PPCC-Pisitófilos Creditófagos-Verano 2022

[sudden and sharp]

Como (casi) siempre, hay que ir a la foto, y _sólo_ a la foto:

Acciones meme: de fiesta como en 2021
Vuelven modas como las criptos, o Adam Neumann, de WeWork
https://cincodias.elpais.com/cincodias/2022/08/19/opinion/1660918872_458393.html





Opinión... reza.

[Cadavre Exquis]

World Economic Forum adviser claims the planet no longer needs the ‘vast majority’ of the population
As a potential remedy to economically 'obsolete' people, Yuval Noah Harari proposed government redistribution of wealth, not just nationally, but globally.

Emily Mangiaracina | Fri Aug 12, 2022

Yuval Harari in a June 17, 2022 TED talk on Climate Change | YouTube screenshot

Top World Economic Forum (WEF) adviser Yuval Noah Harari recently declared that the world does not “need the vast majority” of the current population due to technological advances.

Harari made the bold declaration in an interview with Chris Anderson, head of the popular TED media group, echoing past predictions of a “useless class” of “unemployable” humans.

Yuval Noah Harari Reveals the Real Dangers Ahead | The TED Interview

Harai suggested that, in a departure from the 20th century, when the “big heroes” of political systems’ prevailing narratives were always “the common people,” now in the 21st century, people “are no longer part of the story of the future.” Instead, according to Harari, they have been replaced by artificial intelligence (AI) and displaced by a high-tech economy.

The author and lecturer presented to Anderson the “hypothesis” that anxiety about being displaced in the future economy by AI and a highly educated “tech” class is partly at the root of the world’s “disillusionment and backlash against the liberal order.”

“Part of what might be going [on] is people realize — and they’re correct in thinking that, ‘The future doesn’t need me. … Maybe if they are nice, they will throw some crumbs my way, like universal basic income.’ But it’s much worse psychologically to feel that you are useless than to feel that you are exploited,” Harari said.

“Now, fast forward to the early 21st century when we just don’t need the vast majority of the population,” Harari continued, “because the future is about developing more and more sophisticated technology, like artificial intelligence [and] bioengineering.”

Harari added that “these technologies increasingly will make redundant” “whatever people are still doing which is useful,” and will thus “make it possible to replace the people.”

While he conceded to Anderson that technologies such as AI will open up new and “more interesting jobs,” Harari argued that “it’s not clear that many humans will be able to do them, because they will require high skills and a lot of education.”

Anderson doggedly proposed ways in which human beings could — and he suggested, should — continue to play a valuable part in the world economy, or at least society.

“So again, trying to desperately apply some sort of more hopeful spin on this … a lot of the jobs that are being displaced are actually kind of boring jobs that don’t really tap into the core of what the human is,” Anderson said.

He went on to point out that “When you step back, there’s no shortage of things that need to be done,” including addressing the world’s “millions of lonely people.”

“People are really good at making lonely people not feel lonely, and pretty much anyone can do that,”  Anderson noted. “You know, communities are a mess. Pretty much anyone who lives somewhere could do, in principle, something to make a community better. They could paint a fence, or do some voluntary service, or whatever.”

Harari in turn argued that in order to “recogniz[e] activities like community building and raising families as jobs,” “we need a new economic and social model.”

When Anderson asked Harari whether he sees “any solution to that problem other than” more tax redistribution by the government, Harari replied, “That’s the traditional role of government. When the market isn’t efficient enough in redistributing the wealth, then this is the job of the government.”

Harari went so far as to suggest that wealth would need to be redistributed globally, so that the profits of tech companies in the U.S. and China could benefit people in countries less advanced in the tech domain.

“I would say that the biggest problem by far is not on the national level. It’s on the global level,” said Harari, who added that while he can envision redistribution of wealth from “tech giants in California” to “mothers in Pennsylvania,” he does not see that wealth being redistributed to “Honduras or Mexico or Brazil.”

Eventually, Anderson pointed to the irreplaceable role of human beings, asking Harari:

“Is there any scenario where we could write ourselves back into this story in quite an important way as being the only things in the universe that we know of that are actually capable of the things that matter most in the universe — i.e., love, joy, creativity, the sort of that feeling of peace you talked about.

