15 Notes on the Global Economy 28 comments
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1) It’s nice to see someone else recommend my proposal for partially solving housing woes. Immigration made America great. Kudos to my Great-great-grandparents.
2) Is there Any Such Thing as Systemic Risk? Surely you jest. Systemic risk exists apart from klutzy governmental intervention, as noted in my article, Book Reviews: Manias, Panics, and Crashes, and Devil Take the Hindmost.
3) The Economist has another good post on the effect of past buybacks affecting companies today. As for me, I criticized dividends in the past:
  | | David Merkel |
| Buybacks Depend on the Management Team | ||
| 1/5/2006 12:11 PM EST |
I neither like nor dislike buybacks, special dividends, and other bits of financial engineering that extract limited value at a cost of increasing leverage. In one sense, these measures are a type of LBO-lite at best, merely covering the tracks of the dilution from options issuance mainly, or preparing to send the company to bankruptcy at worst.
A lot depends on what spot in an industry’s pricing cycle a given company is. It’s fine to increase leverage when the bad part of the cycle has played out and pricing power is finally returning. Unfortunately, unless they are careful, companies tend to have more excess cash toward the end of the good part of the cycle, at which point increasing leverage is ill-advised, but often happens because of pressure from activist investors and sell-side analysts.
My first article on RealMoney dealt with the concept of financial slack, and why it is particularly valuable for cyclical companies not to take on as much leverage as possible. One of the dirty secrets of investing is that highly-levered companies typically do not do well in the long run; they sometimes do exceptionally well in the short run, though, so if it is your cup of tea to speculate on highly-levered companies, just remember, don’t overstay your welcome at the party.
One final note: If a management team is talented, they should retain a “war chest” for the opportunities presented by volatility. Lightly-levered companies benefit from volatility, because they can buy distressed assets on the cheap. Highly-levered companies need volatility to stay low, because adverse conditions could lead to insolvency.
Leverage policy is just another tool in the bag of corporate management; it is neither good nor bad, but in the wrong hands, it can be poisonous to the health of a company. For most investors, sticking with strong balance sheets pays off in the longer-term.
Position: None
4) Financial accounting rules can work one of two ways: best estimate (fair value), or book value with adjustments for impairment. Either system can work but they have to be applied fairly, estimating the value/amount of future cash flows. Management discretion should play a small role.
5) Regarding Barry’s post on Bank Nationalization: I don’t like the term “nationalization.” It’s too broad, as others have pointed out. I am in favor of triage, which is what insurance departments (and banking regulators are supposed to) do every year. Separate the living from the wounded from the dead.
The dead are seized and sold off, with the guaranty fund taking a hit, as well as any investors in the operating company getting wiped out. The wounded file plans for recovery, and the domiciliary states monitor them. The living buy up the pieces of the dead that are attractive, and kick money into the guaranty fund. No money from the public is used.
We have made so many errors in our “nationalization” (bailout) that it isn’t funny. We give money to them, rather than taking them through insolvency. Worse, we give money to the holding companies, which does nothing for the solvency of operating banks. We don’t require plans for recovery to be filed. Further, we let non-experts interfere in the process (the politicians). Better that the regulators get fired for not having done their jobs, and a new set put in by the politicians, than that the politicians add to the confusion through their pushing of unrelated goals like increasing lending, and management compensation.
The concept of the “stress test” is crucial here. It could be set really low (almost all banks pass) or really high (almost all banks fail — akin to forcible nationalization). Clearly, something in-between is warranted, but the rumors are that the test will be set low, ensuring that few banks get reconciled, and the crisis continues for a while more.
I’m in favor of the bank regulators doing their jobs, and the FDIC guiding the rationalization of bad banks, with an RTC 2 to aid them. Beyond that, there isn’t that much to do, and there shouldn’t be that much money thrown at the situation. We have wasted enough money already with too little in results.
One final comment — for years, many claimed that the banks were better regulated than the insurers. Who will claim that now?
6) Equity Private rides again at Finem Respice (”look to the end”). A good first post on how this all will not end well.
7) Whatever one thinks about mortgage cramdowns (I can see both sides), they will have a negative effect on bank solvency, and the solvency of those who hold non-Fannie and Freddie mortgage backed-securities.
