The Worst Case Scenario (Someone Has to Say It) 303 comments
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Since the economy began sliding downhill in late 2007, mainstream economic and market experts have consistently erred on the sunny side.
As late as June 2008, mainstream consensus held that the U.S. was heading for a “soft landing” and would avoid recession. Several months later, the slump was acknowledged to have started in January 2008, but we were supposed to see renewed growth by mid-2009, with unemployment peaking in the eight-to-nine percent range. A quick “shovel-ready” stimulus bag was supposed to set us back on the road to prosperity.
In January, recovery projections were pushed forward to late 2009. Today, the consensus is for a mid-2010 recovery, with unemployment peaking at just over 10 percent. Clearly, the mainstream has struggled to catch up to reality for well over one year. What are the chances that they finally have it right this time?
Moreover, the mainstream continues to see what is going on as a plain-vanilla recession that will be quelled with some on-the-fly monetary and fiscal tinkering. Washington, we are told, will pull us out of this slump—as soon as the masses can be enticed back to the shopping malls. Then things will return to how they were before. But what if the experts and politicians are wrong not only on their ever-changing recovery timeline, but also on the nature—nay, the very existence—of a recovery?
America’s reigning political-economic ideology has demonstrably failed. Given that its government is obviously fumbling along without a clue, its foreign and domestic credit is tapped out, and its 300 million people are discovering that their hopes for continuous material improvement will never be met, could the U.S. be headed the way of the USSR?
Instead of a recovery as the mainstream envisions it, what if America permanently bankrupts, impoverishes, and marginalizes itself? What if its cherished institutions fail across the board? For example, what happens when the police realize that their under-funded pension plans cannot support a decent retirement? Will they stay honest, or will they opt to survive by any means necessary? These are questions that the mainstream does not even begin to contemplate.
In the interests of providing you with an alternate vision—something outside the mainstream—below are ten predictions for America through the year 2012. This is not boilerplate doom-saying. Rather, I am laying out in highly specific terms what will happen over the next three-odd years. Others have thrown around the term “Depression”, but I am going to tell you precisely what it means for you, your investments, and your community.
When these predictions come true, I expect to be rewarded with a seven-figure consulting gig, a book contract, or a high-level position in whatever administration succeeds the doomed Obama team—that is, if anyone succeeds it at all.
Prediction one. The twenty-five-year equities bubble pops in 2009. U.S. and foreign equities markets will stop treading water and realign with economic reality. Stock prices will cease to reflect the “greater fool” mentality and will return to being a function of dividend yields, which have long been miserable. The S&P 500 will sink below 500. In a bid to stem the panic, the government will enforce periodic “stock market holidays”, and will vastly expand the scope of its short-selling prohibitions—eventually banning short-selling altogether.
Prediction two. With public pension systems and tens of millions of 401k holders virtually wiped out—and with the Baby Boomers retiring en masse—there will be tremendous pressure on the government to get into the stock market in order to bid up prices.
Therefore, sometime in 2010, the Federal Reserve will create and loan out hundreds of billions of fresh dollars to the usual well-connected suspects, instructing them to buy up stocks on the public’s behalf. This scheme will have a fancy but meaningless name—something like the “Taxpayer Assurance Equities Facility”. It will have no effect other than to serve as buyer of last resort for capitulating smart-money types who want to get out of stocks entirely.
Prediction three. Millions of new retirees—including white-collar people with high expectations for a Golden Retirement—will be left virtually penniless. Thousands will starve or freeze to death in their own homes. Hundreds of thousands will find themselves evicted and homeless, or will have to move in with their less-than-enthusiastic children. Already strained by the rising tide of the working-age unemployed, state and local welfare services will be overwhelmed, and by 2012 will have largely collapsed and ceased to function in many parts of the country.
