ECB Forecasting Success? — 'Animal Farm' in Cuba — G77 Meeting; Unelected Globalists Dictate to 134 Countries — 'Summit of Ambition' — Pigs Play Sax on Two Legs — WEF Exposed - [09-17-2023]

Direct from BOOM Finance and Economics at the links below

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BOOM EDITORIAL THIS WEEK

ECB RAISES RATES FOR 10th TIME – LET’S LOOK AT THEIR FORECASTING SUCCESS:  The European Central Bank (ECB) raised its key interest rates last week. Here is the first part of their Press Statement.

“Inflation continues to decline but is still expected to remain too high for too long. The Governing Council is determined to ensure that inflation returns to its 2% medium-term target in a timely manner. In order to reinforce progress towards its target, the Governing Council today decided to raise the three key ECB interest rates by 25 basis points.”

The statement included a projection “The September ECB staff macroeconomic projections for the euro area see average inflation at 5.6% in 2023, 3.2% in 2024 and 2.1% in 2025.”

These projected CPI inflation levels will be useful to keep an eye on as we move forward as the future becomes the present. Further in the document, they said that demand (for goods and services) continued to be “dampened”. However, although they offered no quantitative measurement for that statement, they did offer a projection of Euro area economic growth:

They expect the “euro area economy to expand by 0.7% in 2023, 1.0% in 2024 and 1.5% in 2025.”

BOOM expects that their projections for both CPI inflation and for Euro area economic growth will be proved incorrect in the fullness of time. Why? Because their previous projections three years ago were not worth the paper they were written on.

Here are the ECB projections in March 2021 for Euro Area inflation provided then in their Macroeconomic Projections – HICP means Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices. That means the change over time in the prices of consumer goods and services purchased by Euro area households. It's “harmonised” because all the countries in the European Union follow the same methodology.

Quote March 2021: “HICP inflation is expected to rise sharply from 0.3% in 2020 to an average of 1.5% in 2021, peaking at 2.0% in the fourth quarter of the year, and to fall back to 1.2% in 2022 before rising to 1.4% in 2023”.  [Note the comment “peaking at 2.0%”.]

In March 2021, the ECB was clearly expecting some rebound CPI inflation in the next three years. However, they forecast the Peak at only 2.0% per annum before the end of 2021.  And here is what actually happened – seen in the next Graph — over the same time frame.

The Ukraine war and subsequent increased energy costs cannot be blamed for this huge surge in CPI inflation as the war was launched February 24, 2022 (well after the onset of the inflation surge). The surge in consumer prices began in early 2021 but went far higher than the ECB economic gurus were expecting. In fact, the Peak was above 10% — five times greater than the ECB forecasts. The Peak occurred at 10.6% in October 2022.

In that document, they compared their projections to those made by other reliable (?) economic agencies — “from both international organisations and private sector institutions”. And they found comfort in those other projections. However, BOOM suspects 'Group Think' was at work here. The economics profession is riddled with that phenomenon.

“The March 2021 projections are broadly comparable with other forecasts for growth, while inflation is above other forecasts for 2021 and broadly in line thereafter.”

They even provided a Comparison Table to show how comfortable they were in regard to those other forecasts.  The Chart shows NOT a SINGLE economic agency forecast any annual CPI inflation above 1.5% in the years of 2021, 2022, 2023.

Reference:https://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/projections/html/ecb.projections202103_ecbstaff~3f6efd7e8f.en.html

BOOM FORECAST IN OCTOBER 2022: In the BOOM Editorial on October 15, 2022 BOOM made the following forecast which has turned out to be far more reliable than the forecasts made by the entire economics staff at the ECB and those other agencies who are, presumably, being paid many millions of Euros in wages and benefits.

“So, overall, the inflation statistics and retail sales figures were a good result, offering some firm evidence that the peak of CPI inflation may be in the past. If we are past the peak, then the prices of stocks and bonds should start to rise from here”.   This forecast proved deadly accurate.  Perhaps the ECB (and all the other agencies) should replace their entire staff with one employee, BOOM?

G77 MEETING IN CUBA – NATIONS SURRENDER TO GLOBALISTS

Many readers may not have heard of the G77 group of nations inside the United Nations.  Last week they met in Cuba.

