Original Post
This is not meant as a Halloween scare - but it is scary. I also have a lot of ground to cover, so my presentation might be choppy. Please bear with me. The European think tank LEAP recently published it's Global Europe Anticipation Bulletin N°8 for November 2006 which contains a startling prediction that a global economic crisis will impact next month. This itself isn't remarkable (there's no lack for naysayers), except that back in May this group predicted that an economic accelaration would begin in June and spread out over the ensueing months and so far they have been proven right. The bulletin lays out the situation succinctly with ample graphs and linked footnotes to support it's assertion. The short of it is that they are predicting a financial meltdown to rival the Wall Street Crash of 1929. They predict that a series of crisis will contaminate the entire system, that it will last from six months to a year, and that the end result will be a radical and permanent change to the system. While the establishment media hasn't picked up on this news (and won't likely for fear of sparking a panic), alternative media from both the economic right and left have. Richard Daughty of the Free Market Network News writes about it here: How Chow Do Pan Ho Wan?, and discusses it here: radio commentary. He brings attention to the fact that even though the DOW has been going through the roof lately, the Plunge Protection Team has been meeting every 6 weeks. The Daily Telegraph has picked up on that fact, Paulson re-activates secretive support team to prevent markets meltdown, and also mentions that this group "will have a command centre at the US Treasury that will track global markets and serve as an operations base in the next crisis." Daughty sees this as a potential move by the US government to take over the global economy. Daughty references this article from the Wall Street Journal, China's Reserves Near Milestone, Underscoring Its Financial Clout (also available here), announcing that China's currency reserve holdings will soon top $1 trillion and that Chinese central banks are worried about inflation and may cut back on buying U.S. Treasury debt. He also notes recent news that Australia's treasurer has asked Asian central banks to "telegraph" their intentions to dump dollars should they decide to do that in order to maintain stability in the system,Costello seeks orderly $US withdrawal. Left commentator Mike Whitney adds his two cents to the story here: The Dollar's Full-System Meltdown. He relies on the same sources as Daughty but draws a different set of conclusions from them, seeing this a part of a deliberate effort to crush the American middle class and what remains of the New Deal safety net. He goes on to connect the dots with the Military Commissions Act of 2006 and the John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007 (both of which we discussed here), describing this conjunction as essentially overturning the Constitution: The administration’s dream of militarizing the country under the sole authority of the executive has now been achieved although the public still has no idea that a coup that has taken place. He goes on to discuss the various impacts of these moves and ends up focusing on oil, but he doesn't go so far as to make explicit the implications of what he writes, which is, in my view, that the US will attempt to military control the oil resources of the Caspian Basin. As fun as a discussion of all that would be, that's not the turn that I want to make. Here's another look at the precarious state of the US economy, Bush's Economic Policies: Don't Look Behind the Curtain. It fleshes out the contours of the hidden terrain behind what the GEAB called the "phase of acceleration". Although it carries an obvious political slant, it doesn't take things as far as either Daughty or Whitney. Ok, so here's the turn. The corporate media has been picking up news coming out of England about a brand new British Treasury study that found that global warming could produce the worst global economic recession in history if nothing is done about it: Tackle climate change or face deep recession, world's leaders warned. In spite of the bona fides of the people that produced this study, it's acceptance is not a done deal. Now, despite the general enthusiasm with which the report has been received, I confess that I am dubious not so much about the analysis as about the chances of the world taking this seriously., The approaching storm. See also, Sceptics scorn climate report prediction of global chaos, Analysts sceptical about report's impact in US - and benefits of using Al Gore, Scientists, American public disagree sharply over global warming. Most of those links are from the Guardian, but I suspect that the story will get more coverage in the United States after the election next week. Anyway. Here's my question. In light of all this context, do you think a global economic collapse per the GEAB would change public attitudes about the economic effect of global warming per the Stern report or will it harden them against it? Please elaborate a little on your answer.
