FIMBULVINTER?

At 6 pm on February 1

We are having an exceptionally prolonged cold period here in Stockholm at the moment. Temperatures rarely rise above -5°C, even mid-day. The sidewalks are icy and hobbly, due to notoriously bad snow clearing in our town. Best to put on rough-soled shoes and carry several layers of underwear when daring to venture out into the freeze.

Hammarby Canal is frozen over, as can be seen in the title picture above. This view is rare, though, since ship traffic is still going on, breaking the ice in daytime. In the second picture, a boat has broken through the ice maybe an hour beforehand, and the damage is already being repaired at the icy temperature.

At 9 am on February 3

It takes at least a couple of boats per hour to keep the throughway reasonably open. Still, each boat has to crunch through the newly formed ice, as soon as a quarter of an hour has passed since the last one. I hear the occasional crunching in my apartment, even with the windows closed; it is a rather distinct sound that carries far.

We may think this type of weather to be exceptional and harsh, keeping in mind the series of essentially snow- and frostless winters we have been experiencing lately. But, going back in time a decade or so, winters could be much colder than that. I only have to look at my earlier blog posts to realise this. For instance, have a look at a post of February 2011. Then,  the temperature hovered below -20°C, and my glove froze to the door grip of the press shop I tried to enter!

At 10.30 am on February 3

Still, with not much to do and being quite content to stay out of the cold in the cosy warmth of my apartment, the mind tends to wander and dig up bits and pieces of insight that have been soundly buried in my ageing brain.

Take the title of this post, which happens to link to the one just preceding it. “Fimbulwinter" is a term from Old Norse Mythology, indicating a period of strong cold. This period is supposed to precede “Ragnarök", the End of the World. In the words of Edda (the Icelandic collection of myths):

First comes the winter called Fimbul. Snow drifts from all directions, it gets very cold and icy winds are howling. The Sun has lost its shine. Three winters come without Summer in between.

Strangely enough, this myth of loong darkness is accompanied by the appearance of the blood of the Gods being spilt by Fenris the Wolf, that is, blood red bands on the sky, as if Fenris were chasing the Asa Gods to oblivion:

He (Fenris) fills himself with the blood of his victims, paints the Abodes of the Gods red with blood. Then the Summers are dark, all weather deadly.

Lest you start smiling condescendingly at the superstitions of the old Norse, let me tell you that these concepts of Fimbulvinter are but vague collective memories of a catastrophe that befell the North about 1500 years ago. We can even be more precise. It occurred in the years 536-37 and continued unabated for another decade. 

In early 536, there was an enormous volcanic eruption in Central America. It created a sulphurous dust cloud that spread over the Northern Hemisphere and stayed on for two seasons. This semi-permanent sky cover had the effect of reflecting away the sun's rays from Earth. Seen from the ground, the sun was barely visible, even if at its highest position in Summer. Paradoxically, the western evening sky was often dramatically coloured in blood red, due to the setting sun shining on the sulphuric cover from below.

Fenris, the mighty wolf, gorging on the sun and mauling the Gods
Composite, based on a picture by Louis Moe

The northernmost regions in Europe, Fennoscandinavia, that is, suffered most in those terrible years. Imagine experiencing two years without any harvest whatsoever! The first year could be managed by eating up all the remaining grain and the starving animals. The second year would cull the population by death through starvation. In fact, the Northern part of Fennoscandinavia – essentially the regions North of present-day Oslo, Stockholm and Helsinki – became void of humans. Further South, at least half of the inhabitants died of hunger. 

This was not all: For ten years thereafter, volcanic outbreaks continued, albeit of lesser intensity. At the end of this period, civilisation in the North was no more. It took a century or so for a new civilisation to rise from the ashes: The birth of the Viking era. For these survivors, the memory of the terrible years did not fade. Far from it, there lingered a constant dread and fear that the catastrophe could return at any time! From that trauma, ever fearing collective death through starvation in a world devoid of light, became in time the Myth of Ragnarök (End of the World), foreboded by Fimbulvinter. Not surprisingly: If you, as a Northener in the 6th century AD, recall that more than half of your countrymen died in the years of the great famine, it is not far-fetched to imagine that a recurrence of the event will kill you all. Thus, one of humanity's greatest Myths was born, and the most recent of them at that!

