Despite Covid crisis, stock markets are up but the growing bubble of state debt should concern us all – Jim Duffy

One of my English teachers when I was in third year at secondary school still stands out today.

Stock markets have been doing well despite the economic turmoil caused by the Covid pandemic (Picture: Johannes Eisele/AFP via Getty Images)

Not because the others were pretty useless, which they were to be honest, more that he was better able to think “outside the curriculum” than the average Glasgow University English 2:1 graduate who had decided that literature was dull, they didn’t want to write a book and secondary teaching offered an easy life.

Perhaps the only job available to those who graduated by a BA in English, then and now? Nonetheless, this wee guy was quite refreshing as he guided us through the Merchant of Venice and that pesky Shylock bloke. But, it was this teacher’s use of punishment that got me thinking this week.

Luckily, he didn’t want a “pound of flesh”. No, whenever the bad boys in class got agitated, aggravated or just bored, he would prescribe his own self-generated form of punishment.

He wasn’t one for using the belt. It was about to be phased out anyway. He preferred a different form of behaviour modification. It was called the essay. In short, 200 words on “life inside a ping-pong ball". That will be a table tennis ball in today’s linguistic currency.

I never wanted that essay and, as it happened, I never got one. Until now. As I woke this morning feeling caged, trapped and little flat, it seemed that I was indeed living in a ping-pong ball. I wonder how many of you feel the same way.

Looked after by Uncle Sam?

Stock markets are up, the city boys will be hitting the Aston Martin dealerships and the Chelsea and Ascot brigades will be upgrading their designer kitchens. Exactly one year on from the big global stock market crash, life has never been so good for this lot.

But is it all just a big white bubble? Why have markets risen so widely to all-time highs, while we are still in the throes of a global pandemic?

One answer – stimulus! President Joe Biden is continuing where Donald Trump left off, providing Americans with money so that the US can kick-start its economy and the world’s. God Bless America – I hum to myself – inside my ping-pong prism.

Certainly poor Americans will truly appreciate the $1,400 cheque falling on the doormat very soon. For them, that money will be vital, much-needed, and will fill the fridge, freezer and make then feel human again.

Those with more wealth will go out and buy a new TV, a computer or living room furniture. And those who really don’t need it, will just bank it or buy cryptocurrency. Whatever the buying decision is, whether made out of necessity or luxury, Americans are being “looked after” by Uncle Sam. The US is digging deep into its vaults of cash to distribute wealth to its citizens.

Some may deem the last sentence of the paragraph above to be a lie, while others may say I was economical with the truth. They have probably also spent time in ping-pong confinement.

I don’t really want to cause upset, anger or dampen the mood about the whole stimulus giveaway. But, seeing as I’m alone in this white bubble, I guess I can be honest and should be honest. Ergo, even while stimulus is being sold to the American people as a good thing, it is in fact a Trojan horse of massive generational debt, disguised as a free giveaway.

America’s economy does not add up

The truth is America doesn’t have $1,400 to give to each of its citizens. There are no vaults of cash. Only a big ole money printer at the Federal Reserve that pretends it is all-knowing, all-powerful and in control. Never has there been such a lie foisted on the American people and five years from now, the proof will be in the pudding.

This is why the city boys are back buying ‘Lambos’. It has nothing to do with hard work or industry. Only the Federal Reserve buying up $160 billion of “stuff” every month under the guise of quantitative easing.

In summary, America, its markets and its economy don’t work, don’t add up, but cannot be allowed to fail. Its stock markets can’t function without the Fed buying up massive swathes of debt every single month to keep the debt markets whirring along and therefore the NasDaq and S&P 500 buoyed and looking hot. It’s a ginormous bubble and I can see it all clearly as I sit in my ping-ball ball gazing at the national debt numbers going up and up and up. In 2016, the US national debt was $16 trillion. Today it is $28 trillion. Boom times eh?

The clarity one gets from taking time inside a ping-pong ball to examine what is really going on allows one to form different opinions. Accepting that the whole world order and financial structure is built on “nothing” except trust in governments and the central banks of those governments brings a different lens to thought.

The ontological database that I was pre-programmed with to believe in Big Government has now been shattered. Perhaps this is why, like me, so many citizens of the world believe a decentralised system would work better. In short, the game is up for how we have been “managed” and now there is an opportunity to create a new paradigm shift to the sovereign individual. An individual who will not be fed stimulus cheques on an economic drip straight from central banks.

I think I have made my point. “Free” state money for all is not a free lunch, just a cynical facade that the American Dream ain't over folks as we in the UK look on wondering when we get our £1,000 cheques.

And I do hope that my third-year English teacher would be impressed with my spiel from life inside a ping-pong ball.

A message from the Editor:

Thank you for reading this article. We're more reliant on your support than ever as the shift in consumer habits brought about by coronavirus impacts our advertisers.

If you haven't already, please consider supporting our trusted, fact-checked journalism by taking out a digital subscription.