On Friday I presented a talk at the 2009 OpenWeb Vancouver conference entitled Collapsenomics 101: Finding (Open) Opportunities Amidst the Chaos. You can view the slides from my OpenOffice presentation as a Shockwave animation by clicking here (click to advance to the next slide).

I began by talking about the economic downturn and the first slides show what's been happening with various economic indicators over the past year as compared to the Great Depression of 1929. As you can see most indicators show steeper decline. I emphasized that Europe and Asia have been affected more strongly than the US which has resulted in a flood of investment into the US dollar and has really helped prop up the US stock market especially since January. This will not last.

Wired has an interesting article on Nasa's predictions for violent solar storms to erupt in 2012 and their cataclysmic effect on the world's power grids. It's great to see this getting the attention it deserves. Personally I believe that preparing for societal collapse through personal physical and mental preparation like spiritual development (esp. meditation and martial arts), and basic community-resilience preparation such as community gardens and farmer's markets, take top priority at the present time.

The latest issue of Rolling Stone has a brilliant article by Matt Taibbi, laying out in some detail the success of the American financial system in 'Shock Doctrining' the political system. As he notes:

... The reality is that the worldwide economic meltdown and the bailout that followed were together a kind of revolution, a coup d'état. They cemented and formalized a political trend that has been snowballing for decades: the gradual takeover of the government by a small class of connected insiders, who used money to control elections, buy influence and systematically weaken financial regulations.

The crisis was the coup de grâce: Given virtually free rein over the economy, these same insiders first wrecked the financial world, then cunningly granted themselves nearly unlimited emergency powers to clean up their own mess. And so the gambling-addict leaders of companies like AIG end up not penniless and in jail, but with an Alien-style death grip on the Treasury and the Federal Reserve — "our partners in the government," as Liddy put it with a shockingly casual matter-of-factness after the most recent bailout...

Beautiful short from the Global Oneness Project (25mins.)

Reality Sandwich has a great article called Money and the Turning of the Age by Charles Eisenstein. At a time when the IMF is about to release a new 'super currency' as its latest attempt to halt the "downward economic spiral", Charles' article nicely lays out the difference between usury currency (based on scarcity) and demurrage currency (based on abundance).

Last week I caught an evening of flamenco at Kino's Cafe where I ended up sitting across from a computer geek from Iceland. He'd been back there over Christmas and I asked how it was doing after the collapse of their currency. He told me things were very bad, many people were talking about emigrating, and that he was sad for the future of the people that live there.

I've now just finished reading Michael Lewis' hilarious and brilliant "Wall Street on the Tundra", from the latest issue of Vanity Fair, and it is easily the best article I've read since David Foster Wallace's "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again."  I almost spit out my popcorn when I read:

Yet another hedge-fund manager explained Icelandic banking to me this way: You have a dog, and I have a cat. We agree that they are each worth a billion dollars. You sell me the dog for a billion, and I sell you the cat for a billion. Now we are no longer pet owners, but Icelandic banks, with a billion dollars in new assets.

Bloody vikings, the inherent superiority of women, Bjork, international finance, fish, elves and exploding SUVs - this article has it all and will leave you in stitches. Go read it now (warning - fairly black humour!)