Re: Tema: PPCC - Pisitófilos Creditófagos - Primavera 2023

[Benzino Napaloni]

En la retórica PP-PSOE hay un asunto que aclarar con Sánchez. Ha sido adalid del "no-es-no" hasta el punto de dimitir como diputado para no investir a Rajoy, y volver con una maniobra digna de Felipe tras Suresnes.

¿Hasta qué punto se va a avenir con pactos con el PP? No tengo la menor duda de que una de las líneas rojas es dejar a Vox como comparsa. Pero no tengo nada claro el asunto (con Sánchez) de la  Große Koalition.

Desde luego, si hay un cambio de gobierno vamos a saber por la vía rápida si vuelve la "hotelización del inquilinato", o si hay órdenes de Bruselas con amenaza incluida de cerrar el grifo si se desobedece.

[Raf909]

En la retórica PP-PSOE hay un asunto que aclarar con Sánchez. Ha sido adalid del "no-es-no" hasta el punto de dimitir como diputado para no investir a Rajoy, y volver con una maniobra digna de Felipe tras Suresnes.

¿Hasta qué punto se va a avenir con pactos con el PP? No tengo la menor duda de que una de las líneas rojas es dejar a Vox como comparsa. Pero no tengo nada claro el asunto (con Sánchez) de la  Große Koalition.

Desde luego, si hay un cambio de gobierno vamos a saber por la vía rápida si vuelve la "hotelización del inquilinato", o si hay órdenes de Bruselas con amenaza incluida de cerrar el grifo si se desobedece.

Olvídate, el PP va a continuar estirando el chicle. No los veo yo tomando medidas impopulares en vivienda. No es No:
- No quieren
- No saben hacer otra cosa

A mí me pide el cuerpo que sean ellos quienes se coman el marrón, pero al mismo tiempo me da miedo que perdamos más años de los necesarios poniendo tiritas cuando hay una hemorragia.

Al PSOE lo veo más sumiso con las recetas de la UE. Otra cosa que a veces se nos escapa, es que la "derecha" está ganando en toda Europa. Quizá la gestión del COVID está pasando más factura de la que yo preveía a quienes estaban en los diferentes gobiernos de la UE.

[Benzino Napaloni]

Olvídate, el PP va a continuar estirando el chicle. No los veo yo tomando medidas impopulares en vivienda. No es No:
- No quieren
- No saben hacer otra cosa

A mí me pide el cuerpo que sean ellos quienes se coman el marrón, pero al mismo tiempo me da miedo que perdamos más años de los necesarios poniendo tiritas cuando hay una hemorragia.

Al PSOE lo veo más sumiso con las recetas de la UE. Otra cosa que a veces se nos escapa, es que la "derecha" está ganando en toda Europa. Quizá la gestión del COVID está pasando más factura de la que yo preveía a quienes estaban en los diferentes gobiernos de la UE.

Que van a querer, no lo dudo. Otra cosa es que puedan. Suelo sacar por aquí el caso de la reforma de la ley hipotecaria, que dificulta la "barra libre". Era una directiva de Bruselas, Rajoy llevaba tres años haciéndose el loco, las multas millonarias ya estaban al caer... y fue de lo primero que hizo Sánchez tras poner sus posaderas en el sillón.

Si no hubo "manos negras" en la caída de Rajoy, desde luego que a Sánchez se le apretó para empezar a hacer los deberes.

Sin un Draghi que hunda tipos, sin inmigración en masa como en los 2000, sin deuda para financiar otra ola de inmigrantes, y con la Gran Jubilación en marcha, dudo mucho que el PP tenga poder real para hacer eso.

Tampoco olvidemos algo de Rajoy. Había quien esperaba que fuese un nuevo Aznar, o al menos fuese algo parecido en lo económico, y en 2015 el PP se pegó una toña en escaños mucho peor que tras el 11-M. Sin atentados de por medio. El desencanto era tremendo. Si el PP ganó las elecciones fue porque al PSOE le fue mucho peor, y Coleta Morada casi le sorpassa.

Con lo que Feijóo está avisado. Puede que reciba votos "prestaos", pero dado que Sánchez no se ha cargado la economía (no estamos mal, se ha sobrevivido más o menos al COVID y a la crisis de precios de la energía), si el PSOE se va a la oposición se le va a olvidar muy rápido. Más se odiaba a Zapatero y en 2015 no se acordaba de él ni su padre. El PP está avisado: no va a ser un paseo militar y le van a mandar deberes.

Con lo que también puede ser una jugada maquiavélica del PSOE, regalarles lo peor del marrón del Peak Currantes.

[asustadísimos]

[Por favor, ¡el 'timing' oficial!]

[Derby]

https://www.ft.com/content/87d76063-66a8-4803-b134-45988a5218bd

Labour plans to tackle housing crisis by forcing landowners to sell at lower prices

Reforms would change valuation of plots acquired in England through compulsory purchase orders

Labour is drawing up plans that would force landowners to sell plots for a fraction of their potential market price in an effort to cut home-building costs in England, according to party officials.

Lisa Nandy, shadow levelling-up secretary, intends to reform how land is valued when acquired by councils through “compulsory purchase orders” (CPOs), if Labour wins the next general election.

