So much for the impregnable economy and the iron-man solid aussie dollar. Perhaps our rocks are coming home to roost, as the world’s biggest investors (not you or I, dear reader) scramble for more secure positions by juggling their baskets of world currencies.

What does this volatility portend? No crystal ball here, but Blind Freddie tells me that this is not the end, and that even greater swings and upheavals are more, not less likely in future. (don’t know why people have stopped using ‘the’ in front of future, but I am sensitive to linguistic as well as economic evolution). Neither the EU rescue nor the US financial reform package will provide serious long term dampening of this inherently unstable global financial system. The answers, like in any good mystery drama, lie elsewhere and our eyes are being shunted away from the real action.

As systems progress to the point of bifurcation, they swing wildly and show ever greater whiplash extremes. A new system emerges, and eventually things might settle down with a new underlying set of assumptions and baselines.

The job statistics give a better view of the underlying problem than the stock markets and exchange rates. There simply are not and never can be enough jobs to produce the endless abundance of social goodies that Europe and all other developed countries have come to expect. That doesn’t mean I would argue for their elimination, far from it. But it is just silly to look only at the financial markets to try to understand why the world is currently so unstable.

Certainly it is the case that stock trading has become much more fragmented, leading even the regulators to scratch their heads wondering where the real nervousness comes from. Following the first big market drop and near recovery within the same day a few weeks ago, the New York Times published a chart of how trading has seeped into multiple pools, including nearly 18% done exclusively within 200 companies of broker-dealers. Another 8% is done by ‘dark pools’ (like dark matter, but even less understandable). Both these blocks, which amount to over a quarter of total trades, ‘ hide their pricing information from the market until the trade is completed’. I don’t even fully grasp what that means, but then people like me aren’t meant to. Fodder is not just for cattle and cannons.

However, the real source of the volatility lies deeper. Well, actually, it is now gushing on the surface in the Gulf of Mexico. And that gush (it would be like calling small-pox an outbreak of pimples to dismiss it as a mere ‘spill’, as is now sheepishly being revealed) is just one of many fundamentals that are hidden in plain sight.

Of course, you need a good set of eyes to find the news about the oil mess these days, at least in the good ‘ol USA, where I sit in amazement at the nonchalance being exhibited by the mainstream media about the progress of both the oil and the cleanup. There is mundane coverage about the drubbing that various congressional committees are giving to BP, who is part of a relay race rapidly passing the buck to, eventually Haliburton, who is of course never responsible for anything. Even this has slipped to page 7.

Time for me to stop before apoplecty takes me to aphasia, but just one more tickle for you: The Death and Life of American Journalism, by McChesney and Nichols, (2010) does the analysis of why the American public is getting progressively dumbed-down and therefore less able to comprehend, much less respond to, events determining (sic? or m i sick?) future . McChesney has long been one of my heroes, because he consistently does the research on the links between democracy and public communication, which is ultimately why Graham and I bother to blog. I am reading it, and nearly weeping. Look to the corporate satans.

Visiting San Francisco after too many years, I wonder why I ever left. This gorgeous, urbane city has become even more beautiful over the years. The old Embarcadero expressway has been torn down, to open up the harbour side of the city for markets, parks, and housing. Ah yes, I left because I thought it would be too hard here as a single parent, and I’d need private schools. I feared slipping into the losing class.

And it has become even harder for the unlanded gentry that populate the graceful bay windowed apartments. Rents are high, but probably not much worse than Canberra or Sydney. There are homeless people camping out in the parks, but no general feeling of threat.

In addition to Chinatown, there is a Japanese sector and a little Saigon. I usually stick to burritos when in California, as it offers an extra opportunity to chatter in my stumbling Spanish. But everyone there speaks some Spanish, including the two old friends I was hanging out with.

What has changed is the creeping legalisation of marijuana. Now there are licensed ‘caregivers’ with state issued identity cards. They are entitled to purchase medical marijuana on behalf of people who can’t get out to the licensed ‘clubs’ to get their own. The clubs are authorised to purchase the green weed, and that makes it possible for the state to get a sniff of the sweet revenue stream wafting up from houses all around the city.

I visited one ‘farm’ in a rented house in the Sunset district. This area has a high Chinese population, but also attracts people because it is close to the beaches (such as they are, excuse my Australian disdain for mediocre beaches).

It also attracts marijuana farmers, as the smells drift off into the ocean and the urban intensity is somewhat muted. Apparently there are hundreds of these farms across the city and thousands around the state.

The interesting thing is not that there are insistent moves to legalise the stuff, as that has been going on since the 1960s. What’s different now is that the state is also more receptive to legalisation, or at least decriminalisation, because of the desperate state of their finances. That applies to many of the 50 US states, of which at least 13 are now allowing medical marijuana.

Considering how many pot-heads there are in California, it could be an open-air experiment in the socio-economic impacts of wide-spread marijuana use. On the face of it, the groovy denizens of this most populous state are no more (and no less) mentally,  physically or politically impaired than anywhere else.

One rather shocking revelation was that most of these farms tap into the electrical supply illegally. They cut in beyond the meter boxes, so that the whole street or sub-station area carries the load.

If the smart grid gets instituted and it becomes easier to track down these huge users of electricity, that would cut into profits and push the cost of supplying pot to the clubs highers. It would also expose the illegality to adjustment, while making taxation more viable.

In the meantime, growers and their contractors who tend these crops for cash payment remain part of the black economy.

All food for thought as I roamed the hilly streets of San Francisco, with vistas of bay and ocean from windy parks. Time for a deep breath…..

I was present at both meetings in Canberra this past Sunday of the Wilderness Society. The flurry of emails and media coverage about the looming stouch implied it was important. They do good work, and are one of the best known environmental groups in Australia. At the meeting it was announced that there are 45,000 members; I wonder if the political parties can claim as many?

Along with many others there, including some of my acquaintences, I sought clarity on the divisions that had become rancorous. I came, I sat, I listened, I formed a view. Along with most of the 300 at the first meeting I trotted along to the second meeting. This sort of subsumed the previous one, which seemed to be left with no agenda.

The second meeting voted out the Management Committee, ie, Alec Marr and others, and voted in a new bunch. There were a lot of passionate people there, some campaign employees and others who were long term volunteers. Lots of overnight bags indicated they had come from interstate. I had just come from a weekend at Moruya, but it meant I was dressed for the part. Don’t know why dreadlocks should be a symbol of affinity with nature, but that’s their trip. I just left a bit of bark on my jeans so they would know I’d been doing some serious tree hugging recently.

The Wilderness Society clearly needs a goverance overhaul, and I hope the dedication of the new committee can get on with it.

As an outsider-insider, with voting card, my perpective drifted to  a wider perspective. Maybe the TV images of the fisticuffs in the Ukrainian Parliament were fresh in my mind, or I remembered being told that in the Indian state and national parliaments everything is bolted down so nothing can be thrown.

I thought Hooray for our civil society, with its procedural detail and Electoral Commission oversight! Hooray for the one man in the room wearing a suit (although his hair was rather explosive.) He was ensuring the due process, apparently with some independent authority.

We’re a long way from our convict past, the tough times to come should reveal how robustly we can support the hard-earned decency of our citizenry.