Today's Topics:
1. Britain, Class War: BREXIT CHAOS WILL GIVE ANARCHY ITS
BIGGEST CHANCE TO WORK (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
2. France, Alternative Libertaire AL #290 - Point of view, The
RIC, seen by a Swiss libertarian communist (fr, it, pt)[machine
translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
3. wsm.ie: Was winning the Repeal referendum inevitable? by
Andrew N Flood (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
4. awsm.nz: Forecast For 2019 (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
5. Czech, afed.cz: Premature Outbreak No. 11 -- Review of hc /
punk zinc (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
6. France, Alternative Libertaire AL #290 - Neither god nor
schoolmaster: The end of an adventure, seeds sown for the future
(fr, it, pt)[machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
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Message: 1
Remember the scenes of chaos after the Grenfell Tower when local mutual aid came to the
rescue after the state at local and national level failed completely to provide basic
services.
The same can happen on a much bigger scale as Brexit chaos takes hold. At local level
people should start their own emergency voluntary plans and start getting people together
now. to plan for local services. CALL YOURSEVES a local name ..Doncaster community Defence
or whatever......
THIS IS ANARCHY'S BIG CHANCE. GET READY.
WE ARE NOT IN THE LEAST AFRAID OF RUINS FOR WE CARRY A NEW WORLD IN OUR HEARTS
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Message: 2
Since some of the yellow vests are passionate about the citizens' initiative referendum
(RIC), there has been a lot of reference to the Swiss example. Some precisions and
reflections. ---- Because the RIC is the workhorse of Étienne Chouard, a notorious
confusionist, many revolutionaries tend to see this slogan as a " Trojan horse " of the
extreme right. And take Switzerland as an example, where the nationalist right has for
twenty years seized the referendum tool to be at the center of public debate. ---- That
inspires me two reactions. First: be careful not to give the impression that the
libertarians demonize the referendum, it would be incomprehensible to the general public.
Then: the RIC as proposed by many yellow vests is much more democratic than the Swiss
mechanisms. It would allow 500 000 petitioners (1 % of the electorate, against 1.5 to 2 %
in Switzerland) to launch a referendum to: 1. dismiss elected persons ; 2. propose a law ;
3. repeal a law ; 4. amend the Constitution. Only possibilities 1 and 2 exist in
Switzerland at the national level. The 3 and 4 exist only in some cantons, a level where
the democratic mechanisms are older and more extensive than at the national level.
In theory, the RIC would be a power granted to citizens. In reality, the Swiss example
shows that at the national level it is above all a power given to associations, unions and
political parties that have the means to use the referendum tool. What must be kept in
mind is that Switzerland is marked by the absence of national unions and the almost
non-existence of the radical left.
The situation would be very different in France. For example, with the surface they have,
unions like the CGT, Solidaires, FO, etc. could alone call a referendum against any law
passed in the National Assembly, on the rise of the Smic or the reduction of working time.
Extension of popular rights
Admittedly, in a referendum, even people not concerned by the question can vote, which
distorts the result. But the wage is numerically so massive that it rather benefits the
trade union movement. It has an adherent base that would allow it to easily collect
signatures, very expensive process without it. In Switzerland, for example, the collection
of 100,000 signatures is usually entrusted to specialized companies at a cost of nearly
400,000 euros. The National Rally, Upright France or the various identity groups would
hardly be able.
I say all this to bring things back to their proper proportions. For, for the rest, any
sensible anticapitalist knows that there is a radical incompatibility between capitalism
and direct democracy, since by definition this system places an essential aspect of social
life - the economy - out of democracy, in the name of the law of the market and private
property.
However, being revolutionaries fighting for the abolition of wage labor does not prevent
defending the rise of the Smic. Likewise, that fighting for a truly democratic society,
free from capitalism, should not prevent us from claiming an extension of popular rights,
even within the framework of bourgeois democracy. Economic demands are not to be opposed
to democratic demands, we can bring both at the same time.
Guillaume (North-East Paris)
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Le-RIC-vu-par-un-communiste-libertaire-suisse
------------------------------
Message: 3
The vote to remove the ban on abortion from the Irish constitution in May 2018 was
overwhelmingly carried, with almost 2 out of every 3 voters voting Yes remove the ban. The
margin of victory was such that some post-referendum polemics made the mistake of arguing
that victory was always inevitable, that the campaign didn't matter. Such arguments tended
to be made by opinion writers who never liked the Repeal campaign and in some cases
published pieces during the campaign arguing that unless whatever aspect they disliked was
dropped the referendum would be lost. Opinion that the referendum would always be won has
the danger of solidifying into uncontested fact, and that would seriously undermine future
understandings of how a similar referendum might be won.