The Labour proposal for sweeping land reform would go far beyond recent government moves to allow ministers to make landowners sell their holdings more cheaply on limited occasions.

Housebuilding is set to be one of the big themes of the next election, with Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer promising to massively increase construction to ease the country’s property crisis, while the Conservatives are more cautious.

At present, many potential first-time buyers are unable to get on the housing ladder because of high prices.

CPOs allow public bodies or local authorities to force property owners to sell if land is deemed essential for building homes or critical infrastructure.

Under the proposals, a future Labour government would introduce legislation allowing local authorities to buy land at a price that does not reflect the value of potential planning permissions.

This would overwrite the 1961 Land Compensation Act, which prevents councils from buying plots for development at their agricultural value.

At present, local authorities acquiring sites through CPOs must factor the “hope value” into the purchase price. This is the added value based on the expectation that land will gain planning permission in future.

In recent decades, the gap between the value of agricultural land and fields with permission has widened dramatically.

Land worth £22,520 per hectare as agricultural land can on average be worth £6.2mn per hectare with permission — 275 times more — according to the Centre for Progressive Policy think-tank.

“We want local areas to capture and benefit from a lot more of the uplift than they currently do when development occurs,” said one Labour aide.

“We want to tilt the balance of power. It feels like the scales are tilted towards . . . landowners, we want to re-tilt it towards the communities that want to see more houses built,” the aide added.

Labour maintains that the plan would bring England more in line with land valuation systems in Germany, France and the Netherlands.

The proposals are likely to anger some landowners, especially those with fields suitable for development. But Hugh Ellis, director of policy at the Town and Country Planning Association, a charity, said Britain’s “new towns” programme of the 1940s and 1950s had been successful because development corporations could buy vast tracts of land at agricultural value.

He said Labour was “quite right” to look at potential reforms, arguing that property holders had enjoyed “an absolute licence to print money”.

“Labour need to strike the right balance with landowners, giving them some kind of uplift but nowhere near the extent that we have seen over the last 15 years,” he said.

In 2018, a government review by Sir Oliver Letwin, a former cabinet minister, stopped short of recommending that authorities be allowed to buy up land at its agricultural price.

The government launched a consultation in 2022 into capping or abolishing hope value. In April this year, it announced new powers allowing the levelling-up secretary to limit or suspend hope value compensation payments, on a scheme-by-scheme basis.

That new rule is set to be introduced through an amendment to the levelling-up and regeneration bill. At the time, the department said the “scheme by scheme” approach would allow cases to be assessed in relation to the European Convention on Human Rights.

The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities said hope value payments could often increase costs for councils. “Our reforms will ensure the taxpayer gets best value for money, by removing ‘hope value’ where justified and in the public interest,” it said.

“It will ultimately be for the secretary of state to decide whether a compulsory purchase order can be approved and if the removal of hope value is appropriate.”

PS Ayer por la tarde tuve que volver a hacer algo de trabajo en la inmobiliaria. Efectivamente, el ambiente era de euforia contenida y con la expectativa (suspiros de emoción) de que el PP ganará las elecciones generales y tumbará de forma inmediata la Ley de la Vivienda (todo va junto, con simplicidad infantil). A fin de cuentas son intermediarios que representan los intereses de los propietarios y los necesitan contentos...así que se tragan su propia vergüenza en cuanto ésta asoma la cabeza.
Coincido con la impresión de Asustadísimos de que el ambiente es irrespirable, de una gran violencia y hostilidad. Este país se está volviendo ingobernable porque (casi) nadie es capaz de la mínima autocontención.
De política no sé nada ni consigue captar mi atención, aunque me esfuerzo.

[Derby]

https://www.cityam.com/house-prices-continue-to-fall-as-buy-to-let-landlords-sell-up/

House prices continue to fall as buy-to-let landlords sell up

House prices are continuing to fall, according to a closely watched index, but transactions are ahead of the long-term average due to landlords selling up.

According to estate agent Zoopla, landlord properties accounted for 11 per cent of sales in the last month, as high mortgage rates and energy bills forced many property owners to place their homes on the market as they struggled to make a profit.

While a boost in supply may be welcomed by some, a decision by lenders such as NatWest to raise interest rates on fixed rates mortgages by up to 0.45 percentage points, will make it increasingly difficult for first time buyers to get on the ladder and also limit the number of rental properties available for tenants.

“Sellers shouldn’t get carried away by more positive data on the housing market and need to price their homes realistically if they are serious about moving home in 2023,” Richard Donnell, executive director at Zoopla said.

“Home buyers remain price sensitive with one eye firmly on the outlook for the economy, the cost of living and the trajectory of mortgage rates which appear likely to edge higher in the coming weeks,” Donnell added.

It comes as the average price of a home in the UK has grown by 1.9 per cent year on year, now costing £260k. However, that masks a 1.3 per cent fall over the past six months.

However in London house prices contracted by 0.2 per cent on a year to year basis, with the average price of a home in the capital now costing £523k.

