An Unsustainable Growth Curve

I've been meaning to post this image for several days now and keep forgetting to do so. It's a graph that shows the amount of United States money in circulation, the so-called monetary base.

The image comes from the website of the Saint Louis Federal Reserve Bank. It's not photo-shopped; it's the real McCoy.

Notice the timeline. It goes from 1910 (99 years ago) through today. Incidentally, the Federal Reserve came into being in 1913.

The gray areas of the graph represent recessions (or in at least one famous case, a depression).

The monetary base stays fairly flat until roughly the 1960s (the Vietnam War) when the curve begins to rise. It accelerates in each of the following decades in a more or less mathematical model. There's a little blip rise immediately before the Y2K event - there was some concern that a computer shutdown might restrict access to cash - and another blip right after 9/11.

But then we get to the shocker. What happens to the monetary base in the last few months, as represented by the gray portion that reflects the current recession? A near vertical rise. A moon shot.

Has any nation, modern or otherwise, ever done such a thing to itself and survived?

Better question: Will we?

Gas Cutoff is a Real Cold War

Russia is waging "cold war" on some of its European neighbors by cutting off natural gas supplies. This is how you lose friends but still influence people.

Large parts of Europe woke up today to find that Russian gas supplies had been cut off on the coldest day of the year as a dispute between Moscow and Ukraine over payment rates took a dramatic turn for the worse.

Six countries reported a complete shut-off and Bulgaria – where midwinter temperatures are reaching minus 15C – said that it had enough gas "only for a few days". "We are in a crisis situation," the Bulgarian economy ministry said in a statement.

Also cut off were Greece, Macedonia, Romania, Turkey and Croatia, which said that it was temporarily reducing supplies to industrial customers.

You can believe whom you wish in terms of who's in the right in the dispute between Moscow and Ukraine. In a time of falling prices for commodities like oil and gas, Russia is finding its economy badly shaken with inadequate income, so it attempted a price hike. Officials with Ukraine's utilities companies objected, Russia threatened to turn off the pipeline, and Ukraine countered with a "that's okay, we've got plenty of supply" (which had better be true, it's a remarkably cold winter this time around).

So the spigots were turned off. Russia says Ukraine is twisting the knob, and Ukraine says it's Russia. Since the pipelines through Ukraine also go to a lot of other places - where preparations were not so astute - there is sudden misery, and these people don't care who's at fault, they just want the heat back on.

Russia needs high oil/gas prices in order to keeps is economy afloat. If the markets, depressed by a receding world economy, aren't cooperating, then it is likely someone will attempt to alter the supply/demand curve.

So far no one is rattling any sabers but this is the kind of dispute that can turn a cold war into a hot one. It doesn't take a Henry Kissinger to figure that one out. Considering that there is a body of prophecy, most of it unofficial and privately revealed, of longstanding that points to another major war in Europe in which the Russians play a major role as aggressor, it seems reasonable to pay attention.