In this piece Andrew Flood who tracked and reported on polls throughout the referendum
campaign presents a different opinion, one based not on certain victory but on polls
consistently showing that while the Yes campaign could be sure of a vote in the region of
40% anything above this would have to be won or at least retained. And in the context of
the failure of previous referendum campaigns to do just that the scale of the 66.4% yes
victory in May is something that can surely be learned from.
In summary I'm going to show here that while opinion polling had been indicating for some
years that a referendum could be won this was no guarantee of victory, especially when you
take into account the previous anti-oppression referendums that removed the ban on divorce
and allowed marriage equality. Both these saw a major drop in support for change in the
closing 10 days of those campaigns, almost leading to defeat in the 1995 divorce
referendum And as the graph that takes this drops into account suggests a similar drop in
May could even have seen Repeal lost. Opinion polls suggest we could be certain of a Yes
vote around 40%, anything much above that would have to be won/retained by a campaign that
was more successful than the 1995 Divorce and 2016 Marriage Equality ones.
How the Repeal polls looked when you applied the adjustment for the reduction in the Yes
vote in Marriage Equality polls
Certainly those central to the Yes campaign were very aware of this and in many cases not
confident of victory until the very last couple of days of the campaign. A some not really
confident until the publication of both exit polls shortly after the polling booths
closed. There fear was that if the No campaign could create enough Fear, Uncertainty ands
Doubt they would repeat the last minute success of the No to Marriage Equality campaign
and succeed in pushing most of the Don't Know vote in the opinion polls into a No vote on
polling day. That was very much the strategy of the No campaigns and why in the final 10
day period they shifted much of their messaging from an absolutest anti-choice No to the
suggestions that the specific proposals were too extreme and people should vote No so that
the government would be forced to produce better proposals.
No campaigners online were looking for and then talking up any apparent reduction in the
Yes vote as the start of the collapse seen in the other two referenda. There was even a
very grim moment when it looked like they had succeeded. In the first week of May the
Sunday Independent incorrectly presented a comparison between an opinion poll asking
people how they would vote with their February poll asking if there should be a
referendum. This was presented as a large drop, 18%, in the Yes vote and came at the point
where those of us aware of the previous Divorce and Marriage Equality drops were worried
we'd see the start of just such a decline. A drop of sufficient size in fact to make
defeat likely, and certain if it represented a trend that would continue. There were a
glum few days until the Independent printed a completely inadequate correction buried
inside the paper in print far smaller than the original graphic.
The correction that appeared in the Sunday Independent
At the start of the campaign in March I wrote a long piece that sought to use the opinion
polls to draw some tactical conclusions around likely voting patterns in the referendum.
Overall this holds up well but for this piece I want to focus in on one particular area,
how large was the definite Yes vote at that point in time.
The Sunday Times / Behaviour & Attitudes March poll (p13 to p17) directly asked those
polled on their attitudes on two abortion access related questions that the referendum
centred around. This gives us an idea of how certain people were in there voting
intentions that was not reliant on self-reporting after the fact. One question was whether
abortion should be available for any and all reasons up to 12 weeks. The other whether it
should be available for the ‘hard cases' of threats to health and Fatal Foetal Abnormality
where the baby would either be stillborn or die soon after birth.
More people were willing to support this second case than were also willing to support the
first case but the promised legislation would deliver abortion access for both cases. So
we could say that the Hard Yes voters were those who answered Yes to abortion access in
both cases while the Hard No voters were those who answered No in both cases. Both these
groups were unlikely to be swayed in the campaign. On the other hand there were people who
wanted abortion access in one case but not the other, these soft Yes/No voters and the
Don't Know voters were the people whose mind could very well change over the course of the
campaign.
Using the March 2018 B&A poll to illustrate the hard and soft votes on the 12 weeks and
health questions
That March poll showed these broke down as below;
40% hard yes (‘its a women decision')
8% soft yes (‘for health threats & FFA only')
20% Don't know
4% Not voting
14% soft no (‘but should be available for health & FFA')
14% hard no ( ‘not even for health & FFA' ).
That 40% hard yes was consistent with opinion polls over recent years that showed a steady
rise in the number saying that abortion would be the women choice, in 2013 this had risen
to 37%, it was only half that in 1997.
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/big-rise-in-support-for-legislation-on-a...
