What a Difference a Year Makes

By Jim Willie: A theme of frequent mention has been the Paradigm Shift in the financial world. It refers more specifically to the global shift away from a USDollar-centric alignment. The major industrialized nations of the world, along with major energy producers, struggle to develop a monetary and commercial system that is not based upon the seemingly crippled and certainly bloated USDollar. The challenge is daunting, since expertise on financial structures, even in an honest legitimate fashion, is somewhat lacking outside the Anglo world. Changes indeed come. Many observers, investors, and participants in the global economic and financial world who had held firm to much hope of bonafide structural improvements and of improved prices in valuable traditional assets find themselves slowly fading in that hope. Many less sophisticated people, who are involved in stalled investments and who observe the constant machinations, point to the landscape as simply not changing much. Great discouragement comes when the system seriously broke down, yet no important substantial alterations took place to the power structure or the foundational structure to the system. The high priority to maintain both the system and the power merchants is evident. The compliant financial press is a subtle weapon. Many point to price levels of their favorite or most respected assets or indexes, and conclude not much has changed. Many point to the incessant stream of deceptive economic assessments about a fictitious recovery, like Green Shoot nonsense, like Jobless Recovery contradictions, like Second Half Recovery that never arrives. Many point to the same old same old in legislation that favors those entrenched with power, like the wealthy tax cuts certain to see extension. In many respects, the appearance of sameness is prevalent....read on