Tales of Gloom and Doom - 2014 Will Be No Better, It Will Be Worse…….. Far Worse!

Tales of Gloom and Doom - 2014 Will Be No Better, It Will Be Worse…….. Far Worse!


                                                     by Pachamama

The rapid evolution of mankind over recent millennia, and particularly after the Industrial Revolution, has hit a significant speed bump. We write this with the certain knowledge that we stand high risks of having all of our predictions being spectacular misjudgments. But unlike the general culture from which we come, we are bold and brave enough to not only try to bring new understandings to the past and better understand the present, we are prepared to, with audacity and poise, be daring enough to predict future events, in the short, medium and long term. As soothsayers, we predict that we are indeed at the end of an age that no set of forces can slow, moderate or reverse, even though humans are totally responsible for all these constructs but lack any real and concerted determination to radically alter outcomes. 

The global decline of a vicious White power structure, we judge, will continue apace despite unusual efforts in Western capitals to stem the slide. It however, has a potential to take us all with it. The more they try the worse things will become. The manifestations of the economic decline of Europe will prominently appear in the streets of the USA in 2014, as early indications have already shown. These will be expressed by resource riots in the streets, soaring crime rates, rising levels of real unemployment as independently measured, a more indebted government, a more overt presence of a militarized police state, a further balkanization of populations in ‘protected’ or gated communities and the mass migration of those who could afford it. All this as more American cities and states discover the spectre of bankruptcy at their doorstep. Like Detroit, many more cities will be joining the conga line in 2014 and beyond. 

Barbados and the Caribbean will fear no better. The recent revelations in Barbados portend prophesies of gloom and doom, not that these will stymie a systemic international, national, regional, local lethargy. The remarks by Saint Lucia’s Prime Minister have already driven Christopher Sinckler and a feckless Barbados government to a ‘mini budget’ mere months after the principle statement of national economic, fiscal affairs. But the insightful remarks by Kenny Anthony are to have much wider application, all other things being equal. But all other things will not be equal, as recent events in Saint Vincent and Anthony’s own Saint Lucia will show, for no one, no country, has been prepared or could be prepared for an entry into this unknown territory. So Sinckler can be expected to return with other mini budgets as the future makes a nullity of his firm anchorage to a political-economy model of a bygone era. 

While Sinckler continues to reside in this world of yore we see a series of steep and unavoidable devaluations of the Barbados dollar as exacerbated by a lack of a vision that would have strategically redeployed the reserves of the country into gold, Bitcoin, silver and other real wealth currencies. Such a farsighted policy in itself could have earned a sufficiency of foreign resources to counterbalance current anomalies. Sinckler, Stuart and the GOB will not be able to exit the irrational dependence on the traditional foreign exchange earning sectors and will continue in the vain hope for deliverance from the vortex of a fundamental collapse of capitalism, on the one hand, and their inability to fashion another way, another organizing principle, on the other. They are like gamblers wishing their luck will change some time soon. It will continue to get worse and Barbados will end up in the mire as a result of the misguidance of those who still seem to believe we have no other options than B or D. With the Bees waiting at first slip to catch the people of Barbados. 

In the wider Caribbean 2014 will see a number of elections, ahead of scheduled. Politicians will be forced to, in some cases, in others they will be seeking to use elections to control the pressure cookers these small island states will further become. Caribbean peoples will see more and more of the uselessness of their leaders across the board. Revolutions will be called for from Port au Prince to Port of Spain. The vested interests and their international confederates will leave no stone unturned in diverting the innate desires of the peoples into the service of the maintenance of a dying order. Not even the Secret Order, the secret intelligence agencies or their local networks will be able to deny the collective will of the Caribbean peoples. 2014 will see the first open failures of these conservative yearnings by vested Caribbean elites.  

Internationally, pressures from emerging countries for the de- dollarization of international trade and for limits to, or a shift from, the US dollar as ‘the’ medium of exchange will gain pace. For the USA, 2014 will be a marked year. A year when decline is well recognized and the only remaining questions will relate to how much longer will we have to put up with the ugly American and how much damage could they do before their final breath, as global hegemon. And is there to be the usual war USA verses China starting in the South China Sea as triggered by the dumping of Chinese held and useless American paper, treasury bills. 2014 will start the  accelerated  migration of the power of The World Bank, The IMF, The International Bank of Settlements, the United Nations and other organs of world power away from the western powers. We will see more of the rise of the BRICS, a more consolidated Islamic Awakening and a China as the preeminent global trading superpower and lender of last resort.        

So whether we are talking from a political, economic, social, technological, physical environment or legal environmental perspective, the state of the world, the Caribbean and Barbados is well positioned for a quantum leap into an abyss of disaster before any  emergence of a more hopeful place, if that becomes possible . But before a dawn, capitalism will be more and more seen as the cul de sac it has been. Infinitely incapable of responding to the basic needs of people anywhere. Democracy’s promise will more and more give way to feudalism. The rich will continue to get richer and the poor, poorer. 

Notwithstanding the monumental problems we are facing, and will continue to face, the nature of the human spirit represents the critical ingredient. Even in the worst of circumstances the pale skin peoples of the world will continue to feel that they better than Black peoples. The so-called middle classes will continue to believe that there can never be a common cause with the poor. The poor will be the first to die, the last to be fed and after the last to be housed and clothed. On top, marooned leaderships will continue to exploit the perceived differences for the maintenance of their power. Power as useless as a  toothless  tiger. Making things better may include major reversals in what is generically called development. It may not necessarily involve as radical a step as the institution of the lifestyle of Stone Age man but resource usage certainly has to be markedly reduced, especially by ‘advance’ countries. 

Pachamam is a social commentator.