freekb

 

This nutty policy was designed to give boomers a golden retirement, and leave a mess for the next generation.

 

If I was thirty-something and living in London, I would be as angry as a mad terrorist.

That's about right.

On the flip side, thanks to those near zero interest rate policy those boomers are at getting a shit deal on their annuities. If they're not financially astute through the inevitable inflatation their income will be shredded to bits.

Will that lead to gangs of eldery, like in Japan? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/3213349/Japan-struggles-with-elderly-crime-wave.html

"Win some, lose some, always screw the young", a boomer anthem.

The leading modern exponent of scientific rejuvenation is the biomedical gerontologist Dr. Aubrey de Grey. He calls his project to reverse the damage we call aging"SENS" (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence).

 

He has proposed seven strategies for what he calls the "seven deadly sins of ageing":

I've met deGrey - I've strong reservations on his approach. He claimed that "the first person to become 1000 years old has been born already", though he seems to be toning that down a little these days.

His argument goes like this:

- repair some of the damage that each of the seven sins of ageing do.

- this buys you time, enough for research to figure out how to get rid of some more of the damage caused.

- Repeat.

The problem with that approach is that is assumes that you can find sufficient solutions all seven classes of damage in the same window of time.

I think it's very possible that we may solve some classes, but not all. I think odds are that t will bottleneck around one or two for a really long time.

Simply put, we may not die any more from heart disease or alzheimers but everyone still ends up dying from cancer or so. We won't have solved aging, just reduced the number of problems that get us in the end.

I don't think the UK has the luxury, or cushion, Japan has had with all her savings. So I don't see the UK being able to " pull the same tricks for decades". How long can QE continue to make a difference? What happens when QE comes to a halt? This is when I expect London house prices to unwind, and with it the UK as a whole. When? Probably within 3 years. It's a timebomb.

 

Japan and UK savings rates aren't all that different it seems (hard to compare, net vs. gross). See http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/economics/household-saving-rates-forecasts-2012-1_hssv-gr-table-2012-1-en;jsessionid=3htil9du4i7j.x-oecd-live-01

3 years. Any data to support that?

If the market manipulation stopped then we might see an increase. Rates were starting to rise (in fact SVR and Lifetime trackers still seem to be rising, albeit at glacial speeds) before Funding for Lending strated forcing Fixed Rate Mortgages south again. Full details here with chart describing what I'm on about:

 

 

Agreed. However, I can't see why the debt-crack-addicts in charge would or even can stop with low rates. It's just too damaging and unaffordable. Only if forced by the markets, rates will go up.

As long as there's a way to manipulate the market, the can will be kicked down the road.

Japan seems to be running out of options, but I don't understand why the UK can't or wouldn't pull the same tricks for decades.

OK.

Watch Japan. Things may unravel there first, and a sliding currency may eventually trigger a jump in rates

If Kyle Bass (the hedgie that runs Hayman Capital) is to be believed, Japan will pop in about 2-3 years. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtEw2FdVe_0 (8mins) and more in depth, if you have the hour to spare. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUc8-GUC1hY

Let's assume his scenario happens and Japan pops by 2015. Markets get spooked, Japan (partially) defaults, Yen turns into Argentinian peso.

Does this trigger a new debt crisis affecting UK rates through contagion or will the markets shrug it off and carry on as usual?

If the latter, then perhaps we're looking at another decade or even longer of kicking the can down the road.

If the former, then we've got a double if condition that needs to be met. Say Japan Pops and Contagion each have a 75% chance of happening, then there's only 50% chance it goes POP over here. I don't know what the odds are, but it's a lot of ifs.

When rates start to rise, I think they will climb much faster than most people think -

and that will trigger the collapse

Why would rates rise? BOJ has managed to keep rates below 2% for 20 years, and below 0.5% for about 15 years.

See and (sorry - don't know how to inline pictures properyly)

That was on the back of an epic property bubble.

Now, we have the added bonus of an epic government debt bubble thanks to QE & bailouts.

Politically, interest rates must stay down or goverments won't be able to roll over debt and service the interest.

The new BOE governor has already signalled he's not going to be hung up on inflation targeting and more focussed on growth.

AFAIK keeping rates low is the way to go if that's the intent..

JD:

"The world has always had earthquakes and tsunamis (the vast majority of tsunamis are caused by quakes, didn't you know?) and volcanoes and hurricanes, sometimes they cluster sometimes they don’t. There have always been extreme weather events. The climate has also always had mini ice ages and mini heat waves. Romans grew grapes in Scotland, the Thames used to freeze and they held fairs on it.

 

Statistically there is nothing different about the present time. One big difference is that the reports of such things are more common due to modern communications and monitoring."

 

?? based on what ??

I think that is factually untrue. During the last year, we have see number of floods, tornados, and earthquake clusters that look like 100 year events, and the "statistical random" argument is getting blown away.

I don't have the numbers to argue either case, so I'm staying out of that bit.

