It's cool by the Pool - right? [COLUMN]

It's always interesting to hear new ideas, and fresh, powerful approaches by intelligent geniuses. Genius it seems to me is always razor sharp, and often, bright with hope. Ray Kurzweil provides some fascinating ideas into nano-tech, the sort of forward thinking that makes you sit bolt upright because you didn't even see it coming. Kurzeil discusses technology that could plausibly allow human beings to live forever. There's a lot more besides, but I liked this comment: A cure for aging may be found in the next fifty years. The trick now is to live long enough to be there when it happens.

At the same time I've found it whimsical to read about James Cameron's latest forages into film. An imaginative, and by accounts thus far, groundbreaking project known as AVATAR. It is about man searching for life in the universe and finding it, in abundance, on one particular planet.

Fact is, while Cameron and Kurzweil's streams of consciousness have merit, it is pointless trying to brew tea when the saucer on which the t-cup is teetering is in a raving fuckstroom maelstrom, and you're in the tepid warm water of the t-cup, rather than the seething torrents that just a little bit of CHINA is separating us from.

Seriously, were it not for the juggernaut that is China's economy, the pretence that commerce would even be possible simply would not be possible. It would not be credible even in the world of fantasy and wishful thinking and chronic ADD in which we now find ourselves.

I often come back to the same argument - and it's that the media, the newspapers, and television news, they themselves have lost the plot. The media have become tabloid journalism, and the more serious publications, like the New York Times, have been far from accurate in knowing how to inform Americans and the world on issues ranging from energy, to the economy, to war. They score a few points in their political analysis, and on science, and other commentaries. But the most important stuff they didn't even sniff coming. Because who was paying for their advertising?

Too many people still use the media as their source of conventional wisdom, and they believe those who disbelieve the media are paranoid.

Yet time and again we see the media emerge from yet another reality check with egg on their front pages. The latest is H1N1/swine flu. It doesn't take a genius to guess what sort of news is a GAME CHANGER. If you simply follow the pattern of swine flu in Mexico [disease floats for months virtually undetected, then epidemics start, limited response by authorities, then reluctantly schools close, then businesses, as death toll climbs.] Simple, extrapolate this pattern for the whole world, and each country. Extrapolate the consequences not of a large death toll, but merely the strain of health care, on the economy, as huge swathes of the population fall ill.

Yes, people continue to dismiss swine flu as 'unimportant'. Well, it's so widespread now that health officials have given up counting. The numbers coming in now [220 000 infections counted] are incidental. If swine flu was all we had to worry about, it would still be a heckuva lot. It is going to be with us for the next 6 months - 3 years. In that time, plenty will happen. It is still feeding on untouched human reservoirs in the Southern Hemisphere, before wheeling back to the North. The numbers of infections in some Northern hemisphere countries currently outstrips the record for winters. So we're in the first chapter of this virus. And without being alarmist, this virus has the potential to cause some serious problems. It is projected to infect one third of the entire human population.

So it becomes fanciful to imagine that in 50 years we might find the technology to live forever. Many may not survive the next 5 years, and here we are referring to specifically to one thing - swine flu. Even at this point, many people continue not to take it seriously. Interestingly on today's Business Day poll, 54% said Yes, SA has cause to panic over the Swine Flu pandemic.
Africa could be worst affected by swine flu: Motsoaledi

Well, there are other issues to take seriously, and the economy/financial crisis/credit crisis is another. Incidentally, a population that is stressed by concerns over bill paying and unemployment is far more susceptible to illness. Mobius has recently stated that a 30% correction in global stock markets is likely. I agree [though I haven't always agreed with Mark Mobius].

Under normal circumstances the economic stimulus may have had some long term effect, but we are so far out of the ballpark of 'normal'. No conversations are even contemplated in terms of restructuring/retrofitting suburbia, and transport. Energy is getting a more thorough look-see, but while there is interest in alternatives and investment in electric vehicles, it still ends up being people driving cars, cars deployed throughout suburbia, and the same effort to prop up the same jobs and deliver on 'growth' and 'targets' and sales.
The penny is starting to drop, that the really really serious shit that has hit the world's economic fan has...er...something to do with energy. Energy did something last year, and ever since, everything has been out of whack. But derivatives had something to do with it blah blah blah.

In fact, Goldman Sachs owes 5 times more in terms of derivatives than the size of the United States GDP. For Morgan Stanley I believe the figure is 20 times more.

The world economy, the financial system known as capitalism, fiat currency [using notes to buy stuff] is over. It will take a while to admit this, in the same way it takes a while for the world's largest and one of the oldest automakers to accept that bankruptcy is inevitable. Sometimes you know it but you postpone the process to soften the landing. Well, that's where we are.

The implications are far worse than the Depression era, and sad to say, the implications for war, are even worse. Let's not forget that the first and second world wars sandwiched the Great Depression. I don't believe people today can tolerate the idea of going from incredible affluence to bankruptcy without picking up pitchforks, gnashing their teeth, and shaking their fists at someone [call me naive].

So the idea of leaving all our troubles behind and finding another isn't without merit.


Except that it's never really going to happen. We won't even be back on the moon in 5 years, and in 5 years, a lot is going to happen. I believe, for example, that the Infinite War will now gain momentum. This is a war that will not even in our lifetimes, and has already started. We have already heard that the occupation of Afghanistan [sandwiched between China, Pakistan and Iran] will continue for the next 40 years [a generation]. Personally I believe within 20 years, America will not be recognisable as the country it presently is. In the same way one does not recognise a company that is bankrupt which then re-asserts or is broken into little pieces and bought by wealthier countries.

Who knows what the results will be of a nuclear exchange. This is looking likely to occur within the next 2 years. It is almost certain to involve Iran, Israel and perhaps North Korea [who might be a behind-the-scenes-player]. America could bolster its position militarily in the face of losing its place economically. But then all bets are off with China and Russia and the rest of the world.

For now though there is relative peace, with trouble brewing in Iran, trouble that might lead to bunker busters before the end of August, courtesy of the Israeli Air Force.
In terms of the economy, if it climbs, oil will drag it down, otherwise rational fundamentals will cut slices of irrational exuberance out of it. Playerz are out there who still want to make money - didn't they get the memo?

Economic outlook: Oil prices cloud recovery hopes

In closing, I'd like to finish on a positive note. It is not entirely fruitless or wasted effort to pay attention to the changes sweeping our planet right now. Some may have the philosophy that it only makes sense to pay attention to those things we have control over, or influence over. Well, some things we cannot control may yet, may soon even, begin to exert pressures on you and me.
The economy is an important once. Consider what you would do if you lost your job? Had no money? It is useful and practical to at least begin to contemplate these ideas.

In terms of your health, try to manage stress. Get enough sleep. Try to eat healthy, stay away from simple sugars. Get sun on skin and exercise. I cannot help feeling that while movies are a distraction from present problems, this year's Star Trek painted a precarious plot for Captain Kirk. Kirk got thrown off his ship and was marooned on a faraway world. A plot device got him back, and if we can come up with a game changer, and it might be Nano-tech, then who knows.

Unfortunately our problems are already upon us, and we have to race against time, and against our own ignorance, our own expectations. We have wasted many opportunities, but it is never too late to develop the discipline to know what to do, and then to do it. Now is a time when many of us need to make important choices, and some fundamentally new and different to the conventions. Good choices will be rewarded. Poor choices, associated with poor discipline and wishful thinking, won't be.

Meanwhile, we need to keep on swimming. Believe it or not, swine flu is just a virus and all it wants to do is to live, just like you. But today this planet is an awfully crowded place.