8 ) What has happened to Saab is what should happen to insolvent automakers here in the US. The companies will survive in a smaller form, with the old owners wiped out, and new owners recapitalizing them.
9) Will the new housing plan work? I’m not sure, but I would imagine that it would cost a great deal to support a large asset class above its theoretical equilibrium value. There are also the issues of favoritism, and rewarding those less prudent. We will see whether it doesn’t work (like Bush’s proposals), or works too well (my, but we burned through that money fast). (Other thoughts: Mean Street, Barry, simple explanation from the NYT.) As it is, many people will not be eligible for the help.
10) How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. How well did Japan do in working through its leverage problem in the 90s and 2000s? Reasonably well, though it took a while. Deleveraging takes time when many balance sheets are constrained, and asset values are falling back to psuedo-equilibrium levels. One person’s liability is another person’s asset; when a large fraction of parties are significantly levered, the reconciliation of bad debts can cascade, like a child playing with dominoes.
So, Japan took its time with a messy process rather than have a “big bang,” with less certain results in their eyes. In America, we want to get this over with quickly, but not do a “big bang” either. That’s where a lot of the cost comes in, because in order to reconcile private debts rapidly, the government must subsidize the process. All that said, in the end we will have a lot of debt issued by the US Government, just in time to deal with the pensions/entitlement crisis from a position of weakness. And, that’s where Japan is today, facing a shrinking population with a lot of government debt, and rising demands for entitlement spending. Japan may be a laboratory for the US, Canada, and Europe as we look at the same problems 5-20 years out.
11) If you want to search for prices and other data on bonds, look here.
12) Marc Faber makes many of the point that I have made about the crisis in this editorial.
13) Swiss bankruptcy? I would never have thought of that possibility, but considering that it is a smaller country with a relatively large banking system, and those banks have made a decent amount of loans to weaker creditors in Eastern Europe. Add Switzerland to the list with Austria on Eastern European lending troubles.
14) What is Buffett thinking in his recent sale of stocks? Some criticize him for being inconsistent with his philosophy of long holding periods, but Buffett is a very rational guy. He is getting some good opportunities in this market, and is selling opportunities that seem less good to him. Could he be wrong? Yes, but over the year, he has been pretty good at estimating the relative values of assets. He’s made his share of mistakes recently, but 95% of investors have been in that same boat. At least he has the insurance franchise to carry things along, and given the reduction in surplus across the industry from the fall in equitiues and other risky assets, pricing power should begin improving soon. Berky is interesting here.
15) Mirroring the bubble, Anglo-Irish Bank rode the global liquidity wave up, then down. Ireland was the hot place in the EU, and now the bigger boom, fueled by easy credit, has given way to a bigger bust.
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On Feb 20 05:56 PM bricki wrote:
> Europe's banks will come crashing down when Eastern Europe starts
> defaulting on it's loans. They are already teetering on the edge
> of a precipice.
>
> When this happens the Euro will collapse too. There is no sovereign
> guarantee, so the individual countries in Europe will give up on
> the Euro to try to save their own hides.
>
> And as far as obesity goes - there are 130 million Europeans that
> qualify. It is a world-wide problem.
>
> There is a reason the Dollar is the world's reserve currency, and
> it isn't going to change any time soon.
>
On Feb 20 06:43 PM Reinko wrote:
> Hi bricki;
>
> You think a few trillion of debt towards East Europe will be the
> nail in the coffin of West Europe?
>
> Why not take a fine look at the 17 trillion US$ debt that the US
> financial sector has upon herself, link:
>
> www.federalreserve.gov...
>
>
> Look in the one before last column and scroll down to arrive at the
> nice 17 trillion of debt that, by the way, grows faster then the
> US GDP.
>
> Also, just by the way, have you studied obesity rates in East Europe?
>
>
> And in West Europe?
>
> Some anecdotical fun:
>
> My ex was on a visit to the USA last Summer; never ever in her life
> she did see so many very very fat people.
>
> She said: 'Here I am sexy and slender again'.
>
> And why do you think it is so important to stress the 'reserve status'
> of the US dollar? This reserve status only makes the average US citizen
> more fat because a too highly valued currency only gives rise to
> a lazy workforce.
>
> Look at your auto mobile industry for an elementary example.