Technology can’t advise us on what are the things deepest in our hearts. We should not let it, we should retain control, in fact make our technology in service to those things. And in a sense, the relationship between technology and us — [technology] should regard sentient things as gods, that have superpowers it knows nothing of. No? Is that ridiculous?

Harari did not directly address Anderson’s point, but honed in on “the question of sentience and consciousness” as “the most important question in this regard,” and “the greatest riddle of science.”

Harari’s evasion of the question may stem from his less transcendent view of human beings, as reflected in his claim that “Homo sapiens rule the world because it is the only animal that can believe in things that exist purely in its own imagination, such as gods, states, money, and human rights,” a backbone idea of his book “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind.”

This idea is echoed in his famous assertion that we “should get used to the idea that we are no longer mysterious souls,” but are “now hackable animals.”

As a top adviser to the WEF’s head and founder Klaus Schwab, Harari’s view that the world now holds an abundance of “useless” people, together with his open degradation of human beings as equivalent to animals, raises the question of whether the WEF’s aims are shaped by such a view, and if so, to what extent.

Indeed, the WEF arguably places the environment, and not human beings per se, at the center of its priorities. It has partnered with the heavily pro-abortion and pro-contraception United Nations (U.N.), and the WEF’s Great Reset agenda has raised concerns of collateral damage to the livelihoods and well-being of people around the world.

For instance, some argue that the WEF seeks the premature relinquishing of fossil fuel sources in favor of “green” but expensive and unreliable energy sources in such a manner as to curb overall energy usage and hurt entire economies via a ripple effect.

More evidence of such a worldview is the WEF’s endorsement of COVID lockdowns, which resulted in waves of lost jobs, massive spikes in depression, upticks in domestic abuse, and other harmful effects. In fact, the WEF called for “more stringent” lockdowns, despite such worldwide misery, and praised the lockdowns for their effect of reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and pollution.

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.eleconomista.es/economia/noticias/11915109/08/22/La-escalada-inflacionaria-amenaza-la-estabilidad-politica-en-Europa.html

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.eleconomista.es/opinion/noticias/11915259/08/22/Los-conflictos-regresan-a-Europa-.html

https://www.eleconomista.es/economia/noticias/11915229/08/22/Los-sindicatos-piden-elevar-mas-de-un-7-los-salarios-en-el-Reino-Unido.html

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.eleconomista.es/banca-finanzas/noticias/11915179/08/22/Kutxabank-retira-del-escaparate-la-hipoteca-fija-para-impulsar-la-variable.html

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.eleconomista.es/energia/noticias/11915071/08/22/La-luz-para-manana-alcanza-maximos-desde-la-excepcion-iberica-con-el-gas-europeo-desbocado.html

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.eleconomista.es/vivienda-inmobiliario/noticias/11914247/08/22/La-inversion-inmobiliaria-apunta-a-records-en-2022.html

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.eleconomista.es/transportes-turismo/noticias/11915247/08/22/El-veto-a-la-aviacion-ejecutiva-deja-en-el-aire-un-negocio-de-3100-millones.html

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.eleconomista.es/mercados-cotizaciones/noticias/11915258/08/22/El-euro-cae-por-debajo-de-la-paridad-y-marca-minimos-del-ano-2002-.html

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.eleconomista.es/mercados-cotizaciones/noticias/11915245/08/22/El-bono-de-EEUU-visita-el-3-a-la-espera-de-Jackson-Hole.html

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.eleconomista.es/economia/noticias/11914889/08/22/El-Banco-de-Espana-no-ve-una-recesion-cercana-en-Espana-ni-muchisimo-menos.html

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.lavanguardia.com/economia/20220821/8474505/china-universidades-innovacion-ciencia-investigacion-espana.html

https://twitter.com/XavierFerras/status/1561294408045268994

Saludos.

[R.G.C.I.M.]

Pensamientos al vuelo:

China está donde occidente hace una década.
Japón se adelantó década y media y no ha variado su rumbo.  No parece que tenga capacidad de liderar movimientos de salida.
UK parece que va de cabeza a salida inflacionaria
UE de momento aguantando la respiración intentando ajuste fino. No parece que quede mucha mecha. Debe estar esperando hacia donde definitivamente se.mueve el corazón del imperio.
US? No lo tengo claro si van a salida inflacionaria, a reset , o a ajuste fino. Parece que tienen más mecha que nosotros.

Y esto no acaba nunca. Nos creíamos que quemaba? Ja!
Esto no ha hecho más que empezar...

