by John Ward
In this brief overview of inflated hubris, The Slog examines five combustible bubbles hopelessly out of touch with the human mainstream: the internet, ID politics, multiculturalism, the European Union and investment markets. The conclusion has to be that, as a species, we need a movement that values wisdom and restraint far more than sheer IQ and ideological devotion.
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Gmail has just given itself a facelift. Google are calling it “an improved experience”. It now takes twice as long to load, and is even less intuitive than it was before. Recently, Microsoft updated Skype. It now works so infrequently, I am unable to rate the quality of my call for them, because one star is the lowest you can go. I’ve switched almost entirely to WhatsApp, even though you can’t leave visual messages on it and the ins and outs of the bloody thing assume one has all day to work out what they mean by “You have left”. I don’t remember leaving anything. Websites in general now are overloaded with so many videos, data law, cookie, caveat and advertising messages, only G4 speeds can solve painfully slow navigation and information retrieval….and very few of us have G4.
This is the internet ISP bubble.
I am very keen to be culturally appropriated by a female person of colour, just so long as she has a good mind, a sense of humour, a sexy body and no doubts at all about her gender. I saw a shot on Twitter last week of a bloke halfway through his tranny programme, proudly showing off a bloodstain in the crotch of his jeans. “Men have periods too” was the caption. A terrifying 2000+ idiots had retweeted and liked the shot. Two months ago, there was a bloke on there convinced he was “tri-gendered” and insisting people should address him as ‘they’. An NHS debate is ongoing about whether the word “vagina” is gender-inclusive enough, and should henceforth be referred to in medical notes as ‘the front hole’.
This is the narcissistic orientation bubble.
Chanting “Allahu Akbar”, tens of thousands of Muslims held a display of power at Vikings Stadium in the US. The keynote speaker was an Imam who has called for genocide against all Jews. Most of the women present wore burkhas, and the crowd made its support for violent Jihad abundantly clear. In the UK, London Mayor and prominent Muslim Sadiq Khan is increasing the police funds devoted to Islamophobia “offences”, while presiding over the worst increases in gang warfare and knife crime in London’s history. “Britain,” he asserted, “must address its Islamophobia issues”. The pressure on land for new UK housing is greater than ever, but Labour blames the Tories for this…while insisting on the benefits of diversity via uncontrolled immigration. The NHS spends £11million a year on diversity officers to translate on behalf of immigrant patients who can’t speak English. The LibLeft’s group term for anyone worried about the realities in this paragraph is “racist”.
This is the multicultural bubble.
In the light of the Italian and Spanish exposure to Turkish debt, the Euro fell again versus the Dollar this morning, down to 1.15. Italian bond yields rose further, as foreign investors left scorch marks in their hurry to exit Italian debt: net holdings by foreigners this month are down €34 billion, and Italy’s own banks are taking up the slack by buying the bonds on sale….despite already having the worst non-performing loan figures in Europe. This is Pietro and Paulo debt management. From Croatia via Greece to Italy, Spain and France, tourist income is well down. The main route down to Spain in France has “only light traffic”, and the Atlantic beaches of Aquitaine are half-empty. Greece has exited the EU “bailout” programme owing €60billion more than it did on entry. French gdp grew just 0.2% in Q2 2018, and household spending fell. French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe yesterday warned that, in this context, tax receipts were less than expected, and without cuts the deficit will once again be an embarrassment for Paris – and the source of more anger in Berlin. The Germans meanwhile have emerged as even more exposed to Turkish debt than Italy.
This is the EU bubble.
Thanks to Zirp’s provision of cheap money, the Dow index is now twice as expensive in real terms as it was eighteen years ago. Sitting as it does above an economy perilously overdependent on services in general and financial products in particular, the FTSE 100 has already been partly “found out”, having increased by a mere 3.7% this year. But the most balanced reporters (and many who remained bullish last year) have been warning since February that UK stocks are due a massive correction: the London-based First Derivatives, for example, is trading at a PE ratio of 104. The UK markets out-word of the hour now is “passive”….that is to say, acceptance of the status quo is no longer safe. DownUnder, terms like “wildly overvalued” and “at insane levels” are being used about every investment sector from property via equities to bonds. On Wall Street, Goldman now has a packaged product based on sub-prime car loans. Forbes this week argues that, since the near disaster of 2008, “banking reform has shifted risk but not reduced it”.
This is the financial investment bubble.
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Just one commonsense reality pin of discernment applied to these puffed-up party balloons could produce, respectively, a mass exodus of online advertisers, quietly contrarian sexual minorities being bullied by knuckleheads, a violent backlash against multicultural appeasement, widespread currency collapse thanks to vainglorious belief in the euro, and disastrous Bourse corrections of up to 50% blowing away the insurance and pension sectors for many years to come.
These are merely five inflated bubble-gum idiocies that concern me more than most. Assets, Neocon foreign policy, Russophobia, African migration, drinking-water availability and Dollar denominated debt among emergent nations represent six more not even covered here. Overriding all of it are the development of surveillance technology, and the Emergency Powers likely to be adopted as events run beyond élite control.