Traces of the Myth are still surviving in the great epics of yore: the Edda, Beowulf, and even Kalevala in the far Northeast! Something to read and think about, when renewed cold weather is keeping us at our hearth!

RAGNARÖK?

When I was a youngster, I was often amazed at oldtimers saying, “I don’t understand the world any longer!” Hadn’t they over the years learnt the lesson that the world was ever changing and that you had to adapt to the changes? To my surprise, I have begun to nurture the same feeling this passed year! There is hardly anything left from the world of yesteryears, a world I had learned to love and live cosily within! I should, of course, have seen it coming; the whole last decade was nought but a build-up of events that led to his new world! But the past twelve months have made it clear that this buildup has become inevitable, that a profoundly changed world is here to stay. 

The global superpowers have ceased to pretend that there is international law and order to bind them all. Instead, they are playing a brutal geopolitical power game at the expense of smaller nations, not to speak of the peoples of the planet. The great oligopolies in traditional energy markets have finally succeeded in manipulating public opinion, driven by totally corrupt political moguls (at least one of them), and, as a result, the inevitable shift away from fossil fuels appears to be slowing, if not coming to a complete standstill. Our own politicians in the West are forever luring their voters into believing that all government expenses are a free lunch, be they military build-up, climate actions or ever-increasing welfare benefits, and that there is absolutely no need to prioritise and keep public budgets under control. In Europe, productivity has come to a standstill, with the enterprise sector more content to accept subsidies than to do its job of innovating and advancing production processes. 

As a result, I have a strong feeling that a perfect storm of political, natural, and financial crises is brewing and may erupt into chaos in the near future. Let us hope that the inevitable eruption does not occur next year, so that we can enjoy at least another twelve months of personal peace and happiness. In this sense, I invite you to join me in a solemn prayer for a

Happy Year 2026

FORWARD ... AND BACKWARDS

 

The passing of time really affects our understanding of life, doesn't it?

Have a look at the enclosed picture! I took it fifteen years ago at the start of my life as a retiree. Then, it felt like a new beginning, and my view of the picture mirrored that. To me, it seemed to show an open sea of opportunities, which I had finally reached, just like the boat was reaching the open waters after laboriously fighting through the ice.

This was my view then. Now, as a newly baked octogenarian, I am looking at the same picture, but my impressions are somewhat different. It is as if everything were going backwards instead of forward. As if the boat were slowly but surely backing into the ice after leaving the open waters. Soon, it would exhaust its engine and finally stop, forever in icy stasis.

Then, I was looking at maybe twenty years of active retirement. I am now well aware that, statistically speaking, only five years remain for me, judging by the average remaining life span of a Swedish male. What to make of it? Idle away the hours in awaiting the inevitable? Fortunately, my mind does not work like that. Instead, I will try to carry out one last project that should take up to five years to finalise. Hopefully, it will keep me going to finish it in time. “Spera et labora” will be my motto forthwith!

In this spirit, please permit me to send you 

my most sincere wishes for a Happy Holiday Season

whatever phase of life you are in and whatever projects you have in mind!

BAYES’ RULE TO THE FORE!

Our world is one of uncertainties, Dear Readers! And those uncertainties certainly do not behave in an orderly manner. However, that should not prevent us from keeping a clear mind about it. Dare I say: we should remain rational thinkers even in a world that is behaving with uncertainties that are most of the time impossible to quantify. 

Statisticians have their own way to help us with this endeavour. They do their utmost to make us believe that there is order after all in the general chaos. Their basic assumption is that most occurrences in the real world behave as if they were distributed according to the so-called “normal distribution.” Given that assumption, they suggest we relax and return to believing in a world behaving as it should. It is just that many things will be uncertain but still orderly.

