Stock market crisis over the impending threat.
Hyped by the media or for real? We are told the stock market is reeling due to the crisis that could be a pandemic. It is what we don’t really know that is the issue. How many are fleeing war; how much extortion is there that is behind how many of those created in the image of God who are dying – in the Mediterranean and beyond. We can close borders but the stock market is rocking because we just don’t know how many people are dying and how big a threat it all is.
OK… made all that up. Sadly made it up. The markets are reeling not because of how many are dying but because the coronavirus does not respect wealth, and does not respect how we can ‘make’ money. There are so many more deaths that have occurred these past years to those who have desperately come to seek some measure of freedom, than is likely to come to the globe as a result of this current threat. Yes… money makes the world go round… round and round the old mulberrry bush.
I had a round-robin letter from our Spanish bank about a week ago. ‘No need to panic there will be no significant economic downturn’. I like to read between the lines – you have no need to panic because we are doing all the panicking that is needed. We have no clue where this will go, but please do not panic otherwise we are in trouble.
Having arrived home last night at the sweet hour of midnight, I only had time to send the bank adviser a piece of personal advice this morning – and I am so sure she was just waiting for my incredible wisdom. No worries, we all know money is ‘una mierda’. So I wrote a short little piece on her wall ‘Things are not stable… they will bottom out but the real crisis is not immediate but will increase in the autumn… We’ll drop in to see you in a couple of weeks… Yours ever so lovingly…. Martin’.
It is my bit of fun for the day. Here I am pontificating about the global economic scene, without any real understanding… maybe she was justified in using the ‘f’ word and ask me to leave the premises (with some humour) a while back. She has her job to do, and I told her anyone wanting to grow a business would employ her – she can sell the proverbial ice blocks to those living in Siberia in the deepest, darkest winter.
She has her job to do… and the rest of us have our convictions to live by, and to try to hold on to the legitimate money bag, the bag of contentment. Not always easy, and so hard for so many in the world. But for the rest of us the 5% who pull in three figures a month we do need to try to remain centred.
For any follower of this blog I have been saying for the past few years that come 2020 we will hit another financial crisis. I see 2020 – 22 as two years of great instability. But even that is a western, middle class perspective. And the past decades? They were full of instability to countless non-western, non-middle class people.
We will see at every level the façades opening again. My dream exposed how we – body of Christ – can just shut them all up. How about this time – cos I asked for volunteers last time but had none – ask for a major rebalancing of the economic world. For our fictitious wealth to go down so that we can see a shift. Maybe that will keep the façades open and see a shift. I do consider we missed so much in 08.
So no apologies for the fake breaking news. The crisis is not here because of the coronavirus, it is here and always has been because of mammon / Babylon. Time to see again the New Jerusalem that John saw. There are investments we make that have a great and guaranteed return. They come in the form of a cup of cold water given in his name.
Yes totally agree. I have felt since I’ve been praying against this possible pandemic for last month or so that where we haven’t welcomed the refugee, the widow and the alien in Jesus name and prioritised our own wealth and security before mercy over the past years – we have now left the doors open wide to an unwelcome invader who cannot be stopped/blocked but through deep repentance perhaps (by the church/Ekklesia) !! Of course a great threat to our wealth and also to our lives too.
The world we have created is unsustainable – not the least for its inequality but more so for our relationship to the rest of the natural world and planet. I think this virus is just one of many shocks that we will see occur and re-occur over the next few years. They shake the assumptions of our world order. This one, for instance, shakes assumptions of traveling wherever and whenever in comfort. Think of all the industries built on modern cheap travel that accomplishes virtually nothing but to entertain people at great cost to the environment and those hired to entertain the travelers.
The economy is built on many assumptions about how we all should desire to and be able to live. Those are all going to be shaken and many will fall. The goal is to minimize suffering in the process, especially by those who did not create the problems.
After trying to sell an eco-home for a year in Canada I can say that here we are still stuck in the fantasy that life will go on as usual. Nothing will change, we press every onward to more consumer goods and a life with increased comfort and toys to mitigate boredom. Watching the tsunami of change approaching the beach while people argue the merits of their sand castles is frustrating. We all have a responsibility to make the transition a good one for all people and all other species but first we have to accept that the transition is here.
One of my first jobs was in a cabinet shop, we made kitchen cabinets out of oak and ash veneered plywoods and real wood…sometimes there was an “inequality” between the real and the veneer so you’d take a belt sander to the real to make it even up with the veneer…the danger was always in the panic…too little and the customer would complain, too much and the veneer would instantly burn through to the fake plywood beneath.
Adjusting the markets in order to calm the virus fear is an act of a belt sander…the veneer will show really quickly that it was always a fake economy meant for only show, pretending to be solid but made offshore by a huge force of cheap labor…
A time of revealing…sexual predators living amongst us…bankers laundering money for drug money and human trafficking syndicates…moral outrage when white men lose power…
The real test of morality has always been “who gets my money?” Who do you support with that fake fiat veneered income, your neighbor or your banker?
Ann,
This is excellent. I completely agree, but could never have written it so well.