The speculators, or course, were crying. Many had their eyes set on windfall profits that always become possible in times of supply shortages. "Keep your hands off the private free market" they screamed at the very same government agencies that were struggled to keep the nation afloat. Contrary to some of the speculators' wishes, in spite of their screaming, the necessary governmental interventions were carried out that kept society from collapsing. Hoarding of food by producers and distributors was officially declared to be a crime and the worst violators were prosecuted in various ways to save the country's food supply system from collapsing. And so, somehow the system muddled through.

      Steve had made it clear that what we saw was minuscule in comparison with the big crash that the entire world-economic system was moving towards. He said we experienced one of those minor things like the little rumbles that often precede a major volcanic eruption. He promised that the dust would settle and everyone would soon forget that the whole global financial and economic system is rotten to the core and is slithering towards a worldwide systemic collapse. He said a real economic system isn't really a system of money, but is a living thing. He said that this living thing is currently being bled to death, and if the destruction goes on far enough this living thing will die. He promised that when this happens the big 1929 crash will be seen as but a small thing too, a little rumble. Steve suggested that society should heed the warning of these little rumbles and address the underlying false assumptions that will eventually bring the house down if no response is forthcoming to reestablish a real economy.

      Steve also said that no one listened to his call for sanity. He said that he saw nothing being addressed in a fundamental way. He said that just a few Band-Aid measures were being applied, like the proverbial cork plugging a leaking dam. He warned that therefore things would get worse. He compared the current approach to a doctor treating leprosy by hiding the symptom with ever-bigger Band Aids.



      For a few weeks food became scarce in our area, before the government's rescue project, if it ever reached that far, could be implemented. We were told that the food situation became catastrophic in other places, until as by magic, so people believed, the situation became slowly 'normal' again, even though the vast global gambling exposures weren't written off as they should have been in a global bankruptcy sweep in order to start a real economy again. Evidently, that step forward was still to come. If this had been done in the beginning most of the banks could have been saved during the 'little' crisis, which crashed under the burden of their gambling exposures that had already become untenable before the crash began. Many of those who thought that their money was safe in the banks and lost all they had except the shirt they were wearing, would have lost nothing if the entire system had gone through bankruptcy reorganization. We were lucky. We only lost half. The needed universal bankruptcy intervention by the government could have prevented all of that. In that case all of people's pensions would have continued. No one would have lost their savings and deposits. The losses would have bee born by the imperial speculators and looters of society that caused the crash in the first place with their insanity. Likewise people wages would have been protected by the global bankruptcy reorganization of the world-financial system. But this didn't happen. And so, in many heart-wrenching cases people lost even what they needed to live. Society lost a large chunk of what its economy needed to function with.



      When the dust was settling, though things were far from functioning again, we should have celebrated. We should have celebrated that the potentially major catastrophic damage was avoided. Except we didn't feel like celebrating then, because as Steve pointed out, the real dark cloud was still on the horizon promising a future with consequences that no one might survive. Also some of that looming darkness was still hanging over us on Ross' rock by the sea. The dark cloud of uncertainty was still there. Nothing had been fundamentally healed. The governments hadn't taken steps to refinance the physical economy with government credits directed for building new industries, new infrastructures, new water systems, new power systems, etc.. All of that had been needed before the crash and was afterwards even more needed to achieve an economic recovery. There was talk about a recovery, but that remained only talk. There were signs that the markets would recover and that with it the gambling orgy would resume and threaten to become even more intense. This sort of thing always happens in the wake of major losses. People gamble more insanely in their hope to make up the losses, but end up loosing evermore. That's what Steve predicted if the right steps weren't taken, and it was easy to see why. Without signs that a physical recovery would be initiated for an enriched and decent life for people around the world with better housing, better education, and better health care, and so forth, there was nothing happening to revere the trek to hell on which the crash was but a blib. Our renaissance-dream had therefore remained a dream on Ross' rock.

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Stories about  Love from novels by Rolf A. F. Witzsche