Last night was Halloween and supposedly scary time. Went out in the morning to find cakes, marigolds and chocolates. It was a nice walk and there were people around in costumes, the costumes had been out for about a week as people were having their Halloween parties. Had to make a second trip in the afternoon to find the marigolds. Ended up buying more than intended but that is normal when I go shopping. Guessed the size of a shop giant pumpkin, probably wrong, but you never know, maybe I win something. Roasted some lamb in the oven and watched conspiracy videos, fell asleep for a nap.
Then I remembered that I should make a Halloween posting.
About what?
World is full of scary news.
For some reason, lots of governments are now asking their citizens to prep for 3 days to up to 2 weeks for a grid down situation, the length of the prep depending on the government giving the advise. Nothing coherent is emerging as a reason, UK and Eastern EU are raving about Russians, US is warning about impending AIpocalypse, France is having internal conniptions, and the energy situation of the collective West is disastrous, probably more due to the Green New Leap which has destroyed large fraction of domestic energy production (and agricultural and industrial, too), that due to the nasty supply shocks caused by two wars about to fuse into one big war.
Then there is the climate or weather issue. When I was still little, we were told that the next glaciation is about to start and we should prepare for the Sixth Winter. The the ozone developed a hole because of freons, and if we did not stop the hole from growing, cosmic radiation would fry all the life on Earth. Then came the acid rains which would kill all the forests. During nineties, official media began to worry about CO2 and greenhouse phenomenon. So did I. And began to wonder why we were against nuclear power when radiation posed long term risks whereas the global warming would kill us soon? When the global warming had not killed us soon, it some time during previous decade mutated into climate change. And the energy and environmental policies to combat it, like converting 1/3 of our corn crop to ethanol, made zero sense to me, so I lost faith on ever reaching the Bronze Age Climate Maximum during this interglacial. Though there is now a scientific paper claiming that we are now in an ice age termination event, because the Barnes Ice Cap that had spawned the previous North American Laurentide ice sheets and had been growing again since the Roman times (after the Roman Maximum, I presume) had recently began to shrink again. IDK.
There was supposedly pneumonic plague, genetically modified, that infected a Russian scientist, but that panic did not take. In the summer, there was an ebola epidemic, still is according to news that Uganda tightened its border closure with DRC, but most of the people are apathetic about new plagues.
What the people are interested in is economics and politics, both of which are dumpster fires floating in a sh!t creek towards Hell, and there are always elections to decide the fate of the world, or nation, or something, somewhere. US of A has the official election day next Tuesday, but we have not even had proper election riots this year – apparently, folks are not very excited. Despite having often vehement political opinions online. Many are worried about the economy, though. The gasoline prices have lowered since their peak a few weeks ago, I expect them to shoot up after the elections, then the voters’ opinions no longer matter. Food prices have been creeping up, as have other prices.
My biggest fear aside from economy, though, is the government. Not even the taxes or trade policies but a rush of all new regulations, forms and compliance requirements to fill, every new rule decreasing economic freedoms while eating more and more of my time that could be used for something more profitable or fun. A couple of recent examples:
EPR directive that as far as I understood demands that anyone selling across borders, even from an EU country to and EU country must fill the national paperwork for each country they sell and have a local representative for paperwork purposes. Therefore, I unfortunately do not have the resources to sell my mugs in EU.
In Finland, soon only licensed professionals can sell fish (unless you are selling crayfish, under 300 animals per year – someone online supposed the elites like their crayfish parties – or under 100kg of regular fish) and selling directly to public instead of a shop or restaurant is limited. When I last visited Finland over a year ago, aside from Baltic herring domestic fish, especially freshwater fish, was quite rare, though the farmed salmon was available almost everywhere, as were imported mackerel and tuna. From better shops one could get vendace, perch pike, or even perch, but I saw bream available in only one vendor. After this newest fishing regulation, I expect the domestic fish to become even rarer and for less commercially important species, potentially a black market item.
Meanwhile, EU is trying to find culprits for their withering economy. Businesses are dying or fleeing, new ones are no longer founded, and labor market is in grips of structural unemployment. The imported population did not improve the economic numbers, because there were no jobs even for the existing population. All the unemployment requires more government subsidies, but the tax base has been decimated by energy policies and impenetrable jungle of red tape. For which the solution appears to be more red tape strangling any incipient new business activity. So the next answer is to blame the foreign competition and punish them. EU does not have big successful internet companies like USA or China, so they are trying to extract money from foreign companies by fining them for breaching EU regulations. Maybe in hopes of eliminating competition for EU companies. Which cannot exist because of all the regulations.
I believe all this doom mongering that has appeared in the main stream media is to distract people from the impending economic collapse. EU is scrambling to erect military-industrial complex, because it is their final attempt to stave off their bankruptcy. For that, they need a war (which they already have, unfortunately), but they also need a military (which for all intents and purposes is insufficient) and industry (which had collapsed before the rest of the economy.) I also believe that the current economic collapse will be blamed on the war, not on failed policies. Unless it gets blamed on AIpocalypse. Or both AIpocalypse and war.
This post took me so long to write that it is now a Sunday, so belated Happy Halloween!
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