Huge thanks to August’s sponsor, Mick, who wishes recommend the book “Wild Free and Happy” by Richard Adrian Reese, which can be downloaded for free here. You can also find it in the PDF resource section at the excellent Post-Doom website.
“The era of the all-mighty central banker is well and truly over…
“In reality, this is the twilight of the all-powerful central banker. They have not delivered faster growth, greater stability or rising living standards – and rightly or wrongly – their power is being steadily diminished.”
“Stablecoins vs central banks: who wins the fight for money’s future?
“While Trump’s America is forging ahead with plans to support digital currencies, the EU is being more cautious. Who is right? …trade wars are proxies for real wars, and stablecoins are an important theatre of battle. Europe is already on the defensive.”
“Powell signals Fed may cut rates soon even as inflation risks remain.
“Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Friday opened the door ever so slightly to lowering a key interest rate in the coming months but gave no hint on the timing of a move and suggested the central bank will proceed cautiously as it continues to evaluate the impact of tariffs and other policies.”
“U.S. Retirement Crisis: More than Half of Americans Have Less Than $10,000 Saved While Only 0.1% Hold $5 Million Plus
“Data from the Employee Benefit Research Institute reveals that more than half of U.S. adults have put aside less than $10,000 for retirement, underscoring just how vulnerable many will be in their golden years. Only a small minority have managed to build nest eggs of $500,000 or more; and this figure represents just a sliver of the population.”
“Postal operators in several countries have announced they will suspend certain deliveries to the United States, ahead of an end to a long-standing tariff exemption for packages worth $800 or less.
“President Donald Trump has framed the decision as part of a fight against illegal drugs. But mail companies abroad are halting some of their services to the U.S., saying that many aspects of the new rules remain unclear.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/08/23/us-tariffs-international-post/
https://archive.vn/TmJOlhttps://archive.vn/TmJOl
“Trump shocks UK business with stealth tariffs on 400 products.
“From condensed milk to shampoo, children’s highchairs to motorcycles, UK bosses are this weekend scrambling to ascertain the implications of the Trump administration’s decision to impose tariffs of up to 25 per cent on more than 400 new categories that technically contain steel or aluminium.”
“Rachel Reeves ‘heading towards IMF bailout’.
“…the Chancellor’s handling of the economy risks a return to the years of high inflation and borrowing that ended with Britain being forced to borrow billions from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) 50 years ago.”
“German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said tackling the country’s economic challenges is proving to be a far greater undertaking than he initially anticipated.
““I say this also self-critically — this task is bigger than one or the other may have imagined a year ago,” Merz said in a speech in the northern German town of Osnabrueck on Saturday. “We’re not just in a period of economic weakness, we are in a structural crisis of our economy.””
“As Europe’s fear of war grows, French join military reserves.
“France aims to more than double the country’s reservists amid a broader push to boost military capabilities. Many fear that Russian aggression could spread beyond Ukraine.”
https://amp.dw.com/en/as-europes-fear-of-war-grows-french-join-military-reserves/a-73693860
“Carney Visits Ukraine as Canada Weighs Sending Soldiers to Aid in Peacekeeping…
“Canada is a member of the coalition of about 30 nations, led by France and the UK, that have pledged to defend Ukraine. The cohort is pushing for robust security guarantees in the event of a peace deal with Russia, with some member nations committing to deploy troops to enforce any agreement.”
“Russia’s new middle class can’t afford for Putin’s war to end.
“As the war approaches its fourth anniversary, the economy is under strain – but there has been no crisis. If anything, for some Russians life has improved. The biggest benefactors are impoverished industrial areas that have suffered decades of decline, experiencing a fate similar to once-wealthy parts of the West.”
“Russia blocks Armenian agricultural exports amid renewed tensions.
“Tensions between Armenia and Russia have deepened further, this time spilling into the trade sphere. Russia has reportedly returned shipments of Armenian agricultural products, raising fresh concerns over the fragile state of bilateral relations, Azernews reports.”
https://www.azernews.az/region/246449.html
“Kim Jong Un supervises new missile tests as North Korea boasts advances with ‘unique technology’…
“The state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) claimed the test on Saturday proved the missiles effective in countering aerial threats such as drones and cruise missiles, saying they had “superior combat capability” and used a “unique technology”.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/east-asia/kim-jong-un-north-korea-missile-tests-b2813170.html
“Taiwan referendum on reopening last nuclear plant fails
“Taiwan referendum on reopening last nuclear plant fails…
“Taiwan’s government says there are major safety concerns around generating nuclear power in earthquake-prone Taiwan and handling nuclear waste.”
“No more Assad on the money: Syria phases out old currency in symbolic move.
“Syria to issue new banknotes in December, sources say, removing two zeros from denominations; change aims to restore confidence in devalued pound, mark symbolic move away from Assad’s rule.”
https://www.ynetnews.com/business/article/bkk11kvkgx
“Tens of thousands of Palestinian children starving in Gaza tent camps.
“Huda is just one of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children suffering from malnutrition in Gaza, according to local health authorities, as Israel continues to block food and other humanitarian aid from entering…”
” ‘We have nowhere else’: Palestinians dread Israeli assault on Gaza City
Many fear plans to invade city of 1mn are a precursor to expelling them for good
“‘We have nowhere else’: Palestinians dread Israeli assault on Gaza City…
“Many Palestinians are too weakened, too impoverished, or simply unwilling to uproot once again, knowing the only place Israel has left for them is already overcrowded and devoid of resources.”
https://www.ft.com/content/c5215e06-ef2e-4e58-8153-07ff2fff2fa1
“Is South Africa sleepwalking towards prolonged violent upheaval?