For both sides the aim of the campaign was to mobilise there own hard voters to go out and
vote (and perhaps canvass). But more importantly to make sure as many of their soft voters
did actually vote, win over the Don't Know and either win over the other sides soft voters
or at least discourage them from voting, In particular since the protests following the
death of Savita the issue itself had been widely and consistently discussed meaning those
for or against abortion access in both of the cases above were unlikely to be swayed by
arguments they heard during the campaign.
So the three key groups to whether the referendum would pass and by how much were;
1. The ‘soft Yes' voters who were voting yes but unsure about aspects of a women right to
choose. Typically this 8% of voters only wanted women to be able to access abortions for
some reasons and not other..
2. The Don't Knows that had not yet decided how to vote but who did intend to vote.
Although you might expect a lot of this group of 20% are the people who won't actually
vote previous referendum data indicated they were only slightly less likely to vote then
those who knew how they were voting early on.
3. The ‘soft No' 14% who were against a women's right to choose to 12 weeks but thought
there are some circumstances eg Fatal Foetal Abnormality (FFA) where access to abortion
should be granted.
The above figures suggest that 44% of the electorate were the main targets of the campaign
messaging from both sides. Yes started off stronger and only needed to convince 1/4 of
that 44% to get 50%+1. But the historical pattern from Divorce and Marriage Equality was
for No to take all or almost all of these groups - an outcome that would have led to the
defeat of the referendum or at best the narrowest of victories. A narrow victory might
have been almost as bad as a defeat, the legislation introduced on the basis of a 2:1 win
is far from perfect and contains medically meaningless concessions to anti-choice TD's
including the 4 day waiting period between the first visit to the doctor and the return
four days later. We can only imagine the concessions that would have been given in the
event of a narrow 51% victory, there is a high chance the resultant legislation would have
been close to worthless, containing so many tests and barriers that women able to travel
would continue to do so.
Two previous examples
The 1995 Divorce referendum looked to be safely in the bag from advance polls with a 2:1
lead but on the day was only narrowly carried 50.3% Yes to 49.7% No. A result so close
that its said the difference was only one vote per polling box in the country. In fact
with Don't Knows excluded the opinion polls ahead of the Divorce referendum were giving
Yes & No votes of similar percentages (around 68%) as the polls ahead of the Repeal the
8th referendum.
The 1995 Divorce polls showing the collapse of the Yes vote. Note that the Irish Times
poll 6 days out and the exit poll are highly accurate suggesting the earlier polls
probably also were and the collapse in Yes was real.
In the closing two weeks of the Divorce referendum it appears that almost all the Don't
Know's and soft Yes voters opted to either vote No or stay at home. If the same happened
with Repeal we'd have lost or have had the narrowest of victories.
Marriage equality
The 2016 Marriage Equality referendum saw a very similar pattern, indeed an even more
worrying one as between the polls published the weekend before the vote and the vote
itself for all four polling companies the vast majority of Don't Know's switched to No
voters and in two polling companies cases so did some of the Yes voters. Marriage Equality
was polling way above Repeal so that the large drop in Yes voters still saw it pass by a
decent margin (62%). When we calculated what a similar drop for each polling company would
look for Repeal rather than the polls then predicting a solid victory some predicted a
narrow defeat and some a narrow victory. In the lead up to the Repeal campaign Marriage
Equality was presented as the gold standard in how to win a referendum so this fear of a
similar switch from Don't Know to No was a very responsible assumption to work off.
*****************************************
Table shows the results of each companies polling on Repeal when adjusted by how far they
were out from the result for Marriage Equality
The polling companies also expected this with to happen and some tried to build in
mechanism to predict it by asking for instance how people thought the vote would go as
well as how they intended to vote.
The Behaviour & Attitudes polls when you excluded Don't Knows were consistently close to
the result. They can also be read, as above, as showing the swing from Don't Know to Yes
in the last days of the campaign
Other worries
As if the comparison with the last week drop in the Yes vote in Divorce and Marriage
Equality wasn't bad enough there were two other important elements that suggested the
actual Yes vote on the day could be lower than what was seen in the polls.
The first of these was the enormous differential in voting intentions between age groups.
That March B&A poll had only 18% of those in the 18-34 age group voting No but 37% (a
narrow majority, Yes was 36%) of those in the over 55 age group. Historically a much
higher percentage of older people actually vote than younger people which in the
referendum would have boosted the No vote significantly. The poll asked about intention to
vote and indeed while 60% of 18-34's felt they would definitely vote 80% of the over 55s -
the one bloc likely to vote No - felt they would definitely vote. Incidentally the
differential turn out by age group probably got both Trump & Brexit the votes needed to
win, something we were quite aware of at the time.