>
> And what about your infrastructure? Lets compare it with Europe...
>
>
> And you healthcare costs? (My insurance is only 110 € and kids are
> free).
>
> Now bricki?
On Feb 20 08:05 PM CJJ wrote:
> Its like a game of who can spot more problems. Whose problem is worser
> than mine. At some point the finger pointing will stop when people
> realize this is GLOBAL...Its not going to change...During the 30s
> outright protectionism may have seemed to be the problem, but its
> called demand destruction. We're seeing this today without protectionism.
> People in the East save too much and it gets them nowhere. It may
> be great that China is a surplus country but its people are still
> poor and unemployed and have no rights. Their growth is due to the
> fact there are over 1 BILLION Chinese people who 20 years ago 90%
> lived like it was 1700. Its hard to not have growth when you start
> to move into 2000.
>
> I question what the motive of most people who comment here is? Is
> it just to be more pessimistic than the last person? What do you
> gain by it? I know things are going to be much worse than people
> expect, but I don't try to make the problem worse to be more right.
> I don't do everything I can to personally gain at others expense.
> Do you people think you are better because you are on the "end of
> the world bandwagon" and you've been there since 1913 or The Fall
> of Rome?
>
> If you're not part of the solution you're part of the problem. And
> no, making points akin to every company and every industry is doomed,
> discretionary spending is finished forever(thanks Yahoo Tech Ticker
> and the criminals who run it), everything the Government does is
> evil(suck it Cops, Firefighters, Military, Teachers, Social Security,
> etc, etc), does not help make tomorrow a better day.
>
Switzerland has enjoyed unusual benefits as a money center for many years in the smoke and mirrors world that is now starting to come apart and the reasons why bankers have had things relatively easy rested largely on secrecy and alleged prudence in financial management. The massive losses at UBS and other Swiss banks in all of the usual suspect securities and now the exposure to Eastern European problems suggests that the gnomes of Zurich may not have been much wiser than their counterparts in London and New York. Take away the secrecy assurance and quite a lot of the super-rich could decide that it's time to look elsewhere to park their money.
Meanwhile everyone worries and frets and complains that the nationalization of C and BAC would ruin the the common shareholders.
Hmmm... let's think about that swell logic.
Late spring/summer 2007: C trades in low 50's and BAC trades in upper 40's.
Yesterday: C trades in mid 1's and BAC trades in mid 2's.
I would submit that anyone who has been living in a cave or in denial in a psych ward for the past 18 months using the totally discredited philosophy of "buy and hold" has already been ruined rather completely.
They've suffered 95 - 98% losses- that isn't ruination?
And any "bargain hunter" who adhered to the "falling knife" syndrome of buying a collapsing financial stock in the worst financial meltdown at least since the Great Depression is just as clueless in my opinion.
Those people didn't adhere to a single risk management or loss prevention/control rule on the planet.
I would further submit that anyone who has ridden these turds down the past 18 months is a total moron who deserves to have been ruined... in fact, they should just make it a law that people like that can't be allowed to invest ever ever again - they should all go around with a big red tattoo inked on their forehead that says: I'm a Moron!!!!!" in 3" letters.
And every day CNBC should guest interview a couple of them and make them explain to the world why they held those turds the whole way down.
And they should start with the advisors who recommended the stocks and keep recommending those stocks for the whole collapse, pulling in the sheep with their glittering logic and salesmanship.
No one seems to want to bail out stupid, greedy housing speculators.
So why should stupid, greedy bank stock investors be bailed out to prop up a couple of failed institutions while the entire banking system stays locked up watching this nightmare unfold and lots of innocent institutions get dragged down with them?
Germany for example has a much higher productivity than the US, but other European countries , even U.K. are way behind. Germany has a superb healthcare system, much better and less expensive than the US, but again others in the EU are much worse. I could continue , but I guess you got the picture. Here is what Germany makes less attractive than the US and why I prefer to live here. Taxes are extremly high, the goverment is regulating everything without mercy and on top of that there is a real cultural crisis at hand. But the most important part are the people in this country, they are the reason I love to live here, they are just great and it doesn't matter if some of them are a little overweight.
