HYPER-FINANCIALISATION OF THE AMERICAN ECONOMY - SYMPTOMS, CAUSES, CONSEQUENCES, KEY ISSUES

PreparationWorth reading "the balancing mechanism" first to make sense of this article. This article gives the symptoms, causes and consequences; and explains why hyper-financialisation is important in the lives of people, rich and poor. It doesn't suggest any remedies, other than recommending we all take to the streets in protest - what better time for a Revolution?. That will be for a future article.Meanwhile, we will finish on a lively discussion...

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ACCOUNTING FOR AMERICA'S TWIN DEFICITS

Why the U.S. Trade Deficit Must Always Be Balanced - And What Happens When It Isn’t "The balancing principle". Not everyone will be able to stay awake till the end of this article, but everyone is capable of understanding this simple double-entry bookkeeping principle, as applied to international finance, called "the structural mechanism". It is fundamental to understanding "hyper-financialisation", that we shall look at in the next post.... ...

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ARE MIDDLE EAST POLITICS DRIVEN BY ANCIENT APOCALYPTIC NARRATIVES

2 May 2025The idea that Netanyahu's vision of a Greater Israel is driven by ancient Jewish apocalyptic texts promising death and destruction before salvation seems a bit mad... is there any evidence? Netanyahu seems bent on creating WW3, but is there any evidence that this threat has roots in eschatological beliefs? Ancient Roots: Apocalyptic Texts and the Vision of a Greater Israel The concept of a "Greater Israel" has its origins in...

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DOLLAR MILKSHAKE PART III

 1 May 2025   The business cycle for tradersThe business cycle for investorsTA, Gold, and the Last Man Standing Technical analysis (TA) cannot predict the future, and doesn’t pretend to understand the economy. All it does is track price action, look for repeating patterns and try to spot momentum. You might say it is as useful as astrology. It correlates with the economy, but investors are always ahead, on a parallel wave. Worth...

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THE DOLLAR MILKSHAKE THEORY - PART II

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CRISIS IN THE FRENCH WINE INDUSTRY

29 April 2025Looking at the crisis in the French wineries industry. A representative case is that of a now-elderly gentleman - we shall call him Luc Raisinsec - who, about 20 or 30 years ago, combined his land with a neighbour's, making a splendid vineyard of some 60 hectaires of contiguous cultivated vine.Many factors have combined to force viticulteurs into liquidation, the banks recover their loans of course, and some people must be getting...

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FRENCH WINERY CRISIS - CAUSES IMPACTS RESPONSES

29 April 2025Looking at the crisis in the French wineries industry. A representative case is that of a now-elderly gentleman - we shall call him Luc Raisinsec - who, some 20 or 30 years ago, combined his vineyard with someone else's, making a splendid vineyard of some 60 hectares of contiguous cultivated vine.Since that time the family has been obliged to halve the land under cultivation.The family receives aid to remove vines now from the local...

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