Dear Human friends and readers of one of your best blogs, theoildrum.com. Our ship continues to hover over Ecuador and observe you and your species reaction during your time of crisis. As usual we have a policy of non-interference. But after hearing your Federal Reserve Tribal Leader announcement this afternoon, we thought to translate its odd wording into language that we believe is a fairer interpretation of its actual meaning:

Federal Reserve Press Release

Release Date: August 12, 2009 For immediate release

Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in June suggests that economic activity is leveling out (The transfer of real goods to fewer people over a shorter time horizon via wishes by your leaders has so far not shaken the belief of the drone humans). Conditions in financial markets have improved further in recent weeks (Too, given that your financial shaman have promised around 200% of your annual Gross Domestic Products worth of nets of safety, this should come as no surprise, though the underlings who buy these Products may not be participating in the good craps run.). Household spending has continued to show signs of stabilizing but remains constrained by ongoing job losses, sluggish income growth, lower housing wealth, and tight credit. (In other words, subsidization of the underlings via handouts is working, but will need to continue indefinitely otherwise unpleasant natural forces will emerge.) Businesses are still cutting back on fixed investment and staffing but are making progress in bringing inventory stocks into better alignment with sales (There is significant need for long term fixed investment in your most important human needs: diverse energy and diverse food, but for now new 6,000 sf nests, salad shooters and other products are more important). Although economic activity is likely to remain weak for a time, the Committee continues to anticipate that policy actions to stabilize financial markets and institutions, fiscal and monetary stimulus, and market forces will contribute to a gradual resumption of sustainable economic growth in a context of price stability. (This is confusing, but we think it means your financial shamans fully expect worship, prime cuts of meat, and continued first choice of nubile women from the among the human underling distribution.)

The prices of energy and other commodities have risen of late.(This marginal signaling method used by your current culture will prove to be a grave error -the true prices of ancient sunlight should be an order of magnitude higher based on their real long term scarcity - it is the only signal humans will understand in order to construct a more peaceful, more durable longer term species.) However, substantial resource slack is likely to dampen cost pressures, and the Committee expects that inflation will remain subdued for some time. (This sounds like a vestigial sentence left over from the one they called Greenspinner.)

In these circumstances, the Federal Reserve will employ all available tools to promote economic recovery and to preserve price stability ((Fellow humans, it doesn't matter what happens, we will apportion the faith based trinkets where they are needed at all times, while real resources deplete.) The Committee will maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 0 to 1/4 percent and continues to anticipate that economic conditions are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels of the federal funds rate for an extended period (Your leaders choose to ignore the doctors prognosis of 'debt addict' and cure your socio-economic disease with more hair of dog.) As previously announced, to provide support to mortgage lending and housing markets and to improve overall conditions in private credit markets, the Federal Reserve will purchase a total of up to $1.25 trillion of agency mortgage-backed securities and up to $200 billion of agency debt by the end of the year (We don't want to advertise we are actually on the hook for $26 trillion trinkets). In addition, the Federal Reserve is in the process of buying $300 billion of Treasury securities. To promote a smooth transition in markets as these purchases of Treasury securities are completed, the Committee has decided to gradually slow the pace of these transactions and anticipates that the full amount will be purchased by the end of October ((Just in case some of the wiser humans catch on to our illusion, we want some more dry powder in September to soak up some Treasury bond selling pressure.) The Committee will continue to evaluate the timing and overall amounts of its purchases of securities in light of the evolving economic outlook and conditions in financial markets (Remember when your ancestors worshipped Zeus? Well we are bigger!). The Federal Reserve is monitoring the size and composition of its balance sheet and will make adjustments to its credit and liquidity programs as warranted.(Ignore the hominid behind the green curtain.)

Your species has always walked the line between wonderful and rapacious. In a very real sense, the current battle between short term pain and long term gain in your economic system is a microcosm of the greater tragedy of the commons humankind faces with energy, natural resources and your environment. Each decision making today ‘better’ almost by definition makes the future ‘worse’. It is the nature of the human beast.

What you refer to as capitalism, at least in its early 21st century manifestation is a system which creates dissatisfaction while converting natural resources into garbage, in exchange for money which will be worthless when the natural resources are gone. It is also a ponzi scheme spanning generations. Your lifetimes are so short you don’t notice it as such until/unless the Madoff-moment happens on your watch, which from an outside observers perspective, is the early 21st century (now). Lack of equality among humans, digging holes in the ground with ever increasing overburdens, and creation from your shaman of promises based on paper and ink are all snowballing to make your situation more and more precarious. How many of your kind see that technology, while fricking clever, is accelerating both the speed at which you extract your one time endowments, as well as the speed with which your neural stylus plays over its mental grooves, faster and faster and faster. Listen to the music.

I wish you luck and courage. You will need both.

Ember Dyadicon

First Talosian