On Feb 20 09:14 PM otbricki wrote:
> On Feb 20 06:43 PM Reinko wrote:
It is amazing how many people react on what I wrote, so lets look at a few comments on for example health care:
My health insurance is 110 € a month and the kids are free, to be precise I can voluntary pay about 25 € for dentist insurance.
A lot of people point to the fact that via taxes we pay for the rest of the insurance; that is not correct. Here in the Netherlands the employer also pays a large part.
With or without a job my health care is only 110 Euro, it is impossible not to be insured because by law everbody has to pay for health insurance.
(So there is no large pool of relative healthy people that opt for no insurance.)
Even stronger: The hospitals have insurance against those who are not insured (like illegal aliens).
In short: Here are no millions without healt care.
We might not have a third or a fourth car, but what extra happiness does that bring to society?
__________
Without backing it up, User64738 knows that we have far higher taxes compared to the USA. That falls into the category of popular myth; I did think that too for a long time but most USA folks pay 30 to 40% taxes on their income and that is pretty much in line with over here.
However in the past this has been a problem here after we had socialist labor parties running the country; above 100000 of income? Easily over 60% was taxed away and at some point in time people in high paid jobs refused to work any longer any overtimes because they more or less worked for free.
__________
Then otbricki adds that the few trillions towards East Europe will wipe out the Euro. He forgets to mention the logic involved; aren't it the countries that stayed out of the Euro that get the real beating?
The Euro might still be a young currency but without it troubles would have been much greater. Going back to a situation without the Euro would also multiply the problems; once more Europe would be a wheelbarrow with frogs.
Giving up the Euro would be the same as the Americans giving up the $.
Often you hear that in Europe there are no multinational organizations to deal with the problems, that is correct but this also brings the benefit of flexibility; every country can do what it wants where in the USA for exampla California is not allowed to run a deficit (or face Chapter 11 if they do).
And the fact that a lot of banks will go is obvious; there is much to much banking capacity anyway. Let them die!
In the USA before the crisis broke out, financial sector was 20% of the economy. If you think about it; that is crazy, counter productive and such a large size can only work as a parasite on the real economy.
__________
On the reserve status of the US dollar:
I simply stay with my many year long obervation that the reserve status has always propped up the dollar and the Americans got lazy by that.
I am also hefty against such a role for the € in the future; the first one or two decades it will bring benefits, after that you get similar sizes in drawbacks.
__________
On obesity rates:
It is well known that in the USA this is a statistic running rampant, in no other nation there are so many very fat people. When people get lazy they get fat, that is as simple as 1 + 1 = 2.
Here in Europe obesity is also on the rise but I never studied those statistics so I cannot make much comment on that.
Bosun.j wrote 130 million Europeans qualify for obesity; that would be a large fraction of the population. I think it is less, lets say 100 million, but it is on the rise so in this regard the crisis is a good thing...
__________
At last: The 17 trillion of debt the US financial sector has will be a giant producer of future toxic debt. It is not in the news but those folks at CNN or CNBC or Fox News do not understand what happens when debt is above one USA GDP and routinely grows faster then the GDP for a few decades.
Interest obligations (and coupon for bonds) are so huge; this credit crisis hasn't really begun yet.
Printing money will become more important because the sizes of toxic debt will be to large for taxpayer money.
__________
I hope (although one day late) I have answered some of the things you folks threw up.
Have a nice crisis or try to get one...;)
On Feb 21 10:32 AM wpdragon wrote:
> I like the concept of using "triage" instead of nationalization for
> the banks.
>
> Meanwhile everyone worries and frets and complains that the nationalization
> of C and BAC would ruin the the common shareholders.
>
> Hmmm... let's think about that swell logic.
>
> Late spring/summer 2007: C trades in low 50's and BAC trades in upper
> 40's.
>
> Yesterday: C trades in mid 1's and BAC trades in mid 2's.
>
> I would submit that anyone who has been living in a cave or in denial
> in a psych ward for the past 18 months using the totally discredited
> philosophy of "buy and hold" has already been ruined rather completely.
>
>
> They've suffered 95 - 98% losses- that isn't ruination?
>
> And any "bargain hunter" who adhered to the "falling knife" syndrome
> of buying a collapsing financial stock in the worst financial meltdown
> at least since the Great Depression is just as clueless in my opinion.
