Enclosure is coming this year, in late 2114. Are you and your loved ones prepared? PSTU 3 has all the latest news and coverage on pre-Enclosure events. Stay tuned here for important news as it happens. [more info]
January 18, 2114
(New York) Rocked by the nuclear exchange in South Asia, stock markets across the world continued their collapse on Monday. Last Wednesday, Pakistan launched a nuclear strike at the holy city of Varanasi in India. That followed a month-long incursion into Pakistan by Indian forces attempting to seize water resources. Stock markets were idle over the weekend, and many hoped they would stabilize after a rocky end to last week. Instead, markets opened to even larger deficits on Monday.
The trouble began when Japan’s Nikkei began losing altitude early in the morning, rattling Asian markets. China’s Hang Seng and Shanghai Composite soon followed, and skittish markets across Europe began shedding value. By the opening bell on Wall Street, reports of a panic were rocking national confidence. The NASDAQ and New York Stock Exchanges both shut down trading shortly after 1pm in an effort to halt the free-fall. The Dow fell 6.3% and S&P 5.8% on a half-day of trading.
The violence in Asia cannot fully account for the unease. Over the weekend, India and Pakistan had productive talks, and Indian Prime Minister Meera Poddar has reportedly agreed to pull troops out of Pakistan. Instead, the conflict in South Asia was only the spark needed to set a bonfire of anxiety alight. Although the markets were down 3% last year, that was considered enormous success in the face of a deluge of bad news. Traders confided that once the nuclear bomb exploded in India, they began losing confidence things could rebound. Among the bad news of the past year:
- For the first time in recorded history, the Arctic ice sheet failed to form a cohesive cover, instead collecting into an archipelago of pieces that failed to join;
- Efforts to shore up dikes against rising seas in the Netherlands failed, and the cities of Rotterdam and Amsterdam were abandoned;
- Famine continued to reduce populations in Europe, Asia, and the Americas;
- A report from the Union of Concerned Scientists reported that 3,219 species has been confirmed extinct in the past year;
- Governments in 17 countries, including Spain and Italy, failed in 2113.
One trader on the floor of the London Stock Exchange summed up the mood as he wandered toward St. Paul’s Cathedral on an early afternoon of stopped trading. "It's not any one thing: it’s everything. It’s the famine and the wars and the heat—and mostly, it’s the growing recognition that none of those things are going away."
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