Sigo sin enterarme de nada como para tomar decisiones que no sean minimizar riesgos y pérdidas y aguantar un día más.

Sds.

[Derby]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-23/swedish-home-prices-continue-to-drop-on-inflation-pressures

Inflation Pressures Threaten to Upend One of Europe’s Hottest Housing Markets

*Valueguard housing-price index fell 2.9% on month in July
*Gain in Stockholm apartment prices rare cause for optimism

Swedish home prices continued to fall last month as the surging cost of living threatens to upend what has been one of Europe’s hottest housing markets.

In July, the HOX Sweden housing-price index decreased 2.9% from the previous month, according to Valueguard, which compiles the data.

The downturn has raised fears that what currently looks like a correction may accelerate into a crash with more wide-ranging implications. Prices had dropped the most since the financial crisis in June.(...)

[Derby]

Me resulta fascinante ver cómo el cambio narrativa produce un cambio de percepción, y es casi inmediato y radical (blanco/negro). No se trata tanto del hecho como de quién y cómo lo cuenta.... Hemos pasado décadas en las que el importe e incremento de las rentas de alquiler se contaba como algo positivo, una evidencia de lo bien que iba "todo", y ahora se convierte en causa del mal. ¿Aparecerán los propietarios como los villanos de la película?

https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/surging-rents-hitting-middle-class-americans-the-hardest

Surging rents squeezing middle-class Americans the hardest, study shows

Rent costs in the US are growing at the fastest pace in decades

Rent prices in the U.S. are rising at the fastest pace in decades, slamming U.S. households across the country, according to data from the Bank of America Institute.

Median rent payments for Bank of America customers surged 7.4% in July from the previous year, up from 7.2% in June, according to a new report from the Charlotte-based bank. Although skyrocketing rents are squeezing Americans across the income spectrum, middle-income and younger workers are feeling the biggest pinch.

"A significant increase in rent prices can have meaningful impact on household financial situations, particularly for middle and lower income households," the report said.

Rising rents are a concerning development because higher housing costs most directly and acutely affect household budgets. Roughly 34% of households are renters, according to Census Bureau data, but that figure is even larger for lower- and middle-income families. More than half — roughly 52.6% — of households with family income that is below the national median of $31,133 are renters.

Even more worrisome is there are no signs that rent inflation is poised to slow down in the coming months.

New forecasts from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas show that rent inflation will likely climb higher before eventually peaking in mid-2023. The latest Dallas Fed projections show that rent could hit the apex at 8.3% next May before starting to cool off. Rent is expected to remain elevated well above pre-pandemic levels for the entirety of 2023.

"This suggests the squeeze from higher rent will likely persist for the foreseeable future," Bank of America said in its report. "Despite elevated bank balances and strong wages at the moment, rent inflation could eventually bite into consumers’ purchasing power elsewhere in a more meaningful way."

Households, in general, spend about 7% of their annual expenditures on rent, while households without college degrees spent nearly 10% of their total expenditure on rent in 2020.

While the rapid pace of price increases eased slightly in July with the monthly increase flat at 0%, the consumer price index still climbed 8.5% from the previous year — hovering near a painful four-decade high, the Labor Department reported last week.

And despite the decrease in headline inflation — which was largely attributed to a decline in gasoline prices — the cost of essentials such as rent and food continued to soar higher in July. Rent jumped 0.7% over the month and 6.3% on an annual basis, according to the data.

For consumers with an annual household income between $51,000 and $100,000, median rent payment jumped even more, soaring 8.3% from the previous year in July. The lowest income group that earns $50,000 or less, meanwhile, saw a 7.4% increase. Households making more than $251,000 saw the smallest annual increase at 5.9%.

There are several reasons for runaway rent costs, including high demand as steep prices and rising interest rates push prospective homebuyers out of the housing market. Low inventory and high demand also explain the increases.

"From our perspective, the costs inside the housing complex have not yet finished increasing, and it will likely be some months before an apex is reached," said RSM chief economist Joe Brusuelas. He suggested that inflation broadening out into the shelter sector could force the Federal Reserve to approve a third consecutive 75-basis-point interest rate hike when it meets in September as policymakers try to cool the red-hot housing market.

"In our estimation, it will be two to three years before inflation is anywhere near the Fed’s 2% inflation target," he said.