>
>
> Those people didn't adhere to a single risk management or loss prevention/control
> rule on the planet.
>
> I would further submit that anyone who has ridden these turds down
> the past 18 months is a total moron who deserves to have been ruined...
> in fact, they should just make it a law that people like that can't
> be allowed to invest ever ever again - they should all go around
> with a big red tattoo inked on their forehead that says: I'm a Moron!!!!!"
> in 3" letters.
>
> And every day CNBC should guest interview a couple of them and make
> them explain to the world why they held those turds the whole way
> down.
>
> And they should start with the advisors who recommended the stocks
> and keep recommending those stocks for the whole collapse, pulling
> in the sheep with their glittering logic and salesmanship.
>
> No one seems to want to bail out stupid, greedy housing speculators.
>
>
> So why should stupid, greedy bank stock investors be bailed out to
> prop up a couple of failed institutions while the entire banking
> system stays locked up watching this nightmare unfold and lots of
> innocent institutions get dragged down with them?
You live in a dreamworld...Life isn't fair...We all know that...
I'll survive whether things get really bad or they turn back around. You seem intent on being miserable whether things get really bad or they turn back around.
A serious question to you...why do you wake up in the morning?
Nice to have some backup that the USA health care system is a lousy system.
I have worked a few times in Germany and I understand that you feel more freely in the USA, yet my relative liberal Dutch landscape is good enough for me.
Lets only zoom in on US healthcare and only one anecdote:
Lately I did read the adventures of a guy with a small company who managed to get health care for his entire family;
Entry costs only 5000 $ and above 1000$ a month for the entire family.
And what do you get?
Well if you go with a serious thing to a US hospital the first thing they do is run over 20 tests. (This to avoid judicial shit in the future.)
Here in the Dutch landscape when I go to the hospital, they first ask:
What is the problem?
And after that they try to solve the problem (that does not take away we have a lot of stupid doctors here too but the money thing is just different and better for the society as a whole).
I've been thinking I really don't care what they call nationalization.
Obama, Geithner and Summers can stand up at the press conference in Ben & Jerry's costumes and call it tutti-fruiti for all I give a damn, as long as they just DO IT.
And while Wall Street, the financial media (CNBC and Crammer and FOX/WSJ included) the morons with the tattoos on their foreheads and that grand old party that used to brag about their capitalist ethics stomp their feet and wail and whine and shake their fists in hypocritical rage I will make you a bet.
I will bet you that very quickly the MARKETS will make their choices, and some banks will die, and some will thrive, and the bad assets will find willing private equity buyers and the healthy banks will find a rush of new capital bled off from the bad banks, and REAL lending (not the coerced type we have now) will start again, and credit spreads will come in once the UNCERTAINTY of the situation is resolved and within a week the DJIA will be up 1000 points.
Oh, and those morons with the tattoos on their foreheads???? They will take their last $50 and throw it into gold, top-ticking it just as it starts its elevator ride to $400.
Its not the nationalization that's the problem. We've already psychologically accepted that. Its the uncertainty of the when and whether and who that's killing these markets.
The paralysis and the death by a thousand cuts markets will stop when the indecision stops.
It always does.
> To user 64738:
>
> Your anti Reinko rant is lovely to read (why don't you use your real
> name by the way you coward?).
Why should I use my real name? Do you want to come over and look for me?
I'll be in Europe in April, if you want to meet me we can arrange it. :-)
> Comment: In the first place, where I live income tax is more or less
> like in the USA. In the second place of course I can opt out of a
> 'family insurance plan' in case I am single again; all I have to
> do is send an email with the fact I am single again.
> And what 'declining medical insurance' is, I have no idea what that
You mentioned above you live in NL.
Quick google and www.expatax.nl/incomet...
or
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
says your lowest tax bracket is at whooping 33.60% and then progressively increases to 52%
So if you worked in a bank like me, and received a higher pay, you'd be paying a lot in taxes. At least 20% more than I pay in the US. So no, that's far from similar, sorry.
Another quick google reveals that you pay for only the basic medical insurance.
www.expatfocus.com/ind...
I'm not sure how far that gets you in the NL but from my former Euro experience, you guys usually have to wait a lot longer for things that require special treatment. Complex procedures (surgeries), cancer treatments etc.