“This demand for London property is caused by the backlog of needs-based buyers who were looking to move following Covid-19, which was so great it has yet to be satisfied, despite the increased cost to buy,” Guy Gittins, chief executive  of Foxtons Estate Agents said.

“As well, given the extreme supply and demand imbalance in the lettings market, more renters who are in a position to buy have accelerated their search,” he added.

[Derby]

https://twitter.com/NickTimiraos/status/1663531566851563520

@NickTimiraos
Pandemic home price bubble deflating

U.S. home prices rose 0.7% for the year ending March, the smallest 12-month increase since 2012 https://wsj.com/articles/home-prices-rose-in-march-for-second-straight-month-dbc1553a

YoY declines in:
Seattle (-12%)
San Francisco (-11%)
Las Vegas & Portland, Ore.  (-5%)
Phoenix & Denver (-4%)
LA (-3%)

https://twitter.com/NickTimiraos/status/1663533489864441858

@NickTimiraos
Keep in mind: Case-Shiller is lagged.

It reflects closings on a 3-month moving average, so YoY numbers reported today (for March) reflecting Jan-March activity vs Jan-Mar 2022.

More recent monthly price trends suggest a bottom of some kind around the turn of the year.

[Derby]

https://www.ft.com/content/1fd173a6-8718-4798-b692-685801ec1604

US-UK trade deal off the table as Sunak plans visit to Washington

Britain’s prime minister to hold talks with Joe Biden next week

UK prime minister Rishi Sunak will fly to Washington next week for a meeting with US president Joe Biden — but there will be no attempt to forge a bilateral trade deal.

Downing Street on Tuesday announced the visit, saying it would be a chance for the two countries to enhance their “co-operation and co-ordination” on issues including securing supply chains and transitioning to zero carbon.

“It will also be an opportunity to discuss issues including sustaining our support for Ukraine as we build on the success of our G7 summit in the run-up to the Nato summit in July.”

A Number 10 spokesperson said the UK was no longer seeking a trade deal with the US.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the two would discuss “efforts to continue strengthening our economic relationship” and that they would also “review developments in Northern Ireland”.

[siempretarde]

Hay articulos que me recuerdan a posts ...

https://cincodias.elpais.com/mercados-financieros/2023-05-30/el-bce-alerta-de-un-efecto-domino-en-el-sistema-financiero-por-la-banca-en-la-sombra.html

Los depósitos no garantizados constituyen la mayor parte de esos pasivos de la banca en la sombra, seguidos de los títulos de deuda. La proporción de financiamiento afecta particularmente a los bancos más grandes. En concreto, los cinco mayores bancos de la eurozona representan alrededor del 50% de la exposición total a préstamos y valores; y los 13 bancos principales representan más del 80%.

Derby, busco canciones para expresar mi estado de animo, pero es que solo encuentro punk (ya he superado el blues y soul...) a ver si mirando mejor ...

[Benzino Napaloni]

Coincido con la impresión de Asustadísimos de que el ambiente es irrespirable, de una gran violencia y hostilidad. Este país se está volviendo ingobernable porque (casi) nadie es capaz de la mínima autocontención.
De política no sé nada ni consigue captar mi atención, aunque me esfuerzo.

Pues verás qué risa cuando descubran que el ladrillo no tiene remedio.

De momento hasta las elecciones pondrán el champán a enfriar. Luego, por supuesto, si gana la derecha, aguantarán otro poco más hasta la constitución del Parlamento y del nuevo gobierno.

La cosa será después. Octubre no lo veo. Al menos no de cara que "el ganado" lo perciba. Lo veo más bien como lo que pasó con las elecciones andaluzas de 2012. A Rajoy no se le ocurrió mejor idea que retrasar el debate de los PGE a después de las andaluzas para no poner en peligro la candidatura de "Arenas Movedizas". Resultado: "Mariano, para esto no te hemos votado", y el entonces feudo socialista por excelencia duró una buena temporada más.

De cara al "ganado", el 2 de octubre será intrascendente. Lo único que le olerá a cuerno quemado será ver que pasa el tiempo, y no se toca la Ley de Vivienda. O lo hace de forma insustancial. Es decir, nos podemos plantar perfectamente en primeros de año nuevo.

[senslev]

https://medium.com/the-straight-dope/big-data-predicts-the-when-of-civil-war-and-revolution-411b2cfa3708

Big Data predicts the when of civil war and revolution. The superrich are always the why. End Times provides the proof.

David Wineberg
The Straight Dope

It is fashionable to talk of the 2020s as a time of upset, instability, turmoil, revolution and war, all without any factual basis, just gut feeling. What is really shocking is that science and math show that it is all true. In End Times, Peter Turchin describes how countries come to this point predictably, and how all of it can always be traced to two factors: elite overproduction, and the concomitant immiseration of the 99%. In the regular cycle, the time for overturning everything is now.

This is quite possibly the most important book of the decade, and affects absolutely everyone. It explains precisely where we are and where we’re heading, based on thousands of years of the same cycles. Unfortunately for the USA, this knowledge comes too late.