The second was interpreting the very much higher Don't Know that was seen in that B&A poll
in rural areas as against the cities and Dublin in particular. The Don't Knows were
highest in the regions where the Yes campaign might be weakest, in March they were only
11% in Dublin but 30% in Connacht/Ulster. While we hoped this might indicate that the ‘shy
vote' presenting as Don't Know would shift more heavily to Yes than No because of the long
term reliance of anti-choice movements on public shaming tactics this also meant that a
very large proportions of the Don't Knows were located in areas that in March lacked a Yes
campaign and which at that stage looked difficult to canvass and convince.
Also worth mentioning is that the campaign was won despite the non-involvement for most of
it of the government that actually called the referendum. It's forgotten now because Leo
stepped into the spotlight when then result came in at Dublin castle but until the last
couple of days Fine Gael was almost entirely absent from active campaigning with the
exception of Health minister Simon Harris, Kate O'Connell and a few more junior figures in
the party. As last as May 22nd, even in Dublin, local Fine Gael organisations were only
making contact with the local T4Y groups to offer to help with canvassing.
The graphic accompanying one of our last poll reports, in fact the final Yes vote of 66.4%
was higher then most polls indicated
n the end the result at 66.4% was almost exactly what the polls had predicted throughout
the campaign. There was no last minute collapse of the Yes vote, in fact it rose. When you
compare the results with the polls Don't know's were twice as likely -more in some polls -
to decide to vote Yes than No. The historic pattern was broken by the Repeal campaign, but
why?
Why
The purpose of this piece is not to work out why the Repeal referendum campaign
successfully avoided the Yes vote collapse that characterised the Marriage Equality and
Divorce referendums, more to point out such an investigation might be very useful for the
future. We are slowly working on a detailed collective history of the campaign that will
also touch on some of the more negative aspects. But here are some speculative pointers to
why the victory was so unexpectedly large.
Silent yes
To take the why literally we can say that there was a large silent Yes, unwilling to
disclose to pollsters & canvassers what their true voting intention were. This tended to
be largest wherever the No campaign was the best organised and most vitriolic. They
thought they had bullied people into silence, and to an extent they had. But when they
were in the ballot box those people struck back. The campaigns during the referendum
ensured this vote was not eroded and to an extent while this was obviously the achievement
of the Repeal campaign the nastiness of the No campaign probably also contributed to
getting Yes votes out and suppressing the soft No vote.
Mass involvement in Yes campaign
Probably most important in winning over the Don't Knows, holding the soft Yes vote and
perhaps helping to ensure a lot of soft No's stayed home was the mass nature of the Yes
campaign. But that nature needs to be understand in terms of not only what was required to
win the referendum but to force the Fine Gael government to call it in the first place.
There was a continuous process of grassroots organisation and movement building led by the
Abortion Rights Campaign from the time of the death of Savita in 2012. This meant even
before the referendum had been called tens of thousands had marched demanding it and a
network of groups and individuals existed across large swathes of the country who had
already been working together. It also meant there was an existing structure of Facebook
page and Twitter accounts that many people who might be willing to donate and campaign
were already part of which made them easy to reach as the campaign launched.
In conjunction with this the referendum itself saw a semi spontaneous upsurge of people
getting involved in campaigning. Many of these were not new to struggle but had previous
organising experience in all the big struggles over the last decades. I saw friends step
up who'd mobilised to try to stop the refuelling of US war planes at Shannon in 2003 and
those that had travelled to Rossport along with those currently involved in the militant
end of the housing struggles. In the early days of the campaign some of the key organisers
for Together for Yes groups around the country were people I knew from these struggles and
they brought their skills and networks with them. A sense of the energy and organisation
that won the campaign can be got from An Ode to ARC.
Disastrous No
The No campaigns despite or perhaps because of the huge backing in US dollars and their
importation of US experts could hardly have done worse. John McGurk in particular was the
gift that kept on giving to building a Yes campaign from his clownish attempt to spread a
crude fascist smear in the opening days of the campaign to his fake nurse and the constant
and increasingly desperate search for a magic gotcha moment. You can get a measure of the
role he played in mobilising Yes activists by looking at the comments left as people
donated for posters in the Together for Yes online fundraiser. Each small donation, and
there were over 10,000 of them, could include a comment and a remarkably high proportion
of them mentioned John by name. But he was only the worst of a bad bunch, all of their
spokespeople came across as disingenuous creeps seeking to reimpose the sort of judgmental
clerical rule we are only in the process of escaping, Ronan Mullen also deserves special
mention in that respect.