Here in the States, you can also get the same basic coverage for about $150/m if your company co-sponsors the rest... and most do.
Declining means you can say - I don't want medical insurance and you pay nothing!
Don't believe everything you read in the news (especially liberal one) about US medical insurance. It's actually pretty good unless you live in a bigger city. The reason why it's getting worse is because of two things - the people who come into this country illegaly to use the services they don't pay for and because of insurance fraud.
> Can you please put the shit where it belongs?
> That is inside your mouth...
You are a very angry man (or woman?). Unfortunately anger and name calling do not cure ignorance. Only research and reading will. I read a lot of different blogs and only kids start name calling and insulting when they can't win the argument.
If it makes you feel any better, you're not alone in not knowing anything about US. And to a degree, I can forgive you because before I moved to the US, I too was brainwashed by the European socialist politics. What's sad though is that there are *a lot* more ignorant people in this country. People who think it's best to give the government the power to take care of them. People who don't understand their own history.
Enjoy your beliefs while you still can, NWO is coming anyway and we'll probably all be in the same boat soon, that is unless Americans wake up (which doesn't really look very likely at this point).
GST:
US: Average 5%. Varies from 0% in some states to 10% in NY City.
Netherlands: 19%
Average Income Tax:
Netherlands: 38%
US: 28%
Gasoline:
US $0.14 / L
Netherlands $0.85 / L (+19% GST on top of that). About 7 times higher.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
You also have some interesting other taxes; 1.2% on savings and investments. So if you have $1 million in savings (like many people reading here have) pay an extra $12,000 per year. WOW.
Also there is a tax for health insurance of 6.5% on the first 30,000 euro of income. Is that where your $110 euro health care payment comes from? Or is that extra?
So in the Netherlands people pay about 20% more of their income in taxes than people in the US pay.
MUCH higher taxes a popular myth? Or fact?
Definitely fact.
You really need to improve your education about the world.
> Without backing it up, User64738 knows that we have far higher taxes
> compared to the USA. That falls into the category of popular myth;
> I did think that too for a long time but most USA folks pay 30 to
> 40% taxes on their income and that is pretty much in line with over
> here.
I spend most of my day enjoying the fantastic life I have here in Thailand. A yank friend of more than 30 years is here visiting now and remarked just yesterday to my wife how happy I am here. Admittedly, having a beautiful confident strong wife 18 yrs younger is a big part of that happiness.
As for infatuation with money you are simply wrong. While money is a necessary evil I don't measure my value, nor that of any other, by the number of zeros in a bank account. At 53 I have been retired for 12 years. Everything I have is paid for. I live quite comfortably thank you very much. Am I correct to presume that you are still working your fingers to the bone?
As for government I dream of a world where there are many governments where ALL boats rise with the tide. Where citizens realize that they live better when their neighbor lives better. Where citizens are protected from penury due to disease, ability and even bad luck because those more fortunate citizens know their lives are better when the least of them is raised up. That is my dream.
Thanks for caring enough to comment!
On Feb 21 07:07 PM CJJ wrote:
> bosun.j - Let's take a quick swipe at your life. You're miserable.
> You're infatuated with money. You spend your days thinking about
> how great the world would be with no governments.
>
> You live in a dreamworld...Life isn't fair...We all know that...
>
>
> I'll survive whether things get really bad or they turn back around.
> You seem intent on being miserable whether things get really bad
> or they turn back around.
>
> A serious question to you...why do you wake up in the morning?
I believe the world should make a concertated effort to cultivate the African continent, removing the decrepit Governments now in control. Talk about bad government. Since you seem to like to deal in realism, this type of thought is quite hard to see coming to be. It seems making more people poor is how people are pushing things, instead of the contrary.
I just question why you seem to paint all your comments with the "end is upon us" tone. No matter what happens there will be a tomorrow. I would much rather see the world come together and wipe out the debt that is pulling everyone down. Sure there would be the cries of the unfairness of that...and how this would be a bailout for those who were irresponsible.
People need to realize everyone is suffering for this. The lessons can be learned without cutting the lifeline of the world economy so that things can be fair. As you say if you bring your troubled neighbor up...That is inherently not fair...