Me, I do not count myself as a believer in that assumption, except in the (let’s agree) many facts of life that actually behave as if distributed normally. The remainder, which pop up now and then, are important and can even be life-threatening, I have my own kind of rationality to apply to those cases, one I have established already in my Ph.D. thesis, which in turn is based on a venerable mathematician by the name of Bayes.

Staying with Bayes, rather than showcase my own proficiency, this eminent mathematician developed the basic aid for rational decision-making under genuine uncertainty. It is called the Bayes’ Rule. But do not worry, Dear Readers. His theorem looks a bit strange for those not versed in probability mathematics. Still, its meaning is, at the same time, profound and simple. In ordinary man’s words, it simply boils down to: “Use your common sense! And be prepared to adapt your views, if new facts of life become known to you!”

You may wonder why I am starting this blog with the philosophy of knowledge gathering. But recent events have forced me to reluctantly do exactly what Bayes’ Rule prescribes. It concerns the new type of vaccination that has been introduced as a lifesaver in these times of the Corona plague. When vaccination had gone on for a while, I considered the information available concerning possible side effects, known by then and until recently, and judged them to be of relatively minor consequence compared to the quite real death risk for us elderly, when getting the disease without prior vaccination. Not only did I take the vaccine the first time it was offered, I even continued taking the updtates and, till now, have received fully four boosters to the first one. 

But new information has arrived, and, like Bayes, I am forced to adapt my views to these new facts. It started with a series of videos on Youtube that showed a strong increase in a new form of blood clots in the bodies subjected to balsamation after death. A new fact of life that certainly got me thinking about whether to take yet another booster shot when offered. Still, it was explained away by the good old doctors being on the forefront of the public mind. The explanation was still somewhat plausible: “These blood clots of abnormal type, occuring in a great number of bodies balsamated after 2020, have been formed after death and therefore are nothing to worry about!”

But new facts start popping up. And this time, the same type of completely new blood clots, never seen in human beings before 2020, keep being mentioned by medical technicians working in laboratories that deal with eliminating blood clods in humans seriously threatened by their occurrence. So, we have to start accepting that they also form in living bodies. Don’t worry, Dear Readers, you don’t have to take my word for it. Granted that the medical establishment still believes in the normal distribution and, unlike Bayes, remains undisturbed by new facts popping up outside this venerable curve, there is the odd practitioner and their assistants that start to get worried and let the general public know about this new abnormality. 

I do not have to await years of patient, albeit slow, research to adapt my view of the world. I am ready to change my position vis-á-vis vaccination of the new type right now. Till further notice, that is. Until the cause for this new pathology has been duly researched and the new method of vaccination has been modified to minimize these new side effects, I will most certainly abstain from any more booster shots against Covid! Not only that, any new application of this new so-called RNA-technique on vaccination, be it against influenca, RS-virus or whatnot, will be categorically refused by me.

You are, of course, entitled to your own opinion. Bayes’ Rule just states that you shall adapt your views to new facts popping up in real life. But it does not tell you exactly how! So I won’t hold it against you if you, even in view of these new fasts, stick to the good old RNA-booster shots. The only thing I am asking you is to look at the enclosed video, imbibe the new facts, and make up your own mind!

https://philipmcmillan.substack.com/p/are-the-embalmers-clots-occurring

ALL IS WELL IN EMIL’S SMALL WORLD!

I am sitting at my kitchen table for a solitary and quiet meal, munching contentedly on a walnut roll, adorned with good Gruyère.

Earlier, on my way to the café to buy te rolls, miracle upon miracle! All the sidewalks on the way were completely cleared of snow, and that on Xmas evening day! A rash and brave support indeed from our public services! As you may have seen on TV yesterday, most recently, blizzards have plagued the Swedish countryside and desperate travelers fought the forces of nature in hard road battles to reach their loved ones in time.