To an extent the early start of the No campaign, which launched a good month ahead of the
Yes one, and the visibly huge amount of cash they had to spend on billboard ads backfired
on them. In effect it gave the people who would become the Yes activists a whole month of
seeing the sort of financial power they had and the scale of the challenge in defeating
that. The effect of that is seen with the enormous rapid response to the Together for Yes
online funding campaign to pay for Yes posters. The initial 50,000 euro target was
exceeded in just two hours and 12 hours later 250,000 had already been raised. Far from
then facing the problem of finding people willing to put posters up the Yes campaign they
had the ongoing problem of finding ways to get enough posters to people all over the
country often angrly wanting to know why they had not arrived yesterday. In rural Ireland
in particular vast numbers of these posters were torn down by organised anti-choice gangs
shortly after they were put up but arguably even this backfired as a very visible
illustration of the bullying, anti-democratic nature of the No campaigns.
Repeal was probably winnable from 1992 on but winnable at any point up to and including
May 2018 wouldn't have meant automatically won in a referendum campaign. A 66.4% yes was a
very clear win, but the bigger achievement was probably forcing Fine Gael to call a
referendum in the first place. Once called it was essential it was won, almost a decade
passed between the first unsuccessful attempt to overturn the Divorce ban and the second
successful one. It''s likely defeat would have seen us facing a decade long struggle for
another referendum and without the success of the Yes campaign in convincing those Don't
Know's to vote yes that might otherwise be where we are today.
Andrew Flood (follow Andrew on Twitter)
The photos from Dublin castle the next day would see scenes of joy as the result become
official but the overwhelming initial reaction at Together for Yes HQ when the exit poll
was announced was relief. Right to the last minute few were sure of victory.
Author: Andrew N Flood
https://wsm.ie/c/winning-repeal-referendum-inevitable
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Message: 4
Well, there has not been a year starting like this for a long time. The US government is
in disarray. The President of the Unites States starts the second half of his four-year
term having lost his majority in the lower house of Congress to the Democrats in a heavy
polling defeat last November. He starts with an acting chief of staff, an acting secretary
of defense, an acting attorney general, an acting EPA administrator, no interior secretary
and no ambassador to the UN. His former campaign manager, deputy campaign manager,
national security adviser and personal lawyer have all pleaded guilty to criminal
offences. And the investigation by special prosecutor Mueller on the connections between
the Trump presidential campaign and Russian intelligence will be stepped up. Meanwhile,
one-quarter of government departments are closed because of Trump's budget fight with
Congress.
Also the geopolitical environment has turned toxic. The Trump administration has picked a
fight with China over trade and technical know-how that threatens to intensify when the
current ‘pause' on the tit-for-tat trade tariffs ends in March.
This time last year, Trump was boasting that the US economy was booming, with record highs
for the US stock market. Back then, I said that "What seems to have happened is that there
has been a short-term cyclical recovery from mid-2016, after a near global recession from
the end of 2014-mid 2016. If the trough of this Kitchin cycle was in mid-2016, the peak
should be in 2018, with a swing down again after that."
And in April 2018, I posted that I thought the short boom in 2017 from the mini-recession
of 2015-6 was over and that world growth had peaked. And so it has proved. 2018 has ended
with real GDP growth starting to slow nearly everywhere.
And at the end of 2018, stock markets suffered the deepest fall since the global financial
crash in 2008. Current US treasury secretary Mnuchin panicked and called a meeting of the
top six US banks on Xmas eve to check that they were confident of standing firm, only
making things worse.
As I have argued before, Marx said that what drives stock market prices is the difference
between interest rates and the overall rate of profit. What has kept stock market prices
rising since 2009 has been the very low level of long-term interest rates, deliberately
engendered by central banks like the Federal Reserve around the world, with zero
short-term rates and quantitative easing (buying financial assets with credit injections).
The gap between returns on investing in the stock market and the cost of borrowing to do
so has been high.
But in 2018 investors in fictitious capital (stocks and bonds) perceived that this
situation was changing. Interest rates are on the rise (driven by the US Fed) and there
are signs that the recovery in the rate of return on capital in the major economies has
peaked and is reversing. US growth peaked in Q2 at a 4% annual rate and Q4 growth is
expected to be closer to 2.5%. The very latest indicator of US growth, the Richmond
business activity indicator, suggests a sharp drop in growth in early 2019 - perhaps even
to stagnation.
