Psychological Inoculation For A Century Of Challenges (Carolyn Baker Interviews Nicole Foss)

[Tace]

Nicole Foss

An exclusive interview with one of the most astute minds in the world of finance whose insights offer crucial preparation for living in a post-industrial world

Nov. 2, 2010 -- BOULDER, Colo. (CarolynBaker.net) -- Nicole Foss, also known as Stoneleigh, manager of the Automatic Earth blogspot, generously gave me an hour of her time this week during another of her U.S. tours in which she is lecturing on the global financial crisis and answering questions from countless individuals who are preparing for its most dire ramifications.

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Carolyn Baker: What is your greatest concern at the moment in terms of the global economic crisis?

Nicole Foss: That it could unfold very, very quickly.

Because deflation is a swing of poverty feedback, it can take awhile to build up. If you try to explain to people what's coming, because it doesn't happen instantly, they tend to go back to sleep. The thing they need to understand, however, is that when it does hit a tipping point, a kind of critical mass, then it can unfold exceptionally quickly. Then it's very much like having the rug pulled out from under your feet.

I tell people all the time, prepare now because it's better to be two years too early than five minutes too late. You can't play with this sort of thing. In September, 2008, we came within a few hours of the banking system seizing up, and that could easily happen again. People wouldn't get a lot of notice. For anyone who's not in the meeting room-it will be too late by the time they find out. My worry is that if there are an enormous number of people who just had the rug pulled out from under their feet, they're going to run around like headless chickens, and the human over-reaction to events will be really responsible for a large percentage of the impact.

What I try to do is provide a kind of psychological inoculation. People are going to be afraid, and they're going to be angry. People who are angry and afraid are easily manipulated. If you look at Orwell's 1984, the Two Minutes' Hate in that book was really to get people thoroughly into that unthinking frame of mind and keep them there so you could basically tell them whatever you want them to believe. I try to tell people that this is coming -- this is what the herd is going to do. When people are angry and afraid, they don't do anything useful; they play an enormous blame game, and they're susceptible to manipulation by demagogues. A whole political culture could take a giant leap in a different direction which could be a substantially negative direction that could then have horrendous impact on everyone else. Until people recognize that that is coming, and see it for what it is, they will be susceptible to it.

I tell people to spend time in the Transition Movement or various other positive initiatives as well, but all these initiatives have in common building things from the ground up in a truly positive, constructive way. This is the head space that people need to be in because if we can blunt the human over-reaction, we can lessen the impact of the event itself. I don't know that I can make this happen on a wide scale, but if I can have the largest possible effect, even if it's not that much, it's something, and we can only do what we can do.

My great worry is that we could see everything unfold very quickly, and then the whole political culture gets derailed in a fascist, theocratic direction.

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[givemebackmycountry]

1. Great. Wonderful. Outstanding.

"My great worry is that we could see everything unfold very quickly, and then the whole political culture gets derailed in a fascist, theocratic direction".

Just what I needed to read tonight.

[hamerfan]

2. K&R!

"Carolyn Baker: What is your greatest concern at the moment in terms of the global economic crisis?

Nicole Foss: That it could unfold very, very quickly."

Truer words, my friends, truer words.....

[burnsei sensei]

3. If poverty becomes deeper and more

widespread, then we are fools to think deflation won't follow.
3 cents for bread anyone?
It's not so good if you're only bringing in 50 cents a week.