The Group of 77 (G-77) was established on 15th June 1964 by seventy-seven developing countries signatories of the “Joint Declaration of the Seventy-Seven Developing Countries” issued at the end of the first session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in Geneva.  Beginning with the first, “Ministerial Meeting of the Group of 77 in Algiers (Algeria) on 10 – 25 October 1967, which adopted the Charter of Algiers”, a permanent institutional structure gradually developed which led to the creation of Chapters of the Group of 77 with Liaison offices in Geneva (UNCTAD), Nairobi (UNEP), Paris (UNESCO), Rome (FAO/IFAD), Vienna (UNIDO), and the Group of 24 (G-24) in Washington, D.C.

Although the members of the G-77 have increased to 134 countries, the original name was retained due to its historic significance. China is listed as a member and, notably, some of the more populous and advanced economic member nations include Singapore, United Arab Emirates (UAE), South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Qatar, Malaysia, Iraq, Indonesia, India, Colombia, Chile, Brazil, Bahrain, Argentina. Most of the other member nations are rather small by comparison.

Russia is not a member. Cuba took over the rotating presidency in January 2023.

The bloc was established, “to articulate and promote their collective economic interests and enhance their joint negotiating capacity on all major international economic issues within the United Nations system and promote South-South cooperation for development.” according to the group’s website.

A statement released by Cuba before the meeting addressed to the UNDP – the UN’s agency devoted to achieving SDG’s – frequently mentioned the United Nations, “Sustainable Development Goals” as aspirational (SDGs) and brought attention to the striking facts that “675 million people live without electricity and 2.3 billion rely on harmful cooking fuels”.

BOOM is surprised by the G77 group’s apparent enthusiastic participation in the SDG’s. Why? Because the United Nations SDG’s obviously enlist nations to join only in a Globalist solution to their problems. In any Globalist solution, if one is ever attempted, the greatest power will not be held by small-economy nations or even a group of them. Globalists will quite naturally tend towards favouring wealthy nations and large, major global corporations, because that is where the money is.  Local solutions are apparently not even being considered being second class citizens in this aspirational quest for equality.

The UN states that the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are “an urgent call for action by all countries – developed and developing – in a global partnership.” So, let’s look at the elements of that statement:

• Urgency [after the UN has been in existence for 77 years since October 14, 1945?]

• There is “a call for action” [again after 77 years?] in which…

• “All nations” will participate in a…

• “Global partnership”

To BOOM’s admittedly jaundiced and perhaps cynical eye, all of this aspiration should surely have been crystallised during the formation of the United Nations in 1945 — at the very beginning of the organisation? The “call” to urgently take action in all nations via a “global partnership” should have happened at the formation of the UN and not now after 77 years of meetings?  So, what is the real agenda?  The Secretary General of the UN, Antonio Guterres, appeared in Cuba and said this:

• “The task begins with the multilateral system itself. We are moving to a multipolar world.

• Multipolarity creates new opportunities for leadership on the global stage. But alone it doesn’t guarantee peace and justice. Those require strong, effective multilateral institutions.

• But many of today’s institutions – particularly the United Nations Security Council and the Bretton Woods institutions – reflect a bygone era; one when many developing countries were shackled by colonial rule and had no say on their own affairs, or on global affairs.

• I have proposed measures to make the global financial architecture more representative and responsive to the needs of developing countries.

• And the SDG Summit next week and the Summit of the Future next year are real chances to make headway.”

So – after 77 years of meetings – the United Nations has decided to hold two more meetings.

He then went on saying, “Only global action can tackle these inequalities, secure a just transition to a digital economy, and ensure that in a new technological era, no one is left behind.  Our proposed Global Digital Compact can achieve exactly that. It aims to bring together governments and industry to ensure that technology works for all humanity and accelerates the Sustainable Development Goals. It is being negotiated by Member States ahead of the Summit of the Future.”

Forgive BOOM, but why is it that “ONLY global action” (and not local action) can tackle inequalities?  And what is meant by a “transition to a digital economy”? What (exactly) does that mean? What is a “digital economy”?

Is it one where our fingers (our digits) do the counting?  BOOM is struggling here; or is it one where computers, using binary code, can somehow magically self-produce wealth and equality of outcomes for all of humanity?

Or is it one where we will all be rendered to a single digital code and existence? Where man and machine are fused? Aka: 'The Transhumanist Dreams'?

The unelected Guterres went on to immediately mention Artificial Intelligence (AI) — “My High-Level Body on Artificial Intelligence – which includes experts from G77 countries – will report this year, so Member States can consider forms of justice in global governance options for artificial intelligence.”

So, he's formed a committee that he calls “High Level” which is (supposedly) aimed at producing a report on, “forms of justice in global governance for AI” (Huh?).

