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Last night I spoke about the Three Es to a large audience in the Grand Committee Room of the UK Parliament, which was indeed very grand.

The Future Has Arrived

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Executive Summary

• The future has arrived.
• The “Broken Windows Theory” explains a lack of media coverage.
• Detroit is falling apart.
• Refugees are leaving urban centers.
• North Dakota’s homeless numbers are increasing.
• Food stamps use rises sharply.
• State of distress – the public vs. private battle intensifies.
• We need to change our stories.

One of the questions I am most frequently asked is, “What will happen when…?”  As in, what will happen:

• When things finally take a turn for the worse?
• When the dollar dives?
• When the government hits a fiscal wall?

Essentially, these are all forms of the basic question, “What will happen when the future finally arrives?”

My work, as I see it, is to help you accept the following statement:  The future has arrived. 

It is already here.

My goodness, Scotland is a wonderful place.

This is my first trip here, and I’ve found the people welcoming and the architecture and ‘feel’ simply awe-inspiring.  My hosts were just fantastic and took excellent care of me, which was important, because my schedule was draining.

I’ll use this entry to keep updating my UK trip experiences for any who are interested in what’s going on over here.

On a personal note, I came over with a cold that – *shudder* – felt and sounded like a case of laryngitis on the ride over, and for my first appearance at the CSFI event, which I literally croaked my way through.  Fortunately, with lots of vitamin supplements and happy thoughts, I seem to have converted this into a standard head and chest cold.

The CSFI event yesterday was held in one of those places that says “establishment” – oak-paneled for all 20 feet of the wall height, and leather chairs arranged around a 20×10 foot walnut table, burnished by the centuries.  The other panelist was from the Bank of England, and I give her enormous credit for having trundled through a large portion of the Crash Course in order to formulate her remarks/rebuttal to my presentation.  The other attendees were mostly very senior members of large banks and consultancies, but also represented a few other professions. 

Friday, February 5, 2010

Executive Summary

• Recent economic news comes in three flavors: good, bad, and ugly.
• GDP, retail sales, and manufacturing surveys point up.
• Petroleum use has dropped to the same level it was at in the late 1990s, pointing down.
• State sales tax receipts, unemployment, and the federal budget deficit are ugly.
• The current expansionary track of monetary printing and deficit spending will continue until something external forces a contraction.

Today we are experiencing many confusing and conflicting signals in the economy.  Perhaps conflicting signals are normal at a major turning point, and therefore we might be tempted to believe that we are about to embark on another vigorous leg of economic expansion.

Here we’ll explore these conflicting signals and see what we can make of them.

Before we do, I want you to recall that I am of the opinion that the trillions of dollars (and yen, and euros, and rubles, and yuan, and so forth) will someday come racing out of their big-bank holding pens and ignite something that will look and feel just like an economic rally.  For a little while.  Then, raging inflation and an energy crisis will ensue.  Given this outlook, I view any economic respite from the decline, no matter how falsely derived, to be a gift of time, allowing us the opportunity to continue to build the economic, physical, and emotional resilience in our lives and the lives of those around us.

You should be using this time to get ready for the next period of adjustment, which I expect to be both longer-lasting and more profound than the previous one.

However, in terms of parsing our existing situation so that we can maintain an appropriate outlook on where we are and where we are headed, there is much to be gained by keeping a close eye on current economic statistics.