“…undeniable cracks are emerging, which include failing institutions, deepening inequality and a festering disillusionment. The question is no longer whether South Africa is immune, but whether we will wake up before it consumes us.”
“Nigerian airforce kills at least 35 jihadists near border with Cameroon
“Nigeria’s airforce said it killed at least 35 jihadist fighters in air strikes on Saturday near the Cameroon border, following an attempted assault on ground troops in the country’s conflict-hit northwest.”
“Cuba marks a year of total energy crisis with blackouts, failures, and frustrations.
“Power outages have become the top concern for Cubans, who struggle to preserve food, conduct banking or bureaucratic tasks, charge electric motorcycles and phones, and carry out household chores.”
https://efe.com/en/latest-news/2025-08-23/cuba-year-total-energy-crisis-blackouts/
“Maduro calls on China as US mounts pressure on Venezuela. Will it answer?
“Amid the sharp escalation in tensions between the United States and Venezuela, President Nicolás Maduro mentioned China, the United States’ biggest economic rival, during a speech about education in the country.”
https://edition.cnn.com/venezuela-china-us-maduro-xi-jinping-trump-intl-latam
“More than 2,000 nuclear weapons have been detonated in the past 80 years. Their effects still linger around the world…
“As the long-term effects of nuclear testing have become increasingly recognized, some “downwinders” have been recognized with compensation, the level of which varies from place to place.”
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2025/08/24/world/nuclear-weapons-tests-effects-intl-scli
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You can read the previous “Economic” thread here. I’ll be back on Tuesday with a “Climate” thread.
A comprehensively representative sampling today Kali, thanks for filling in. Even though “merrily we roll along” pretty much as expected by the doomer community it’s quite depressing to follow how much darker things get each day and, even though it’s the only possible outcome that evolution could ever produce, how adversity brings out the most bestial aspects of humanity.
Yes indeed
I agree too. My hearts breaks for all the people, wildlife and nature currently in the crosshairs. I don’t want to be around (alive) when it emerges in my town.
I have strange doomer interest in the show Life After People on the history channel. It streams for free. The third season is out and the fifth episode has a very interesting section on what happens when a nuclear power plant melts down. It uses the Palo Verde nuke plant near Mesa, Arizona as the example. There are several nuke plants not all that far from me and I have long known what that means post-collapse, but it’s interesting to see this explored plus the visual component.
https://play.history.com/shows/life-after-people/season-3/episode-5
H/t Heather for letting me know Season 3 was available.
Thanks Kali for the gloomy outview
The American
Walmart, Friday evening. Behind the checkout sits a 72-year-old woman. She smiles, but her back hurts. Her husband died two years ago, and medical bills drained their savings. Her 401(k) has only a few thousand dollars left. Every week she works twenty hours, not because she is bored but because otherwise she cannot pay rent or buy her medication. Her pension is a shadow of what was once promised. Stress is her constant companion: how much longer can she keep this up?
The European
Lille, Friday evening. A 72-year-old man drinks a glass of wine on his balcony. Every month he receives a pension statement. It says in black and white: “Your pension is guaranteed.” He reads it like a lullaby. Of course he hears stories about aging populations and affordability, but the words “guarantee” and “collective” act like a sedative. He feels protected, as if the state itself shields him from every storm. The stress exists, but it is massaged away in committee reports and technocratic language.
The paradox
Both lives revolve around the same problem: too few workers to support too many retirees, too little return to fulfill the promises. In the United States, poverty is visible, raw, immediate. In Europe, it is hidden beneath a blanket of trust and reassuring paperwork. One pays with stress, the other with illusions.
The question is not who has it better, but who will feel it harder when the blanket of words is no longer warm enough.
2013: We really need to ask some hard questions: about our political institutions, our economic arrangements, even the structure of the State itself. That is what the economy is telling us, if we would only listen. The mean-spiritedness and rank theories of the RandPaulRyan brand of German-style imposed austerity rankle a polity enamored of government programs and institutionalized welfare. Yet we do ourselves a disservice by simply sneering at them for their pettiness and small-minded simplistic answers, because they’re reacting to something the rest of us have chosen to ignore: the very basis of our Democracy, the monetary system itself, which is the mechanism by which the stored value we’ve worked so hard to amass is transmuted into our future welfare, in the form of pensions and elder-care programs, is broken. And it’s broken because of the subterfuge it has decided to engage in to pretend that the promises made in a world comprised of industrial economies running on $11/bbl oil can be kept in one paying more than $100/bbl oil. They can’t. And so the generation to whom those promises were made must be destroyed. This is in the process of happening right now. We need to go about things in a different way, and to find that way, we need to talk about everything we assiduously ignore. But instead we fritter about and concern ourselves with the trivialities of sports teams and “Breaking Bad” marathons. We Really have to talk here, and we just … simply … aren’t.
I hope this blanket of words isn’t too suffocating. 🥵
https://robertlowrey.blogspot.com/2013/11/6-degrees-of-desperation.html
Truth.
When the head of a country (Germany in this case) says this:
“We’re not just in a period of economic weakness, we are in a structural crisis of our economy.”
You know it is rip your face off bad. ie 10x worse than that.