To make a long, detailed, involved and complex story short, as the rich grow their families, their children want power and money. They take it from the poor, in low wages, low taxes on capital, removal of rights, reductions in aid, and increases in incarceration and fines (the “wealth pump”). They achieve their goals through a direct line to power, bypassing normal channels. As the poor get poorer and the rich get richer and more numerous, protests begin. They are chaotic, leaderless and without clear goals. They evolve into bloodletting, literal or physical, which ultimately greatly reduces the number of the elite. Basic wages go up as fewer workers survive and are available, and equality reaches a high point.

And the cycle begins again.

The Chinese have seen this cycle endlessly: “The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. Thus it has ever been.” But Turchin can say this definitively because of a giant database called CrisisDB. It goes back thousands of years, through all kinds of societies and nations. And everywhere he researches, it is the overproduction of elites that strains the system. And causes its demise.

It has long been proclaimed that human society, being composed of individual humans, is far too complex for any kind of model to operate consistently and successfully. But the data say that in high level, general sweeps, patterns and waves occur regularly and predictably. The differences make no difference.

With war, the generation of the war cries loudly — Never again! The next generation enjoys some level of peace, but by the third generation, all is forgotten. People are emboldened again, and ready for the “glory” of another war.

So with politics. Equality reigns for a couple of decades, then distortions begin to appear. Larger numbers of people become fabulously rich, and all their circle want to have their say in power. There aren’t enough positions in government or influence for them, so they become frustrated and embittered. The demands of the rich flood the halls of government. They fund radical candidates, arrange for removals and assassinations, and in general, darken the outlook. Laws begin to dramatically favor the rich at everyone else’s cost.

The 99% become outcasts (flyover country, deplorables, welfare queens, poor, homeless). They look back at their parents, who had decent jobs, decent pay and decent households, and wonder how and why all that went away.

This is exactly what Donald Trump tapped into, even though he clearly had no desire to change any of it. His actions enriched the richest, and his plans were to further impoverish the poor, but his words were to Make America Great Again. That appeal rang truer than anything today’s 99% had ever heard, and they bought into it, hook, line and sinker. But Trump was never going to be the solution. He would only speed up the process to disaster.

Wages had been going down since the 1970s. Unions were shoved out of action. Universities became laughably unaffordable. So did housing. Even life expectancy dropped. Child labor laws are being softened to help suppress minimum wages. This is exactly the configuration of pretty much every civil war and revolution: the rich want their power, and the rest want decent conditions. Something has to give. And it is usually the floor, not the ceiling.

That the lot of the 99% has not and will not improve fits totally into Turchin’s research. Unless someone comes to their aid and reduces the glaring inequality, governments will fall, constitutions will be tossed, domestic terrorism will increase, and civil wars will break out. And elites will light the match. In this decade. The Chinese knew it. So did Tsars Alexander II and III. Yet we keep falling into the same trap.

Turchin has been working at this a long time. His team has built a remarkable dataset. It extends to the point of revealing that:

-When societies are in equilibrium, human height is measurably increased. Americans were the tallest in the world in the 1700s. And before a civil war, people don’t grow nearly as tall; they actually, measurably shrink. It is plain for all to see.

-Life expectancy changes as the cycle approaches the chaos stage. He says American life expectancy has never fallen three years in a row since the Great Depression of 1933. But it has just done so. And Covid-19 is far from exceptional. Major epidemics “are often associated” with these periods.

-“Nearly half of the millionaires who thrived during the Roaring Twenties were wiped out by the Great Depression and the following decades, when worker wages grew faster than GDP per capita.” It was the greatest leveling ever seen in the USA.

-“In one-sixth of the (global) cases, elite groups were targeted for extermination. The probability of ruler assassination was 40 percent. Bad news for the elites. Even more bad news for everybody was that 75 percent of crises ended in revolutions or civil wars (or both), and in one-fifth of cases, recurrent civil wars dragged on for a century or longer. Sixty percent of exits led to the death of the state –it was conquered by another or simply disintegrated into fragments.”

-The “CrisisDB confirms that rise-and-fall cycles in societies with polygamous elites are substantially shorter than such cycles in monogamous societies.” In English — nuclear families produce fewer children, delaying the inevitable competition for power.

In other words, the data has a lot more to tell us than we even know to ask. This is a whole new way to look at the world.

It happens the same way all over and throughout history. Turchin examines not just the US, as it approaches this low point right now, but also England at several points, France, Russia, the Roman Empire and China, which has the longest record of it.

The commonalities occur at every stage. When the cycle is fresh and people are equal, they co-operate. The common good is an important value to them. But as the rich grow in numbers and in wealth, and pull away from the pack, “the sense of national cooperation with which states quickly rot from within” takes over, Turchin says. This is as precise a summation of the US today as I have seen. It is shockingly true. People begin to fear and hate institutions. They want to seal the borders to keep what little is left for themselves.

Turchin points out that it is the ruling class that wants open borders. They mean more competition for jobs, so lower wages and more government aid programs they can manage for profit. He cites Bernie Sanders saying open borders is “a Koch idea” and nothing he supports. But the ruling class always gets its way — until the end. It has been decades since voters had any real say in government. Legislators bow to rich donors. Voters only count during elections, not in legislatures. A billionaire has purchased himself a Supreme Court justice. The rot has become glaringly visible.