Please forgive BOOM again, but this appears to be a rather vague statement, language for language sake, a signalling of virtue, an implied achievement of some great importance but not yet explained.  And there’s more, everything appears urgent.

“Finance is another area for urgent global action. Many developing countries are unable to service their debts. You are suffering economically from the lingering effects of COVID, a cost-of-living crisis, and extreme climate impacts that deprive communities of basic needs. Unsurprisingly, many of your countries simply do not have the finance to invest in technology, sustainable development, debt recovery, or climate action. The world needs climate justice as it needs financial justice.

Developed countries must deliver the promised $100 billion, double adaptation finance by 2025, and recapitalise the Green Climate Fund. Every person on earth must be protected by an early warning system by 2027 against natural disasters.  And I hope my upcoming Climate Ambition Summit – focused on credibility and action – will be able to drive real progress.”

So, there is urgency, a need for action, an extreme climate (are we all living in Antarctica or Singapore (?), an apparent need for a global “warning system” for all natural disasters (to place your head between your knees (?) and a need for climate justice (whatever that is (?) ….and also financial justice (what is that?).

Will $100bn be enough in a $100tn global economy to achieve all this?

A SUMMIT OF AMBITION - Thus, Guterres proposes yet another meeting – a Summit indeed but not just any old summit. It is a 'Summit of Ambition'. Perhaps held in a mountain ski resort in Switzerland?  Presumably at such lofty heights of ambition there can be only one way forward? And that is down?

At this point, readers need to recall 'Animal Farm', the book written by George Orwell, published in August 1945, 2 months before the United Nations was founded. Orwell forecast the future with great accuracy.  ANIMAL FARM:

• “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”

• “The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”

• “Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, and he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals.  He sets them to work, he gives back to them the bare minimum that will prevent them from starving, and the rest he keeps for himself.”

• “Four legs good, two legs bad.”

• “Several of them would have protested if they could have found the right arguments.”

We can imagine unelected Comrade Antonio Guterres saying this in Animal Farm:

“Comrades!’ he cried. ‘You do not imagine, I hope, that we pigs are doing this in a spirit of selfishness and privilege? Many of us actually dislike milk and apples. I dislike them myself.  Our sole object in taking these things is to preserve our health. Milk and apples (this has been proved by Science, comrades) contain substances absolutely necessary to the well-being of a pig. We pigs are brainworkers. The whole management and organisation of this farm depend on us. Day and night we are watching over your welfare. It is for your sake that we drink the milk and eat those apples.”

“No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be?”

Just at that moment, as though at a signal, all the sheep burst into a tremendous bleating, “Four legs good; two legs better!   Four legs good; two legs better! Four legs good; two legs better!”

As a guest on the Laura Ingraham show (Fox News), Ned Ryun summarised the WEF – World Economic Forum

“The WEF is a fanatical political organisation that uses fear and manipulation, like Covid hysteria, like the hoax of global warming, to really facilitate people thinking that somehow they’re the saviours, but really all you’re doing is helping them accomplish their goal, which really is a global public-private fascist movement, and fusion of big government, big tech [and] big money, to create a technocratic ruling elite, which conveniently is them.”

“They want to create feudalism 2.0, in which we are serfs, and they are the lords ruling over us… That’s what they’re aiming for.”  Reference – 'The Angle' takes you inside the WEF: https://twitter.com/wideawake_media/status/1700792276945924231

BOOM’s QUANTITATIVE BOOSTING EXPLAINED: https://boomfinanceandeconomics.wordpress.com/2019/12/15/boom-as-at-15th-december-2019/  AND BOOM’s Perfect Economy: https://boomfinanceandeconomics.wordpress.com/2020/01/18/boom-as-at-19th-january-2020/

In economics, things work until they don’t.  Make your own conclusions, do your own research.  BOOM does not offer investment advice.

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BANKS DON’T TAKE DEPOSITS, THEY BORROW YOUR MONEY: LOANS CREATE DEPOSITS — that is how almost all new money is created in the economy (by commercial banks making loans). https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/quarterly-bulletin/2014/q1/money-creation-in-the-modern-economy.  Watch this short 15-minute video a see how Professor Richard Werner brilliantly explains how global banking systems really work.

In 2014, Richard Werner provided the first empirical evidence that banks create credit out of thin air. They do this whenever they issue a loan or, more specifically, purchase a promissory note. This is a walk-through of exactly how they do it.

Most economists are unaware of this and even ignore the banking & finance sectors in their econometric models.

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