The more pleasure to enjoy this beautiful and cosy morning! As I am looking out the window, at 9 am sharp, the first lazy sunrays barely manage to stroke our church on the hill with a rosy shimmer, whilst the lower echelons are still resting in twilight mauve. It appears, as if providence were beckoning and indicating that the world would heal again after all the troubles it is going through lately. 

Be that as it may; let us forget the travails of the world at least during these holy days, which are starting so rosily, and celebrate this happy occasion as long as it lasts.

From solitary me to all of you

A VERY HAPPY CHRISTMAS

IS THIS CLIMATE CHANGE?

Of course it is! Educated as we are, Dear Readers, we understand that climate change means a steady but slow increase in earth surface temperature over decades, with wide yearly variations around the trend. 

Still, I was up for a big surprise last Wednesday morning. Having slightly overslept, and being caressed awake by the first rays of sun tickling my nose, I dragged myself out to the balcony to get a fresh overview of the rosy morning. Hardly had I put out my nose into the air, than it felt like being frozen solid! I hastily retreated and put some cloths and shoes on before venturing outside again. The temperature lingered around -15° C! 

Ice had formed on Hammarby Canal overnight and a distinct noise like breaking glass disturbed the morning peace, with the ferries banging through the thin morning ice further along. All of this being bathed by the pastell coloured rays of the rising sun, mitigated by cold hazened air. 

In all my years in Hammarby Sjöstad, ever since 2009, I have never experienced such a cold spell in the first half of March! Thus, we are witnessing a rare extreme in the yearly variations around the warming trend! On the other hand, thinking back in time, it was far from unusual to have such frozen instances in March many decades ago. Back in 1976, for instance, my wife and I ventured into the Swedish foothills, some 400 kilometers North West of Stockholm (as the crow flies), for some cross country skiing. It was the second week of March. Temperatures reached rarely above -25° C there in day-time. 

Fortunately, the air was dry and the sun was shining, so we took some extensive tours into the beautiful reaches thereabouts. One day, we read in the newspapers that a herd of muskoxes had been sighted in the vicinity, and, with youthful enthusiasm, we undertook to pay them a visit. This was much easier said than done; no oxen were to be seen as far as the eye could discern all of the morning of that tour. 

Muskoxes      Source: Jaktjournalen

Luck came to us, however, after a short lunch break, when we mounted a broad mountain shoulder and, just on the other side of the crest, discovered a herd of 5 of these ice age creatures sunning themselves on the Southern slope. A memory to treasure forever, and now also shared with you, Dear Readers. Alas, with climate change, those herds will eventually be gone from the Swedish Northern wastes!

In the mean-time, we can still treasure the memory of the coldest week on Hammarby Sound in March since decades back. Occasion to return to this blog in Summer time to cool us off, when the next heat wave will embrace us like a sweltering blanket!

GOOD NIGHT SWEDEN?

“Good night Sweden!”
Frontpage of DI (Sweden’s Business Journal) 25 August 1992

A country’s collective memory is notoriously short. Only those of us older than 50 have a clear memory and understanding of what happened in Sweden in the disaster year of 1992, exactly thirty years ago. The country was standing on the brink, staring into the abyss! The largest financial and economic crisis since the great depression exactly sixty years earlier was in the making. A complete melt-down of the financial system was impending. Only resolute actions by Government, Central Bank and Parliament could save us from the worst. Still, unemployment soared far above 10 per cent, the public deficit rose to more than 10 per cent of GDP,  the Swedish crown had to depreciate by thirty per cent, and three of the major banks (of which there were only 6) had to be bailed out by the Government. 

Doesn't the above graph, taking stock of the situation just before the great storm arrived, look uncannily similar to the situation in Sweden this year? Like thirty years ago, the stock market by August has sunk like a stone by som 25 per cent. Fortunately it has regained ten per cent since. Like in 1993, short term interest rates have risen by 2.5 percentage units. So what does next year have in store for us?