However, don't confuse the clustering that happens with truly random events for statistically significant. The problem with 100 year events is that they are rare and therefore sample size is too limited to draw statistically meaningful conclusions from them. The link below explains.

http://www.stevekass.com/2011/04/13/math-causes-most-disease-clusters/

You can do this experiment yourself. Generate a short series of random numbers (say 100), turn them into event type/event strength, plot them on a smallish grid, say 30x10 (to represent the world map/coordinate). It's very likely that a bunch of clusters will form. I've not done it myself, but I've seen it done. When I have more time, I'll give this a go in Excel - if you're interested.

If you find that interesting, read up on "the law of small numbers" (specifically, "Belief in the law of small numbers" Tversky/Kahnemann).

You are obviously wrong to say I believe everything. But it does highlight your approach:

"Reject everything - Do not listen. There's nothing here... Move On."

 

Have I got your mantra right?

I think the mantra is more along the lines of "Reject everything, unless accompanied by a large body of evidence. Independently verifiable and up to the usual rigorous scientific standards".

Often impractical, but qualitatively high.

Anyway, as I said already, I have had some further evidence of one or two of his crazy stories "corroborated" from another unrelated source that has made accurate forecasts in the past, and pre-warned me of things before I saw them show up in BF's writings. (I cannot say more.) So I continue to listen & read with interest, without any expectation that all of this bizarre-sounding "information" will prove accurate.

".. has made accurate forecasts in the past.." Surely the classic line from investment literature "Past performance is no guarantee of future results." applies?

In the last year or two, we have seen many strange things like: the Norwegian spiral, quakes combined with tsunamis, unusual floods and earthquakes in hitherto "safe" areas, chem trails - that make me think that something new is going on with our planet's weather. These wonders seem to be increasing and frequency, and I am not going to behave like a boiling frog. If you want to do that, it is your choice.

Consider the phenomenon of Apophenia (less pretentiously, 'patternicity'), the mind's tendency to see patterns in random data.

This short video by Michael Shermer explains it succinctly

It's an answer phrased in the context a question on religion, but don't let that distract from the idea.

I'd never heard of this David Wilcox fellow before, or his book, but it receives almost universal praise (at least on amazon);

 

 

eg

 

"I have a Masters degree in Electrical Engineering and therefore I have a very critical and logical approach when assessing supporting data to an hypothesis."

 

Sounds promising.

 

 

A few logical fallacies here:

"Of 88 reviews, most give it 5 stars, 4 give 3 stars, 3 give 3 no 1 or 2 star reviews.....hmmm.......interesting."

using Erewhon888's earlier post about fallacies, that one falls under:

"Appeals to Motives in Place of Support, .....Popularity: a proposition is argued to be true because it is widely held to be true"

The next other one "I have a Masters degree in Electrical Engineering and therefore I have a very critical and logical approach when assessing supporting data to an hypothesis.",

is a weaker version of "proof by eminent authority" or a variation on an ad-hominem.

It's equivalent to Harold Shipman (a doctor and Serial Killer) saying "I am a doctor and therefore I save lives". It's a possibly true statement, but it doesn't exclude behaving in the exact opposite way. Therefore, the statement does not strengthen the argument.

Well, that's not exactly true in the US of A...

 

From my "Huge Holes in Pockets, Part 2" article:

 

Health care and Life Expectancy

 

Some will object to my comments, and say that lives are being prolonged by improved healthcare, and that advanced healthcare is inherently more expensive, as technology improves. Indeed, we have seen healthcare costs creep up as a share of GDP across the world, although to lower levels than in the US. The statistics show an improvement in the expected lifespan of individuals in the entire world, where the current world average life expectancy is 67.2 years, according to Wikipedia. In the US, the expected lifespan at birth has gone up from 68.2 years in 1950, to 73.7 years in 1980, and up to 78.3 years in 2010. That's a meaningful improvement, but if you look more deeply you will see that nearly all of that improvement is due to a reduction in mortality amongst infants and young children. More people make it 10, 20 or 30 years than they did in 1900, 1950 or 1980. But life expectancy beyond the age of 50 has improved very little*. In fact, we are more prone to fall prey to certain "modern" diseases, (such as cancer, diabetes, and HIV-AIDS.) The rise of these diseases have come with changes in our diet, lifestyle, and living arrangements. If expensive healthcare were rationed, as it is being done in other countries, people would need to take on more responsibility for their own wellness, and not expect the medical care system to bail them out from poor dietary and lifestyle choices.