It is the ruling class that scares off equalizing legislation, by say, calling inheritance taxes a death tax, even though it only applies to them and not the 99%. They are also behind denying climate change, calling it a hoax, in order to deflect attention from the ever increasing rates of fossil fuel consumption. In this environment, “money is free speech” Turchin says. Let there be no doubt who is leading everyone down the path to self-destruction. For Turchin, the “wealth pump is one of the most destabilizing social mechanisms known to humanity.” And unfortunately, “it is too late to avert our current crisis.”

Elite overproduction has taken many forms. In many cases, it was military. The rich sent their children to the armed forces, to serve as admirals and generals. In religious societies, they became cardinals and high priests. Under royalty, they became governors, given stipends and pensions for life. Today, they are CEOs and kingmakers, buying elections to get pliable officials who will increase their wealth. In China, Turchin says, for two thousand years it was the educated. They had to take difficult civil service exams to get into government. To fail the exam meant a peasant’s life. Today, the Communist Party of China still operates this same way. If the Chinese can’t get into the party and pass the tests, they are doomed to have zero power or respect.

And in all these cases, when there are more candidates than positions (Musical Chairs, Turchin calls it), there will be unrest among the elite. And it is the elites who will undermine the system before the 99% get organized. In Turchin’s terms: “The most important driver is intraelite competition and conflict, which is a reliable predictor of the looming crisis.” Today’s clue is rich parents bribing school officials to get their (apparently unworthy) children into top universities.

But even that is no guarantee of success, as newly minted lawyers find they begin with a quarter of a million in debt and few prospects to rise to the top in an overstuffed industry.

The civil service figures in another way as well. Smaller societies are not subject to the same cycle, because they might not have an administration, “but once you have a million or more subjects, you either acquire a civil service or suffer from such inefficiencies that your polity sooner or later collapses. Or loses in competition with bureaucratic empires.” Overpopulation has essentially eliminated that marker, making it merely an interesting footnote.

As I read, my own warped mind kept sliding way out of scope of this book, to ecology. Because just when we’re beginning to understand what needs to be done to save the human race and its ecosphere, civil wars and wartime governments will have no time, no inclination and no money to deal with trivia like climate change. Power itself will be at stake. The 2020s could be the final nail in more than one coffin.

In an appendix, Turchin salutes Isaac Asimov, whose 1960s era Foundation trilogy centered around “psycho-history”, the science fiction notion that the whole galaxy operates on a clear cyclical pattern of governance and inevitability (Turchin calls the real thing “cliodynamics”). Would that Asimov were around today to reflect on that as actually true.

End Times is a six star book, not because of the writing style, which is friendly but a little flabby, but because Turchin pulls together a vast jigsaw puzzle and changes the face of history with it. It is dramatic. Every page is a revelation. Dots are connected. Questions are answered. Relevance gets established where no real importance had been noted before. It is important because it determines, reveals and reinforces a universal truth: it is the lack of governance over the rich that causes all the cyclicality of society. Instability, turmoil and wars can be seen as failure to control the elites from their corrupting influence in society after society, era after era. That is a significant step in our understanding of history and ourselves.

This is a whole new way to see how the human world works. And we should be embarrassed that we didn’t realize it a lot sooner. Because we’re about to pay the price. Again.

David Wineberg

(End Times, Peter Turchin, June 2023)

[siempretarde]

Impresionante, pero yo creo que estoy tan mayor que ese tipo de drogas me mandarian al cementerio inmediatamente.

PD: Donde las compra???

PD2:senslev en serio ahora, cuando conoces personalmente a personas asin, la verdad es que las risitas se acaban rapido.

https://medium.com/the-straight-dope/big-data-predicts-the-when-of-civil-war-and-revolution-411b2cfa3708

Big Data predicts the when of civil war and revolution. The superrich are always the why. End Times provides the proof.

David Wineberg
The Straight Dope

It is fashionable to talk of the 2020s as a time of upset, instability, turmoil, revolution and war, all without any factual basis, just gut feeling. What is really shocking is that science and math show that it is all true. In End Times, Peter Turchin describes how countries come to this point predictably, and how all of it can always be traced to two factors: elite overproduction, and the concomitant immiseration of the 99%. In the regular cycle, the time for overturning everything is now.

This is quite possibly the most important book of the decade, and affects absolutely everyone. It explains precisely where we are and where we’re heading, based on thousands of years of the same cycles. Unfortunately for the USA, this knowledge comes too late.

To make a long, detailed, involved and complex story short, as the rich grow their families, their children want power and money. They take it from the poor, in low wages, low taxes on capital, removal of rights, reductions in aid, and increases in incarceration and fines (the “wealth pump”). They achieve their goals through a direct line to power, bypassing normal channels. As the poor get poorer and the rich get richer and more numerous, protests begin. They are chaotic, leaderless and without clear goals. They evolve into bloodletting, literal or physical, which ultimately greatly reduces the number of the elite. Basic wages go up as fewer workers survive and are available, and equality reaches a high point.

And the cycle begins again.

The Chinese have seen this cycle endlessly: “The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. Thus it has ever been.” But Turchin can say this definitively because of a giant database called CrisisDB. It goes back thousands of years, through all kinds of societies and nations. And everywhere he researches, it is the overproduction of elites that strains the system. And causes its demise.

