I hear the news on the radio these days with a curious urgency. This is partly because I seldom find time for much else; other than the odd ten minutes browsing online in the evenings, I have not read a newspaper since the day before my babies were born. But if this urgency were only due to scarcity, it would not explain my intense reaction to certain news items.
Though I have always listened to the news with interest and emotion, now whenever I hear of conflict, natural disaster, human suffering, I am overwhelmed with an empathy for the people involved like never before. And as I listen to the reporter’s words, it is a vision of a specific group of people that floods my mind and then wrenches at my guts – pregnant women, mothers and their young children. I can see women grasping their babies to their chests, reaching children into trucks, fearfully pouring dirty water, and thinking hopelessly ‘what will become of my child?’.
This may well sound sentimental to more measured types, and I know that I cannot speak for other people with or without children of their own, but I believe there is something of a kern of universal motherhood at work in me. The Berlin artist, Kaethe Kollwitz, famous for her sculpture of a grieving mother with her dead soldier son lying across her knee which now stands on the grave of the unknown soldier in Berlin, also made her living with artwork for mother and child health campaign posters. These posters show simple charcoal drawings of skinny children gathering around waiting to be fed, or of mothers, children on their hips, reaching out for bread. Her immense sculpture and the more modest drawings convey the same message of the absolute innocence of children, the hope and expectation that their lives deserve, and of a desperate parental empathetic love. It is as if she is the mother in each of her works, who cannot bear the slightest suffering for her children.
So as I sit having breakfast with my babies each morning, listening to the reports from Libya as I spoon creamy porridge into their birdlike mouths cheeping and gurgling at me for more, I am filled with overwhelming hope for their futures and a terrible sadness for mothers having their children into more troubling times.
stillsonaive 
Being a bit sentimental, aren’t you? The point is, any trouble in Libya isn’t happening to you. You are safe. It is impossible for every mother and every child to be well fed, happy and safe in the world. What is happening in the poorer Arabic countries is a Malthusian crisis – for years excess food and wealth led to a greater population, which normally would be fine if those people could either grow some more food or make something to exchange for food. But they make nothing and live in the desert, or countries that are mostly desert and have little fertile land.The reason they are fighting now is because inflation just went up dramatically in those dollarized countries. Because they were already spending most of their money on (imported) food, and this is now much more expensive in nominal terms – but not in terms of gold, oil or other commodities.We haven’t noticed it yet because we are much richer and more productive. We also live in a food exporting country. Our food prices will start to rise too soon, for the same monetary reasons. Good time to stock up. Also a good time to buy gold (to store wealth compactly) and silver (for everyday purchases). The inflationary storm coming is very real.
Uplifting stuff from William! One question: does an appreciation of economic realities mean that human empathy is pointless or superfluous? And whilst I’ll consider stockpiling what gold and silver I can get my hands on, I’ll also be grateful for now that our politicians, flawed as they are, are eminently less likely to help precipitate a humanitarian crisis than Muammar Gadafi…
Empathy is something of a luxury good. It does not put food on your table. You are welcome to feel empathy if you like, in moderation, but empathy alone does not bring you to a clearer understand of why such things are happening. And it won’t protect you when this kind of thing is happening to you.It is one thing to feel empathy when things are relatively stable, but when things change quickly it is much more important to understand *why* things are changing, and how to position yourself.In this case, anyone familiar with the French experience with Assignats knows what the next stages are: http://mises.org/books/inflationinfrance.pdfSadly, once started, few governments can resist the urge to create more money, especially as times are so hard and people are so desperately short of the stuff. Each issue of paper money reduces its purchasing power by more than the amount of the issue, so it is impossible to ever catch up with the shortage of money, nor ever to be able to afford the things you increasingly desperately need.You think our leaders are less likely to do what Gaddafi is doing? You know what happened to France as a result of the Assignat inflation? You know what happened in Germany a mere ten years their inflation? There is nothing more destabilising for a country than for formerly well fed and secure people to have the means exchange to fail and not to not know where their next meal is coming form. All it takes now is for things to carry on exactly as they are now. Do you see any evidence of failed banks not paying their depositors? Or state pensioners having their pensions cancelled? Did 9/10 NHS hospitals close? No. Money printing continues, weakening the economy, increasing prices, leading to spending, leading to more money printing. Fortunately jewellers and pawnbrokers still sell gold and silver coins, and in the UK and Germany gold is exempt form VAT (as are second hand silver coins, new 7% Germany) and legal tender gold sovereigns are gold and silver 1oz britannias in the UK remain exempt from capital gains tax – the two taxes that absolutely wreck you in inflation, as they are assessed on nominal values which accelerate away.Sooner or later, in these circumstances those shops either close because they have been emptied of goods in return for depreciating paper (preventing restocking), or close because the owner is no longer willing to trade for paper – and gold and silver vanish like snow. We are not at that point yet, but in my entire life I have never seen such black clouds on the horizon, nor felt so certain about the likely future path.