 

You might expect that longevity would decline in hard times, but that has not been the case:

 

"The relationship between economic circumstance and life expectancy is not clear-cut, however. A study by José A. Tapia Granados and Ana Diez Roux at the University of Michigan found that life expectancy actually increased during the Great Depression, and during recessions and depressions in general. The authors suggest that when people are working extra hard during good economic times, they undergo more stress, exposure to pollution, and likelihood of injury among other longevity-limiting factors." (source)

 

Also, even with our advanced medical technology, and supposed top notch healthcare, the US is nowhere near the top in Life Expectancy at birth. According to the UN, that honor belongs to Japan at 82.6 years. Hong Kong is second (82.2 years), and Iceland is third (81.8 years.) In the UN data, the US comes in at number 36 (78.3 years.) And that's below the US Virgin Islands (#20, at 79.3 years), and Puerto Rico (#31. at 78.7 years.) Apparently, although Americans pay the most per capita for their healthcare, they are getting a much lesser result than countries that spend less.

 

The whole notion of healthcare needs to be changed in the US. The industry now gets paid when people fall ill and require treatment. This often means prescribing expensive branded drugs, because physicians have been "educated" about their benefits, rather than cheaper generic drugs, or herbal medicines which are little mentioned in medical education. There is little emphasis on prevention of disease. Americans eat a poor diet, get little exercise, and expect their doctors to prescribe a handful of pills when they are unwell. This is an expensive, wasteful and unsustainable health regime...

 

/source: http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/dr-bubb/2011/08/31/america-has-huge-holes-in-its-pockets-part-2

 

Dumbed down, and brain-washed,

Americans pay too much for their healthcare, as the Doctors get rich,

and the pharmaceutical makers prosper.

American health care suffers from political & policy problems and business exploits it. That's not a reason to dispair nor is it the fault of science, just the jerks that exploit it.

There's still reason for optimism, humanity is doing ever better and solving more and more problems. That certain countries are failing to maximize the benefits from it, is a different problem, usually a because of political and cultural (the idiots that keep voting for the idiot politicians) stupidity.

If policy were made on a rational basis, we'd all be better off.

What do you think humans used before the "tyranny of scientists"?

 

It was a mixture of:

+ Experience (& anecdotal evidence)

+ Religion

+ Inherited tradition (including: historical experience, folklore, & some superstition)

 

AND Missing from this list is : "Intuition" (or one might say: "knowledge of the heart")

 

I am fairly sure you will be unhappy with this - especially "intuition", but what we are finding is some elements of Psychic knowledge, are slowly being validated by science. For example, the success of Remote Viewing in solving missing persons cases is fairly well known. What is less well-known is the use of RV in military and other applications. If you look at the work of Courtney XX, you will see how the scientific method is being applied to RV techniques.

"The tyranny of scientists". What tyranny? Scientists are underpaid, largely ignored and have no particular social standing in many countries, especially the more anti-intellectual countries.

Scientists, when they dare to speak up usually get whacked hard or ignored.

Recent examples of this:

UK Government advisor Dr. David Nutt vs. Alan Johnson. Nutt got sacked for daring to publicly speak about facts on the drug-policy and the relative drugs harms. Johnson didn't like what he heard, so he booted Nutt out.

Professor Edzard Ernest got nearly pushed out of a job for laying into princes Charles as a purveyor of quack medicine.

References:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/oct/30/drugs-adviser-david-nutt-sacked

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/jul/30/edzard-ernst-homeopathy-complementary-medicine

Experience, religion, intuition and tradition are merely amateur attempts at providing explanations/theories about the world.

Once you become a bit more intellectually rigorous and intellectually honest, you end up with the scientific method. This doesn't mean that scientists are saints. I know plenty, most of their work is a joke and nothing more than an exercise in staying employed and getting grant money. But they're not the real practitioners of science, just people that work in academia doing cargo-cult science. The public (and funding bodies) is too ignorant to tell the difference.

You may think that I'm dismissing experience, religion, intuition - and you're right.

At best, these nothing more than a stepping stone for exploring an interesting phenomenon in a more rigorous fashion with the best tool humans have - the scientific method.

"In my experience, the world appears flat. Therefore it is."

Surely not.

you are being sarcastic

The final sentence is, the rest is of the post are facts giving cause for genuine optimism.

the dark ages - who says they were dark - was it the central planners in Rome

and back to the dark ages hmm - depleted uranium ,drone attacks, manufactured diseases, poisoned food, flouridated and chlorinated water, mercury fillings, spreading democracy at the point of a gun, trying to cover the whole world in EMF's.

humanity has been held back by those that seek to control - but their power to deceive is dwinding

Rife, Reich, Tesla and Schauberger are just a few that come to mind

Simple counterpoint to the 'dark ages' argument:

We (the world's population) have the longest life expectancy in history, while at the same time having the largest population that is better fed than ever.

Smallpox and Rinderpest has been eradicated, Polio is pretty much gone. We are keeping people with HIV healthy and alive for decades. Cancer outcomes are better than ever....

We have developed a dirt-cheap global voice & data communication & navigation network (GSM, internet & GPS) in just a few decades.

We're on the verge of privatizing access to space, possibly another revolution on the scale of air-travel.

We are getting ever closer to good renewable energy sources and possibly even fusion.

Yes, the dark ages surely.