBI and replacing it with the US Marshals Service. While tasty, one might prefer his less risky idea - disbanding the federal Department of Education. Education is a state responsibility anyway, so anything the federal department provided in that department, the state could provide for itself through its own taxes.
Heavens knows what mischief the FBI could get up to if faced with such a life-threatening situation. While much concussion can be expected in disbanding the Department of Education, there would be far less shrapnel.
One recalls advising an executive assistant to a Conservative minister of women's affairs, about what to do about all the feminist groups plaguing the department for grants. It was suggested that he fund an obscure conservative group, called Real Women, that defended and promoted women's traditional roles. He said that would cause trouble, but that was said to be what the gambit was intended to do - to create a debate. The department would generously fund both sides. And then, when things cooled down, ie, when people got bored, defund the lot as two opposing political factions, and wish each well on a self-financing basis.
I have never admired Marxists on their ability to govern the heights of power they have managed to seize in the last century, but I stand in awe of them, reflecting on how well they have seized those heights.
But as we face hugely massive force in November, and then in Canada and Europe, it would be wise to take note of the book Saul Alinsky wrote in 1971, "Rules for Radicals". The treatment of Conservatives generally and Donald Trump and Nigel Farage and Marine Le Pen, shows that Alinsky's lessons have not been forgotten. The right could learn them and apply them soonest, and with a will. |