It has long been proclaimed that human society, being composed of individual humans, is far too complex for any kind of model to operate consistently and successfully. But the data say that in high level, general sweeps, patterns and waves occur regularly and predictably. The differences make no difference.

With war, the generation of the war cries loudly — Never again! The next generation enjoys some level of peace, but by the third generation, all is forgotten. People are emboldened again, and ready for the “glory” of another war.

So with politics. Equality reigns for a couple of decades, then distortions begin to appear. Larger numbers of people become fabulously rich, and all their circle want to have their say in power. There aren’t enough positions in government or influence for them, so they become frustrated and embittered. The demands of the rich flood the halls of government. They fund radical candidates, arrange for removals and assassinations, and in general, darken the outlook. Laws begin to dramatically favor the rich at everyone else’s cost.

The 99% become outcasts (flyover country, deplorables, welfare queens, poor, homeless). They look back at their parents, who had decent jobs, decent pay and decent households, and wonder how and why all that went away.

This is exactly what Donald Trump tapped into, even though he clearly had no desire to change any of it. His actions enriched the richest, and his plans were to further impoverish the poor, but his words were to Make America Great Again. That appeal rang truer than anything today’s 99% had ever heard, and they bought into it, hook, line and sinker. But Trump was never going to be the solution. He would only speed up the process to disaster.

Wages had been going down since the 1970s. Unions were shoved out of action. Universities became laughably unaffordable. So did housing. Even life expectancy dropped. Child labor laws are being softened to help suppress minimum wages. This is exactly the configuration of pretty much every civil war and revolution: the rich want their power, and the rest want decent conditions. Something has to give. And it is usually the floor, not the ceiling.

That the lot of the 99% has not and will not improve fits totally into Turchin’s research. Unless someone comes to their aid and reduces the glaring inequality, governments will fall, constitutions will be tossed, domestic terrorism will increase, and civil wars will break out. And elites will light the match. In this decade. The Chinese knew it. So did Tsars Alexander II and III. Yet we keep falling into the same trap.

Turchin has been working at this a long time. His team has built a remarkable dataset. It extends to the point of revealing that:

-When societies are in equilibrium, human height is measurably increased. Americans were the tallest in the world in the 1700s. And before a civil war, people don’t grow nearly as tall; they actually, measurably shrink. It is plain for all to see.

-Life expectancy changes as the cycle approaches the chaos stage. He says American life expectancy has never fallen three years in a row since the Great Depression of 1933. But it has just done so. And Covid-19 is far from exceptional. Major epidemics “are often associated” with these periods.

-“Nearly half of the millionaires who thrived during the Roaring Twenties were wiped out by the Great Depression and the following decades, when worker wages grew faster than GDP per capita.” It was the greatest leveling ever seen in the USA.

-“In one-sixth of the (global) cases, elite groups were targeted for extermination. The probability of ruler assassination was 40 percent. Bad news for the elites. Even more bad news for everybody was that 75 percent of crises ended in revolutions or civil wars (or both), and in one-fifth of cases, recurrent civil wars dragged on for a century or longer. Sixty percent of exits led to the death of the state –it was conquered by another or simply disintegrated into fragments.”

-The “CrisisDB confirms that rise-and-fall cycles in societies with polygamous elites are substantially shorter than such cycles in monogamous societies.” In English — nuclear families produce fewer children, delaying the inevitable competition for power.

In other words, the data has a lot more to tell us than we even know to ask. This is a whole new way to look at the world.

It happens the same way all over and throughout history. Turchin examines not just the US, as it approaches this low point right now, but also England at several points, France, Russia, the Roman Empire and China, which has the longest record of it.

The commonalities occur at every stage. When the cycle is fresh and people are equal, they co-operate. The common good is an important value to them. But as the rich grow in numbers and in wealth, and pull away from the pack, “the sense of national cooperation with which states quickly rot from within” takes over, Turchin says. This is as precise a summation of the US today as I have seen. It is shockingly true. People begin to fear and hate institutions. They want to seal the borders to keep what little is left for themselves.

Turchin points out that it is the ruling class that wants open borders. They mean more competition for jobs, so lower wages and more government aid programs they can manage for profit. He cites Bernie Sanders saying open borders is “a Koch idea” and nothing he supports. But the ruling class always gets its way — until the end. It has been decades since voters had any real say in government. Legislators bow to rich donors. Voters only count during elections, not in legislatures. A billionaire has purchased himself a Supreme Court justice. The rot has become glaringly visible.

It is the ruling class that scares off equalizing legislation, by say, calling inheritance taxes a death tax, even though it only applies to them and not the 99%. They are also behind denying climate change, calling it a hoax, in order to deflect attention from the ever increasing rates of fossil fuel consumption. In this environment, “money is free speech” Turchin says. Let there be no doubt who is leading everyone down the path to self-destruction. For Turchin, the “wealth pump is one of the most destabilizing social mechanisms known to humanity.” And unfortunately, “it is too late to avert our current crisis.”

