October marks Halloween, when the witching hour is nigh for some, as the US mid-term elections approach for others. Either way, the outcome is likely to be grim for many of us.
Ever cheery, the British medical journal The Lancet has identified 17 catastrophic threats to human health over the next 75 years. The top two items are ‘malicious use of AI’, which includes developing bioweapons, and ‘nuclear conflict’. These came out ahead of the ‘climate crisis’ and ‘cuts to aid spending’. Most Western governments are dealing with these concerns by pumping money into defence spending and more…er…AI.
Otherwise the main news story of the year has continued, with limited oil supplies making it through the Strait of Hormuz, leading to above average oil prices and rising inflation around the globe. Not surprisingly this has also affected the US, with high prices for both petrol and especially diesel, which is working its way through the rest of the economy. Thus the US jobs market slowed in September with just 29,000 new jobs compared with 133,000 in August, according to the US Bureau for Labor Statistics. The unemployment rate has also risen slightly from 4.1 to 4.2 percent. Taken together, these figures point to a growing softness in the US economy that will reduce the immediate likelihood of an interest rate rise, despite the growing inflation issue, while also causing some jitters for the Republican party ahead of the elections.
To deal with the oil prices, the American president Donald Tump has tried blackmailing the European nations by threatening to withhold exports of diesel. That led to a partial victory as the G7 countries agreed to release 100 million barrels of oil from their reserves over four months
And now another extraordinary U-turn with Trump not only suspending some sanctions imposed on Russia for its illegal invasion of Ukraine, but actually buying diesel from Russia. This follows Trump having leaned on the Ukrainian president Vlodomir Zelensky to stop attacking Russia’s oil refineries, which has reduced the global oil supply and pushed up prices as the Ukrainian drones turned out to be more effective at curbing Russian oil exports than Western sanctions.
The bond market is still characterised by high yields, which is still limiting the freedom of governments to borrow money. Much of this is down to the demands of US tech companies who have borrowed heavily to finance their push into Artificial Intelligence. But the high cost of oil and the US failure to find a solution to the Middle Eastern crisis it precipitated is not helping. The markets are also becoming concerned at the high US deficit and the likelihood of rising inflation. There is an assumption that central banks in Europe and the US will have to raise interest rates to counter the risk of inflation. This has already hit house prices in the UK, with some commentators even raising the spectre of negative equity.
Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, has warned that many governments have very high debt to GDP ratios and that the standard political answer – that economic growth will deal with this – cannot be relied upon.
The answer to all these issues – the rising costs of oil, of bonds and government debt burdens, of inflation in the US and elsewhere – lies in the Americans striking a deal with Iran. Yet Trump appears to have neither the ability or the inclination to do this, at least not on the terms he needs in order to justify to his voters all the chaos he has caused.
This month also marks the third anniversary of the Hamas attack on the Nova music festival in Israel. This was a well-planned brutal atrocity that led to the deaths of some 1200 people. The Israelis had every right to take steps to defend themselves and recover their hostages. But many in Europe and the Global South feel that Israel went too far in razing the Gaza Strip to the ground, killing around 72,000 civilians and attempting to extinguish all hope from the Palestinian people, not to mention the ongoing illegal attacks on Palestinians by settlers in the West Bank.
Meanwhile, the evil empire of Norway has once again insulted Trump, ignoring his enormous though non-existent contribution to world peace and wilfully gifting the Nobel peace prize to Navi Pillay a UN human rights lawyer who has actually tried to bring some good to the world.
The Nobel committee in explaining its decision, stated: “In awarding this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, the Norwegian Nobel Committee wants to remind the world that the rule of law, national and international, underpins the system we have set up to ensure peace and resolve conflicts non-violently. Peace requires justice.” Truly the Norwegians only have themselves to blame when the bombs fall on Oslo. Only one man can save the day. It’s time for Gianni Infantino – the not-at-all-corrupt president of FIFA – to step up with a second FIFA peace prize to right this terrible injustice.
At the same time, the US has announced sanctions on the International Criminal Court, which it has accused of being a rogue institution that might prosecute Americans. The US has already sanctioned 17 of the ICC’s judges and officials but these new sanctions will stop US companies from providing goods or services to the ICC itself, such as banking or software. The ICC’s remit is to prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide so it’s not hard to see why the current US administration might fear it.
Elsewhere, the growing fragmentation of British politics has meant that there are now several parties vying for the prize of stupidest policy announcement in the party conference season that normally takes place between September and October. This year the Conservatives could only manage second place, with a Liz Truss-inspired tax cutting program designed to benefit the very richest in society, which will of course be funded by the poorest.
But even this wasn’t enough to secure the top place, which went to the Green Party, following its vote to equate zionism with racism, arguably itself a racist policy. The Green Party leader, Zack Polanski, who it turns out really can turn minor issues into bigger boobs, then went on to lose the Holborn and St Pancras by-election that was caused by the resignation of Keir Starmer. Some readers may recall that Starmer used to run the UK before the new guy took over.
Time, as they say, does not stand still, except when you’re waiting for some good news to come along. Luckily, a new type of clock has been proposed based on thorium 229. Such a nuclear clock would in theory be even more accurate than the current generation of atomic clocks that are behind technologies such as GPS navigation. It won’t solve any of the problems identified by the Lancet – or any decent newspaper – but at least we will know really precisely down to the exact nano second when the world ends.
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