In Europe, hopes of a synchronised expansion matching that of the US have been dashed, as
the leading European economies, France and Germany, have slowed, while the weaker ones
like Italy have slipped back into recession. UK real GDP growth is also dropping fast as
companies apply an investment strike due to uncertainty over Brexit. The Eurozone economy
is now growing at only 1.6% compared to nearly double that rate this time last year.
And it is not just in the major advanced capitalist economies that the forecast end to the
Long Depression since 2008 has been confounded. In Asia too, there has been a slowdown in
the second half of 2018. Japan's real GDP was static in Q3 2018.
The world's largest manufacturing economy, China, has also slowed.
Korea too is slowing.
All the official growth forecasts (from the IMF, the OECD, World Bank etc) for are for a
lower rate in 2019 compared to 2018.
Now a recession in mainstream economics is technically defined as two consecutive
quarterly contractions in real GDP growth. The consensus does not expect that in 2019. But
are the mainstream experts wrong; will the major economies drop into a slump this coming year?
Many argue that forecasts, let alone economic forecasts, are not worth the paper they are
typed on. I'm not sure that I agree. I would make a distinction between prediction in
scientific analysis and forecasts. But I won't deal with that issue now. Instead I'll
plough into my forecast for 2019.
So what now for 2019? Well, what did I say were the key factors for 2018? I said that
"there are two things that put a question mark on the delivery of faster growth for most
capitalist economies in 2018 and raise the possibility of the opposite. The first is
profitability and profits" and the second "is debt...global debt, particularly private
sector (corporate and household) debt has continued to rise to new records."
This is still true for 2019. Global debt rose through 2018 and, most important, the cost
of servicing that debt also began to rise as the US Federal Reserve continued with hiking
its policy rate - with the last rise made just before the end of the year.
The Fed rate sets the floor for interest rates in the US and also the benchmark for
international rates, given the dominant role of the dollar in international reserves and
capital flows. And other central banks have ended their cheap money injections -
quantitative easing - which has now turned into quantitative tightening.
Thus "financial conditions" (the cost of debt, the state of stock markets and the value of
the dollar against other currencies) have been tightening.
Just after Janet Yellen ended her term as Federal Reserve chair (her term was not renewed
by Trump because he said she was "too short"), she declared that "there would be no more
financial crises in our lifetime", because of the new measures applied to ensure the banks
won't crash again. But last month, she revised that view. Apparently, there are "gigantic
holes in the financial system" that she presided over and she now worries that "there
could be another financial crisis" after all. This is because financial regulation is
‘unfinished" and she is not sure that the Fed and government are doing anything about that
"in the way we should".
In a recent paper, Carmen Reinhart, a mainstream expert on the history of financial
crises, drew attention to the sharp rise in unbacked corporate debt, called leveraged
loans, with issuance hitting record highs in 2018. Reinhart concluded that "the networks
for financial contagion, should things turn ugly, are already in place."
So the scene is set for a new credit crunch in 2019 if profits stop growing and the cost
of servicing the accumulated corporate debt goes on rising. If the Fed continues with its
policy hikes, just as in 1937 during the Great Depression of the 1930s, it threatens to
provoke a sharp downturn, not just in the price of fictitious capital but also in the
so-called ‘real' economy. This fear provoked Trump to consider sacking Fed Chair Jay
Powell in the New Year.
The Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the international research agency for
central banks, warned that what it calls the ‘financial cycle' implies that a new credit
crunch is coming. "Financial cycle booms can end in crises and, even if they do not, they
tend to weaken growth. Once financial cycles peak, the real economy typically suffers.
This is most evident around financial crises, which tend to follow exuberant credit and
asset price growth, ie financial cycle booms. Crises in turn tend to usher in deep
recessions, as falling asset prices, high debt burdens and balance sheet repair drag down
growth." And most important "the debt service ratio is particularly effective in this aspect".
All the credit indicators for a recession are now flashing amber, if not red. The most
popular is the so-called inverted yield curve, namely when the interest rate on a
long-term government bond falls below the Federal Reserve's policy rate. Whenever that
happens, it nearly always indicates a recession within a year. Why? Because what the
inverted curve tells us is that investors think that a slump is coming so they are buying
‘safe assets' like government bonds, while the Fed thinks the economy is fine and is
hiking rates - but the market will decide.