Elite overproduction has taken many forms. In many cases, it was military. The rich sent their children to the armed forces, to serve as admirals and generals. In religious societies, they became cardinals and high priests. Under royalty, they became governors, given stipends and pensions for life. Today, they are CEOs and kingmakers, buying elections to get pliable officials who will increase their wealth. In China, Turchin says, for two thousand years it was the educated. They had to take difficult civil service exams to get into government. To fail the exam meant a peasant’s life. Today, the Communist Party of China still operates this same way. If the Chinese can’t get into the party and pass the tests, they are doomed to have zero power or respect.

And in all these cases, when there are more candidates than positions (Musical Chairs, Turchin calls it), there will be unrest among the elite. And it is the elites who will undermine the system before the 99% get organized. In Turchin’s terms: “The most important driver is intraelite competition and conflict, which is a reliable predictor of the looming crisis.” Today’s clue is rich parents bribing school officials to get their (apparently unworthy) children into top universities.

But even that is no guarantee of success, as newly minted lawyers find they begin with a quarter of a million in debt and few prospects to rise to the top in an overstuffed industry.

The civil service figures in another way as well. Smaller societies are not subject to the same cycle, because they might not have an administration, “but once you have a million or more subjects, you either acquire a civil service or suffer from such inefficiencies that your polity sooner or later collapses. Or loses in competition with bureaucratic empires.” Overpopulation has essentially eliminated that marker, making it merely an interesting footnote.

As I read, my own warped mind kept sliding way out of scope of this book, to ecology. Because just when we’re beginning to understand what needs to be done to save the human race and its ecosphere, civil wars and wartime governments will have no time, no inclination and no money to deal with trivia like climate change. Power itself will be at stake. The 2020s could be the final nail in more than one coffin.

In an appendix, Turchin salutes Isaac Asimov, whose 1960s era Foundation trilogy centered around “psycho-history”, the science fiction notion that the whole galaxy operates on a clear cyclical pattern of governance and inevitability (Turchin calls the real thing “cliodynamics”). Would that Asimov were around today to reflect on that as actually true.

End Times is a six star book, not because of the writing style, which is friendly but a little flabby, but because Turchin pulls together a vast jigsaw puzzle and changes the face of history with it. It is dramatic. Every page is a revelation. Dots are connected. Questions are answered. Relevance gets established where no real importance had been noted before. It is important because it determines, reveals and reinforces a universal truth: it is the lack of governance over the rich that causes all the cyclicality of society. Instability, turmoil and wars can be seen as failure to control the elites from their corrupting influence in society after society, era after era. That is a significant step in our understanding of history and ourselves.

This is a whole new way to see how the human world works. And we should be embarrassed that we didn’t realize it a lot sooner. Because we’re about to pay the price. Again.

David Wineberg

(End Times, Peter Turchin, June 2023)

[siempretarde]

Si estamos en la fase de aceptacion. Que voy a decir... solo que soy de numeros y viendo febrero y julio 2022 y viendo como estaba la maquina, no quiero ni imaginarme como estara en octubre cuando se presenten los numeros y graficos de junio-julio 2023.

PD: que pelicula mas buena ..... https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leones_por_corderos

[Por favor, ¡el 'timing' oficial!]

[elarquitecto]

como "pero" de todo esto, que es puro traslado de lo de ayer a las generales, y eso es un "fail" como un piano

saludos

NO se puede ni se debe extrapolar el resultado de unas elecciones locales con unas generales, que luego vienen las sorpresas.

Creo que el último servicio del estadista Sánchez va a ser la aniquilación total del coletariado  ...y el que venga detrás que arree

hombre, poder, puedo, ya lo he hecho, pero es cierto que es absolutamente erróneo (lo dije ya)

los moraos se han inmolado ellos solitos, no ha hecho falta ningún sanchez ni nada, empezando por el chaletito aquel (y eso que fue antes de ser ministros y todo), repasad los datos, en 2016 sacaron 5millonacos de votos, luego en 2019 3millones (not bad, pero menuda hostia ya, no?)

en todo este tiempo, en lugar de "asaltar nosequé" se han puesto en modo "tóxico" (yo es que no sabría definirlo, pero el grado de pretenciosidad y soberbia ha sido tan alto como las purgas realizadas... de las cuales salió errejón  y más madrid y tal), no entiendo qué hacen los de iu ahi, pero mira, como si zurren mierdas con un palo

todo ese capital electoral "huérfano" va a ir a alguna parte, y os confundiríais mucho si pensáis que la gente se va a quedar en casa, y más ahora que la derecha lleva tanto tiempo "confundiendo" lo autonómico con lo nacional (no solo ha sido cosa de ayuso)

porque al dar la cara (para que se la partan, si queréis, pero contrasta con el del morrión tras el octogenario, por ejemplo o el de la foto con el narco tras cuca o recibiendo chorreos semanales en el senado, que es como un escenario de segunda división o algo así, feijoo juega en segunda), lo que ha pasado es que ha hecho catarsis de lo de ayer y propuesta de enmienda (o sea, ahora no hablamos del "desastre" del psoe, sino de las generales, les ha robado la iniciativa y de paso ha descuadrado del todo a los "vencedores" y a sus mariachis mediáticos... ana rosa no va a tener tiempo de enmierdar lo suficiente, por resumir)

vale que es mi opinión, pero hay sanchez para largo... solo está por ver si es con yolanda o con quién más

sed honestos, es que veis a feijoo de presidente?? de la mano de abascal?? en serio??

