Reasons to be Alpha

Six months ago I took the worst job of my life. It was low paid, irregular and with no guaranteed minimum income. I took it for the worst and most desperate reasons- I was middle aged, white and male and had no other options. Furthermore I was facing eviction and was therefore in a poor negotiating position.
I could not even pay for my tube fare at first- so I walked across London twice a day for twelve weeks. This was humiliating on one level but I chose to take it as a shit test- and I passed by rising at four am and then working up to fourteen hours on boiled rice and black tea.
In fact I lost weight and found I had more energy as a result.
I passed my first shit test. More work came in and my income doubled.
The second shit test was exhaustion. I was working seven days a week by this time and I hit a brick wall. My body just refused to obey me one morning and I only made it out of bed through a supreme effort of will. The strange thing was that I was rewarded for this act by finding my second wind- all tiredness fell from me.
Each time I passed through what I thought were my limitations I surprised myself. I now realise I need only five hours sleep a night and thrive on it.
The third test was budgeting. Could I get out of debt or was I to be a lifetime slave? I am passing this test too- I think.
Looking back over this period I see that my disposable income (the only one that matters) has increased by about ten percent EACH MONTH. It is possible this will continue indefinitely.
It is exhausting and terrifying to treat everything that comes your way as a shit test- but this is the way to become Alpha. There is probably no other way.
It is true that my achievements are modest- find a crap job and keep on doing it- but life gives me larger and larger tests to pass. I have no idea where it will end.

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Reasons to be cheerful

Here is a list of reasons the world economy may not be doomed.
1) Continued productivity increases in the domestic economy of between one and one and a half percent a year.
By 'domestic economy' I mean housework rather than paid work. In my opinion much of what we regard as industrial productivity growth is actually the effect of household gadgets allowing people to work longer hours. This accounts for many of the mysteries of economic growth- such as why the working week is not getting shorter as productivity rises. It was commonly believed in the 1960's that we would all be working ten or twenty hours a week by now. My theory also explains why we do not feel as wealthy as we appear to economists. This is because much of what looks like consumption to an economist (dishwashers, pizza, time saving gadgets of all kinds) is actually capital expenditure. These items do not increase living standards but merely allow people to work longer hours.
Increases in domestic productivity will always leak across to GDP sooner or later. Current productivity growth can be seen as a sort of latent GDP growth that is stored for future years.
No, no, no- not imperialism- solidarity!2) The possibility that Africa may become a cheap labor reserve once China prices itself out of the market. Living standards must and should rise in China and this will result in consumer goods inflation in the West unless a new manufacturing base is found. It is quite likely that many low tech Chinese manufacturing operations will relocate to Africa turning most of Africa into a Chinese colony.
3) Continuing reductions in computing costs.
4) The possibility of eternal life! Sooner or later a biotech company will spark the greatest stock-market boom in all of history. The mere rumor of viable technology will do this.
5) Death cults such as radical Islam tend to burn themselves out over time. Marxist terrorism was quite common in Europe in the 1970's and then simply stopped being trendy.
The more things change the more they stay the same.6) The main threat to the west is probably China and this may not materialize. China is at present following a colonial policy towards markets it regards as its own. The problem with this is that it leads to war. When nations seek to establish ownership of markets and resources they enslave the colony and they also deny other nations the markets and resources they need to maintain an industrial society. Very few nations will willingly allow themselves to become rural backwaters. Most prefer to go to war. Western nations realized at the end of world war two that peace and free trade go together and this is one reason Britain disposed of its colonies.
China has already ensured itself a virtual monopoly over the extraction of copper by purchasing influence in Africa much as the British Empire did in the last century. Unfortunately the British monopoly of certain resources (or the fear of it) helped to bring about the first world war and I hope that China will not repeat the Empire's mistakes. China could wage economic warfare and tip the world into a great depression but I hope they have more sense. I also hope that China will become a functioning democracy without going through civil war or Soviet style economic collapse. In fact democracy, peace and openness to the west tend to go together. Right now I would rate China as having greater than 50% chance of making it.
Saddam is one 'survivalist' who did not survive.7) None of this means that you should not prep for the worst. A well prepared individual is prepared against every eventuality- this includes everything from a household fire to choking on a chicken bone. Being a survivalist is like having an insurance policy if the worst happens.

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