I don't think that in the history of human time that all of a sudden this is the time when the problems cannot be solved. I don't think that end of the world is near even if there are plenty of people whose main motivation in life is to scream it from the rafters.
Those that make the decisions have apparently decided it to be so. How else do you explain all the horrendous decisions made by those who we entrust to make good decisions?
Will the death of the Republic mean the end of life? No. There will be survivors. If you think the maniacs running the asylum called Congress and their Generals across the Potomac will go away peacefully you have another thing coming. Remember they have nuclear weapons. Remember also that they "lost" one nuke between N. Dakota and Louisiana recently. Remember also that all USAF personnel who had fingerprints on that nuke are now dead. Can you say false flag attack? Can you say another 9-11 that will be attributed to those having nothing to do with it?
These scumbags know there is nothing they can do to prevent the utter collapse of the world economy. The know it. Therefore they are afraid of mass unrest as those of us outside America can see on our TV news with ever more frequency. Why aren't you seeing it on American corporate owned TV? Might it be your corporate masters don't think your seeing it will be good for business?
Notice how the Hope and Change administration is beginning to say and do the very same things that were said and done in the runup to the Iraq war. Just change the "q" to an "n" and "Saddam" to "Ahmadenjad" and you have the same script.
Say that I'm nuts and none of my apocalyptic ramblings will come to pass. Say that at most there is a total economic collapse. How long will it take for the gas to run out at the filling station and more importantly the diesel at the truckstops? How long before the electricity goes off? Will it go off and stay off or will there be a few hours a week where its on? If the power is off how will they keep clean drinking water flowing to your tap? If they can't keep clean water flowing how long before cholera sets in? If cholera sets in how long will it be before people who's systems are less able to fight off disease begin to die because corporate farms have pumped their bodies full of antibiotics? See where this goes?
How many Americans do you think can survive like this? Not too many. Multiple generations of Americans think that food comes from the grocery store. Multiple generations of Americans have never done work with their hands or have grown food, they can't fix anything, they can't keep themselves safe.
Its going to get very very ugly.
You mentioned Africa. I've been there several times. Lagos, Port Harcourt, Abidjan, Mogadishu, Mombasa and Durban. I was sniped at entering Mogadishu with a ship full of humanitarian supplies. Ended up having to lighter offshore. I have many questions about Africa and few answers. While I had a great time in Mombasa most of my opinions about Africa are best kept to myself. Most especially about west Africa. My opinion about so-called western countries going in there to establish so-called "working governments" is that the western countries had better get their own governments functioning before they attempt to "fix" the remainder of the planet.
Unless and until sheeple wake up and overthrow the the corrupt governments and their corporate masters around the world VERY VERY soon there is going to be extreme suffering worldwide.
Sheeple, in my opinion would rather worry about O.J., American Idol, Chandra Levy, Brittany or the relative merits of Coke and Pepsi. Sheeple want to believe it can't happen to them.
On Feb 22 12:40 PM CJJ wrote:
> Bosun. On the level we seem quite similar. I still work because I
> am much younger than you are, however I live debt free. I have no
> desire to become rich...as you say...I'd much rather have just enough
> to enjoy life with the people that are important to me...I'd much
> rather a group of 100 people live at a good level than myself as
> 1 peson living at a ridiculously high level.
>
> I believe the world should make a concertated effort to cultivate
> the African continent, removing the decrepit Governments now in control.
> Talk about bad government. Since you seem to like to deal in realism,
> this type of thought is quite hard to see coming to be. It seems
> making more people poor is how people are pushing things, instead
> of the contrary.
>
> I just question why you seem to paint all your comments with the
> "end is upon us" tone. No matter what happens there will be a tomorrow.
> I would much rather see the world come together and wipe out the
> debt that is pulling everyone down. Sure there would be the cries
> of the unfairness of that...and how this would be a bailout for those
> who were irresponsible.
>
> People need to realize everyone is suffering for this. The lessons
> can be learned without cutting the lifeline of the world economy
> so that things can be fair. As you say if you bring your troubled
> neighbor up...That is inherently not fair...
>
> I don't think that in the history of human time that all of a sudden
> this is the time when the problems cannot be solved. I don't think
> that end of the world is near even if there are plenty of people
> whose main motivation in life is to scream it from the rafters.<br/>
>
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