He hecho el cálculo para la provincia de Zaragoza.

Partamos del supuesto de que esto hubiesen sido unas nacionales. Con estas candidaturas y esta participación el resultado es que los 7 diputados por Zaragoza se repartirían sólo entre PP y PSOE a razón de 4 y 3. No entra Vox y por supuesto la izquierda dividida entre CHA, IU y Podemos ni de coña.

Es decir, Sánchez tiene que mover el tablero para que las piezas caigan de otra manera. En resumen, lo que ha pasado frente a las generales de 2019 es que Vox ha perdido algunos votos. Podemos se ha desintegrado y el voto de ciudadanos se ha ido mayoritariamente al PP.
Por otro lado el PSOE ha perdido votos por el desgaste típico de gobernar.

Vox no va a sacar más diputados que en 2019 salvo que movilice a posibles abstencionistas con el -Sí, se puede-
La izquierda dividida va a tirar los votos a la basura favoreciendo a PP y PSOE.

creo que estás perdiendo un poco la perspectiva de lo que pasa con vox (y lo de c's que ya se ha descontado)
mirando las generales (bis) de 2019,
c's sacó 1,6 millones de votos, o sea un 6,8%
vox tuvo 3,6 millones de votos, que es un 15,2%

pero en escaños, c's apenas sumó 10, mientras que vox tuvo 52

si echas cuentas, esos 52 escaños corresponden al 15% de los 350 diputados del hemiciclo, clavaos
pero el 6,8% de c's no, ni remotamente (de hecho es menos de la mitad)

o sea, si bajas del 15% (no lo digo yo, lo dicen las mates... bueno, la ley d'hont y tal), pierdes representatividad a saco
podemos tuvo 3,2 millones (apenas 400k menos que vox) que es casi el 13% del voto, y 35 escaños (en lugar de los 45 que supone el 13% de 350)

vas pillando??

lo digo porque vox ha bajado del 15%, a dividido entre 2 su resultado de las generales de 2019
por mucho que haya duplicado lo que sacara en las anteriores autonómicas (menos en madrid, o sea, ya en 2021 iba empeorando), si no mejora esas cifras, que es voto real, no el cis, va a quedar infra-representado

vale que es trasladar un escenario "autonómico" a uno "nacional" y no es lo mismo votar  monasterio a votar abascal (por decir algo)


pero es que por el otro lado, se ha puesto pie en pared
se ha purgado (están en ello, pero en el psoe ya lo han hecho) a las turras estridentes de podemos, encabezadas por belarra
yo estoy convencido que no van a ir con sumar, porque la movida va de purgar, de quitarse de encima todo ese lastre de purpurina violeta y toxicidad de moralina pseudo-izquierdista

purgada la estridencia, es bastante probable que lo que quede (limpio de polvo y paja) pueda hacer ese 15% mágico que les enchufe en los 50-55 escaños
y con los 120 del psoe (no necesita subir, solo manterse, que es precisamente lo que ha hecho el 28m) ya tendrían la mayoría absoluta, del tirón

ni bildus ni lazis ni oportunistas (bueno, igual el pnv se cuela si no salen los números del todo)


en todo caso, si pp no saca del orden de 140-145 escaños (que ya son, porque implica 8 millones de votos, c's no les da tantos, tendría que ser a costa de vox) y vox otros 30 o así (y es difícil, porque si van al pp, no van a vox y viceversa)
pues la lían

dicho de otro modo (que menuda chapa) para que salga pp-vox es necesario que vox supere el 15% y pp no supere el 33%, y a ver cómo dices a la peña votadme pero no mucho que entonces no salen las cuentas

por el otro lado no tienen ese problema, porque si no sale el 15% de sumar, siempre pueden contar con los bildu y pnv y tal, el pp quemó esos puentes, especialmente al pactar con vox

[sudden and sharp]

Mientras tanto... en el mundo real..



El BCE alerta de un “efecto dominó” en el sistema financiero por la banca en la sombra
https://cincodias.elpais.com/mercados-financieros/2023-05-30/el-bce-alerta-de-un-efecto-domino-en-el-sistema-financiero-por-la-banca-en-la-sombra.html
Los cinco mayores bancos de la eurozona representan el 50% de la exposición total a préstamos y valores de estas entidades

Durante años el negocio de estas firmas que agrupan a los fondos de pensiones, compañías aseguradoras y fondos de cobertura, [  ] se han visto favorecidos por tipos ultralaxos y una liquidez a raudales, pero el FMI ha asegurado que las recientes quiebras de Silicon Valley Bank y otros bancos regionales estadounidenses “son un poderoso recordatorio de las elevadas vulnerabilidades financieras acumuladas a lo largo de años de tipos bajos”. Unos riesgos que, según el informe, “podrían intensificarse en los próximos meses, en un contexto de endurecimiento continuo de la política monetaria a escala mundial”.