In 1996, Dutch soccer trainer Louis van Gaal expressed his frustration with the stupidity of (Dutch) soccer journalists (Dutch video). He asked the (in)famous (Dutch) question: Am I the one who is so intelligent, or are you the one who is so stupid? At times, I feel the same as the stupidity of journalists is beyond comprehension. It’s the likely result of an English financial saying from the 1940s: if you pay peanuts, you only get monkeys.
The Turkish president has already fired four (deputy) Central Bank governors as they wanted to contain double digit inflation by raising Turkish interest. The president does not believe (sic!) in this long-standing monetary policy. As a result, the Turkish lira is depreciating against other currencies (eg, EUR, US$), and FX reserves are at their lowest in 18 years.
The “war” between the Chinese government and its business sector has already caused a market value decline of about $1,000 billion for the 10 Chinese tech majors since February 2021 (eg, Nikkei, BBC, Bloomberg Aug 1). In the last week of July, the U.S.-Listed Chinese Tech stocks lost about $150 billion in market value (Forbes). Bloomberg even published an article stating that China Doesn’t Care How Much Money You Lose.
I’m still wondering if China mirrors Turkey in its “underappreciation” of long-standing economic theories. A recent Bloomberg article isn’t particularly reassuring:
“So it’s not that China is antagonistic toward foreign money. It just wants to admonish those who seek loopholes abroad. And this is the new message: If you’re going to invest in China, you’ll have to do it through the capital markets it’s developing. That won’t only strengthen the domestic economy, it will also allow Beijing to make sure the capital goes to industries it wants to develop and stays away from areas it deems a threat to the common good.” Bloomberg, 26 July 2021
In my view, the belief system Politics in China has realised that the alignment between its other belief systems Data-Info, Money, and Technology has become too strong and will defeat and succeed Politics in China (my 2019 blog). Chinese retail investors are paying the price of this “war” as they lost some $1,000 billion in market value. This “war” makes more sense (to me) than Chinese “monetary policy”.
Another example of an idiocracy is the “fight” against an invisible and “dead” virus. Initially, it was about protecting weak people, and avoiding a healthcare capacity overload. Then governments put 100% of the population in lockdown to protect the about 5% symptomatic virus carriers, who run an about 5% fatality risk. Combined, this represents the cumulative national mortality averages of about 0.25% ( =c.5% x c.5%). Some governments are now proposing mandatory vaccination. This is extreme doubling down, an idiocracy, or both.
Recently, a Dutch professor accused the Dutch government of necropolitics in its handling of Covid-19. This term was brand new to me. Wiki: “…the use of social and political power to control people’s lives”. In my view, it’s absurd to apply any conceptual thinking to the haphazard corona “policies” in most countries.
More and more, it seems that “our era of stupidity” is resulting in an emerging idiocracy.
Stupid Girl (1996) by Garbage
artists, lyrics, video, Wiki-1, Wiki-2
Note: all markings (bold, italic, underlining) by LO unless stated otherwise.
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