As one analyst put it: "Think of an inverted yield curve as a fever. When your body gets a
fever, the fever is not the cause of the sickness. It just says something's wrong with
your body. You have the flu, appendicitis, or some other ailment. The fever indicates you
are sick but not necessarily what the sickness is. And typically, the higher the fever,
the more serious the condition. It is the same with the yield curve. The more inverted the
yield curve is and the longer it stays that way, the more confident we are that something
is economically wrong that may show up as a recession sometime in the future." The US
yield curve has flattened but has not yet inverted. So this reliable indicator has still
not turned red yet.
Another important indicator for a coming recession can be found, not in the credit
markets, but in the global economy. It's the price of copper and other industrial metals.
Metals are central inputs in industrial production around the world and so if their prices
fall, this suggests that companies are reducing investment in production and so using less
metal components.
In 2018, the copper price fell back from a peak of 320 to 270 after July. But since then
it has steadied and remains well above 200 then it fell to in the mini-recession of early
2016. So this suggests that while the world economy peaked back last summer, a recession
is not yet with us.
Another indicator that the world economy is slowing down from its mini-boom in 2017 is the
sharp fall in oil prices. The price has plunged from $75/b in October to $45/b now. That
will hit the profits of the energy companies and the trade balances of the oil producers.
The most important factor for analysing the health of the capitalist economy remains the
profitability of the capitalist sector and the movement in profits globally. That decides
whether investment and production will continue. This blog has presented overwhelming
evidence that profits and investment are highly correlated and in that order - see our
latest book, World in Crisis.
The US corporate sector ended 2018 with record levels of profits/earnings, rising some
20%, the highest rate since 2010, when the US economy rebounded from the Great Recession.
But this profit jump was a one-off. It's been driven by huge corporate tax cuts and
exemptions from tax in repatriating cash reserves from abroad that the major US companies
held. And US corporate revenues have been boosted by a very sharp fall in input costs,
namely the fall in the oil price during 2018.
Globally, profits were still growing in the middle of 2018. But profits growth has slowed
in Germany, China and Japan. Only the US has experienced any acceleration. And if the US
profits growth is a one-off, as argued above, global profits growth is likely to fall away
sharply in 2019.
Slowing profits growth and a rising cost of (corporate) debt, alongside all the
politico-economic factors of an international trade war between China and the US, suggest
that in 2019 the likelihood of a global slump has never been higher since the end of the
Great Recession in 2009.
Forecast for 2019
http://awsm.nz/2019/01/03/forecast-for-2019/
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Message: 5
Immediately at the beginning of the Vzbury summer , the blessings of Zine Festivals are
taking place. They are able to kick the publisher and zine publisher to a final finish so
that they can present themselves with such a new number on such events. Similarly, it was
eleven Vzbury , which was heading directly to the first Trnava Zine Fest held last July.
---- But now to content. The opening word on the situation in Slovakia corresponds to the
unflattering collage on the cover page. Then there are longer, but very readable texts.
The first is a tour of the Medication Time, Mental Tension and Fyasco bands, after which
you'll be able to spin your head out of liters of drunk alcohol and smoked joints.
Nevertheless, you can register a few interesting observations from the places visited,
such as the strange idea of Slavic reciprocity, which is often found among the members of
the Croatian scene. Thinking about how to book a concert in one of the Milan clubs that
checks the bands' texts for what they want to play in, and though he is likely to agree on
most opinions, he's more likely to discourage his approach. He will also be interested in
an extensive report from the Copenhagen K-town fest, but perhaps even more of a report
from a work placement in Russian Voldogonia. How strange it is here to teach private
linguists? What laptops will you see when buying a SIM card, using a flat device,
traveling by bus or taxi and other activities? You will also go to Georgia and Abkhazia.
And some observations? "The rules are set in Russia to know what and how much they can
break. (...) The environment is very dynamic, and in the event of ambiguity there is a
universal answer to everything - it's just Russia. "" The iron curtain did not disappear
altogether; is currently acting as a dividing line between the EU and the "Russian world"
(...), they do not pass any relevant information - either in either direction. "" The main
points of criticism are: the general poverty of the population, despite the immense wealth
of the country; state management by a group of oligarchs; the constant revival of the
Soviet Union's corpses; militarism and emphasis on the military; not least corruption at
all levels and the conflict in Ukraine. "" The worst experience? Relationships at the
workplace. "" Best experience? The whole stay in Russia was a fantastic experience. But
three months were enough. "
After talking about Massola's touring bands and Seven Minutes of Fear over South Korea and
Japan, you move to the other side of the globe, straight to Afrika, to get to know the
local Christian butcher Joseph Kony, who stood in the lead of God's army of resistance, a
prophet, and has credited more than 100,000 deaths to his account in the name of God's
death, and kidnapping at least 60,000 children.