Of course, I am old enough not to attempt to prophesy. Rather, let me try to picture some possible scenarios, depending on the role the Swedish Central Bank is playing as guardian of monetary policy. 

Back in 1992, the Riksbank was not independent, as it is now. The country entertained a fixed exchange rate regime, with the Krona fixed against the Euro (called ECU in those days) and the Bank being entrusted with the task of maintaining the fixed rate. As the crisis evolved, the krona was increasingly put under pressure by foreign financial institutions and had to be maintained by an ever increasing discount rate. Eventually, the latter had to be raised to 500 per cent, in order to keep the krona from falling. First in October that year, Government realised that the situation was untenable and instructed the Bank to let the krona float. This led eventually to the ebbing out of the crisis.

In contrast to this, the Riksbank nowadays is independent of the Government and has “sovereignty” over monetary policy. Its task is to keep inflation around the target of 2 per cent. Since inflation erupted a year ago and has reached levels unheard of in the past twenty five years, the Bank felt forced to increase its discount rate from initially 0 per cent to at present 2.5. This does not seem much, but it implies a doubling of the cost of borrowing money to finance real estate purchases and similar investments. As a result, values of all assets, foremost shares and real estate, have fallen drastically within 2022. Inflation, in contrast, has only begun to stabilise at its unusually high level.

If we are to believe the Bank’s analyses and reports, the Riksbank will taper its rate increasing 2023. Only another 0.5 percentage unit rise is foreseen early in spring and inflation is then expected to abate and eventually fall back to 2 per cent again. This is broadly in line with the forecasts of the US and EU Central Banks. If those rosy expectations come true, we can foresee only minor additional decreases in asset values in spring and hope for at least moderate recuperation thereafter.

In contrast to the Central Banks, I am not forced to paint the future in moderate terms. In my view, it is quite uncertain which of the two main economic variables involved in shaping the future, inflation and economic growth/activity, react more eagerly to the interest rate increases. If inflation falls more quickly than economic activity goes downhill, we will see the above mentioned rosy scenario unfold. If inflation tends to be more sticky and economic activity more responsive to rate increases, the result will be quite different. I am by nature a pessimist, so let’s say that there is at least a fifty/fifty chance that the second scenario will be the one to plague us. 

If so, we realise that the Riksbank, as other Central Banks, will be put in quandary. On the one hand, keeping to its task, it will be forced to continue raising the discount rate, further strangling economic activity and driving down asset values to hitherto unseen low levels and possibly inciting a financial crisis. On the other, if the Bank blinks at the edge of the abyss, draws back from its task, and starts lowering rates again to preserve economic activity, inflation will not return to the desired level. As result, we may well slide into a long lasting period of the economy stagnating, inflation recurring and wane interest rate actions being carried out by the Bank of the type we saw in the ‘seventies, a period adequately characterised by the word “stagflation”. The Japanese experience in the ‘nineties alos comes to mind. 

Whatever scenario will actually unfold, I doubt it that we will return to an economy with Central Bank money being supplied free of charge, at 0 per cent interest. The grand experiment of keeping rates low or even negative, and letting them be accompanied by aggressive expansion of Central Bank money, an experiment that has gone on for a decade now, has reached the end date of its use. The new normal may well be a Bank discount rate, in Sweden, of at least 2 per cent and lending rates in future remaining about twice those we experienced as recently as a year ago. Asset values will eventually recuperate, but may not for many years experience a strong upward trend like that of the last decade. 

-o-

I see that this blog post is turning into a dark tale of worry. This was not my intention. Rather, to explore alternative futures so that we can be “prepared for the worst whilst still hoping for the best!”

Looking up from the computer screen and looking out from my kitchen window here in Hammarby Sjöstad, I realise that the New Year is speedily approaching. Fireworks have already begun to lighten up the sky and people are starting to assemble at their balconies, to watch the spectacle, to cheer and soon to toast in the New Year. In this spirit, permit me to extend to you

My very best wishes for a Happy and Successful 2023

May this little song put you in the right mood for a hopefully rosy scenario!