Rough ride ahead. Things turning to shit everywhere I look. From the Baltic Dry Index to the US trucking rates, heavy transport is in sharp decline. People aren’t buying stuff, Walmart is closing about 1300 stores, caterpillar can’t sell a yellow dozer and the world is in deflation. China has an export based economy based on industries up to the neck in debt and now markets are drying up. These are highly leveraged companies no longer able to sell their stuff. This very quickly translates into not being able to buy our stuff here in Australia.
After many decades of debt driven expansion, where debt is borrowing from the future, and future demand is spent in the present, the music has stopped. Find a seat if you can. There are hundreds of trillions of dollars sloshing around the derivatives market that relies on the fact that few or nobody make a call for their money, they just enjoy the proceeds of fictitious money. There can’t be a payout, no settling of debts, no balancing of books, as the notional money exceeds the GDP of the whole world for the next few decades. Yes, if the entire population of the world works without eating, consuming anything or even using toilet paper we could pay that off by 2050.
Phew, good job I have some money in the bank that is even guaranteed by the government. First of all is the question am I depositing my money with the bank for safekeeping, or making a loan to the bank. Do they take my sweat stained notes and lock them away in a vault, or use that money in the markets to their advantage. I think the fact they pay interest, a nominal amount of a few cents per year in my case, indicates you are extending them a loan. So you and I are a creditor of a bank which is not truly solvent. Because they can lend about 10 times the assets they hold. And they do because they make their money on assets they don’t have. And the government guarantee? More smoke and mirrors as they are bust too.
But speaking of the banks, I went shopping today and went to the ATM at my bank to find they had installed yet another ATM. Still with the flashing lights. I told Westpac last time they changed the ATM, I didn’t like the flashing lights. It was only about 9 months ago I think, but I suspect my request for non-flashing lights went astray in their no doubt super-efficient feedback system. This new one was fitted with a cowl over the number pad to make it more difficult to use. I didn’t require an envelope and it promised to recognise notes and cheques immediately. . I got the whole point of the new machine right away. It wasn’t to make it easier for me the customer, it wasn’t to make life a whole lot better for the Westpac staff, oh no, it was to reduce the human percentage of handling, increase the machine percentage and fire people. Thus bolstering ‘productivity’ which is CEO speak for firing people. I had written out a deposit slip provided by Westpac because that is the way it was done last week. I shoved the slip and notes into the orifice. I was depositing $240 in notes. This marvelous new machine equipped with the latest software in character recognition and super-sophisticated 10 point criteria to recognise the limited number of Australian bank notes though about it for a while and printed out a deposit slip I saw was crediting me with $260. No, no, I count money carefully, that is wrong. It then proceeds to reject all four $50 bills, and shoves them out of the orifice. I was rather confused, but still manage to grasp that I put in $240, I have been credited $260 to my account and have $200 in change. Way to Go! It did accept a $10 and 2 $5s. So it took $20 and credited me a total $460. So is this a good day or what!! The sensible thing to do in such circumstances is to quit while you are ahead.
As usual, your diligent host did the daftest thing possible, and went into the bank to complain about the non-functional ATM. There was almost nobody in there, which is the result that Westpac the institution wishes to achieve. The welcoming smile of the teller, Wendy, soon turned to a frown as she realised this was going to take a heap of work to defeat the machine. A huddle of staff (two to be precise which now seems to be 66% on the payroll in the bank, the rest becoming school janitors), kindly asked me to take a seat while they opened the machine to see why it had been so generous. It had taken the deposit slip as a cheque and credited me with $240. It had failed to recognise 4 $50 bills and spat them out. Two separate errors on one transaction. Perhaps there is a reason bank share prices are crashing.
Recently Woolworths in Atherton had an ‘upgrade’ and refurbishment. I noticed a similar theme. It wasn’t about making it better for the customer or the staff, it was about squeezing the humans out. They put the vegies in little baskets to make them look better, but gave less amounts and choice, they put the baskets further from the entrance making it more effort. They changed the lighting. But worst of all they reduced the number of check-out aisles to half. They want to squeeze us through the self-checkout, or pay the penalty of queuing for ages to actually have a human being to process.
I have mostly abandoned Woolworths in favour of IGA. I vote with my feet. Don’t put up with this shit. Corporations and chain-stores would like to squeeze the workers out of the system so that machines and top managers were the only ones left. They would enjoy obscene pay, and the shareholders collect the rent. Am I a tad miffed by this trend? Perhaps a little annoyed? No, not at all. I am totally fucking outraged that a tiny percentage of people have seized the means of production and left the majority of people on the margins. Hmm, that sounds a bit Marxist. Perhaps it is.
Same thing happening here in Canada.