Who likes polls can read three answers to why metal is not as well introduced to DIY, and
eleven as to whether "our scene" has a problem with alcohol. Some respond to the fact that
this is a problem for individuals, not scenes, but if it is one of the most striking
phenomena in a given scene, then there is probably a problem as a whole. As Datra says:
"For many people alcohol is the main thing they do in their free time. But such a style
can not be built and presented as an alternative because it simply does not work with
eternally beaten people. Another problem is that for many, this irrigation is an
alternative, which is ridiculous and irrelevant. "
Whoever waited for a musical review at the end, as usual with similar zines, will be
surprised. He finds books, books, and books. First of all, there are several Broken Books.
Above all about Palestine, the publisher of the zine is rightly surprised: "... it is
totally absurd that the nation that has suffered the pogroms culminating in the Holocaust
during the Second World War is capable of committing the same, perhaps more sophisticated
violence to millions of people today ..." to realize that violence is not committed by any
nation, but by the power machinery that shields the nation. Above the book, A. Vltchek
speaks to me as he writes: "I have criticized Andre for his one-sided view, the sharp
criticism of the crimes of the West, but on the other hand, the weakening, if not worse,
crimes of the Eastern Bloc.The less you know, the better it is about Russia after the
collapse of the USSR. A total of 26 reviews - let yourself be inspired when choosing your
reader.
Early Rise No. 11. 44 pages A4. Price 1.50 €. To get rid of punkgen[a]gmail.com.
https://www.afed.cz/text/6926/predcasna-vzbura-c-11
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Message: 6
The Prevost orphanage Cempuis continuing its educational mission consistent with
libertarian principles that Robin puts into practice for the first time in an institution
under the Ministry of Education of the III e Republic. That, until 1894, when he was
suspended from his position as administrator and educational manager of Cempuis. For what
reasons ? ---- Co-education makes waves ! ---- And not only co-education: it is an
establishment without a god, which follows the new laws promulgated in 1880 removing the
obligation to treat duties towards God, and Cempuis goes with Paul Robin assume its
secular dimension and send back the parish priest of the orphanage until then on mission
in the establishment. It is that Paul Robin is fiercely atheist, and this despite (or
probably because of) a family environment of origin strongly marked by the Catholic
religion with a canon uncle. In the mid-1890s, he became a member of the French Federation
of Free Thought. But what concentrates hostilities against Robin and his innovative
experience, it is obviously the gender mix at the orphanage, the co-education as it is
then called.
In the early 1890s, propaganda by the fact is in full swing in Europe and France. As early
as 1881, political assassinations targeted European crowned heads, and in 1892 Ravachol's
bombs made Paris tremble. But as early as 1893, it was Auguste Vaillant who attacked the
National Assembly and gave rise to a first law aimed at punishing indirect provocation to
violent action. However, it is with the assassination of the President of the Republic
Sadi Carnot in June 1894 that the most repressive law, and aimed specifically at the
anarchists, is voted. All anarchist propaganda is thus prohibited and Paul Robin's
libertarian principles will suffer directly from this difficult context that gives wings
to conservatives and reactionaries of all kinds who see the opportunity to attack anything
that calls into question the established order. .
In this way, the Catholic circles are agitated with a spirit of revenge against the
pedagogue of the integral education and it is the good tone press of the time, with in
figure of prow La Libre Parole, which orchestrates a campaign of press against the "
pornographer " Robin. It will only take a few weeks of these attacks for the prefect of
the Seine to order the revocation of Paul Robin and the end of the most innovative
educational experience of the time. Proof is made, if need be, that libertarian education
can not develop in the shadow of a state that always obeys the orders of the conservative
bourgeoisie, and that this education of liberty can only be done far away. churches and
the state that serves interests contrary to those of popular emancipation.
This is for Cempuis and Paul Robin, the conclusion of fourteen years of experiments that
will leave many observers inspired by Sébastien Faure to Francisco Ferrer, the Spanish
pedagogue who served as the red wire at the beginning of this column. It ends here, it
gives way to a theme that should challenge us and mobilize us all in our daily struggles
because its urgency is felt every day more pregnant: anti-fascism.
Good luck to you and see you soon in the struggles !
Accattone
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Ni-dieu-ni-maitre-d-ecole-La-fin-d-une-aventure-des-graines-semees-pour-l
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