Prediction four. “Quantitative easing” will fail to restart previous patterns of lending and consumption. As the government sends out additional “rebate” checks and takes ever-more drastic measures to force banks to lend, hyperinflation could take hold. However, comprehensive debt relief via a devaluation of the dollar is even more likely. This would entail the government issuing one “new” dollar for some greater number of “old” dollars—thus reducing both debts and savings simultaneously. This would make for a clean slate a la Fight Club.
As there are many more debtors than savers in the U.S., the vast majority would support devaluation. The Chinese and other foreign holders of our bonds would be screaming mad, but unable to do anything. Every country that has not found a way out of dollar-denominated reserve assets by 2012 will see its reserves eliminated.
Prediction five. The government will stop pretending that it can finance continuous multi-trillion-dollar deficits on the private market. By late 2010, the sole buyers of new U.S. Treasury and agency bonds will be the Federal Reserve and a few derelict financial institutions under government control. This may or may not lead to hyperinflation. (See prediction four).
Prediction six. As the need for financial industry paper-pushers declines and people have less money to spend on lawyers and Starbucks (SBUX), unemployment will rise until the private sector has eliminated all of its excess capacity and superfluous or socially needless jobs. The government’s narrow unemployment figure (U3) will rise into the high teens by late 2010. The government’s broader unemployment figure (U6) will cease to be reported when it reaches 25 percent—it will simply be too embarrassing. Ultimately, one in three work-eligible Americans will be unemployed, underemployed, or never-employed (e.g. college grads permanently unable to find suitable work).
Prediction seven. With their pension dreams squashed, and their salaries frozen or cut, police and other local government workers will turn to wholesale corruption in order to survive. America’s ideal of honest, courteous, and impartial cops, teachers, and small-time local functionaries will have come to an end.
Prediction eight. Commercial overcapacity will strike with a vengeance. By 2012, thousands of enclosed malls, strip malls, unfinished residential developments, motels, truck stops, distribution centers, middle-of-nowhere resorts and casinos, and small-city airports across America will turn into dilapidated, unwanted, and dangerous ghost towns. With no economic incentive for their maintenance or repair, they will crumble into overgrown, plywood-and-sheet-rock ruins.
Prediction nine. By the end of 2010, tens of millions of households will have fallen behind on their mortgages or stopped paying altogether. Many banks will be unable to process the massive volume of foreclosure paperwork, much less actually seize and resell the homes.
Devaluation (as mentioned in prediction four) could ease the situation for those mortgage holders still afloat, but it would also eliminate any incentive for most banks to stay in the mortgage business. In any case, the housing market in many parts of the country will lock up completely—nothing bought or sold.
With virtually no loans being made, even the government will finally acknowledge that most banks are fundamentally insolvent. A general bank run will only be averted through a roughly one trillion-dollar recapitalization of the FDIC, courtesy of new money from the Federal Reserve.
Prediction ten. As an economy is never independent of the society within which it functions, the next few paragraphs will focus on social and political factors. These factors will have as much of an impact on market and consumer confidence as any developments in the financial sector.
Whether rightly or not, President Obama, having come to power at the dawn of this crisis, will be blamed for it by over 50 percent of the population. He will be a one-term president. In response to his perceived socialization of America, there will be a swarm of secessionist and extremist activity, much of it violent. Militias and armed sects will be more prominent than in the early 1990s. Stand-off dramas, violent score-settlings, and going-out-with-a-bang attacks by laid-off workers and bankrupted investors—already a national plague—will become an everyday occurrence.
For both economic and social reasons, millions of immigrants and guest workers will return to their home countries, taking their assets and skills with them. The flow of skilled immigrants will slow to a trickle. Birth rates will plummet as families struggle with uncertainty and reduced (or no) income.
Property crime will explode as citizens bitter over their own shattered dreams attempt to comfort themselves by taking what is not theirs. Mutinies and desertions will proliferate in an increasingly demoralized, over-stretched military, especially when states can no longer provide the educational and other benefits promised to their National Guard troops.
There will be widespread tax collection issues, and a huge backlash against Federal and state bureaucrats who demand three-percent annual pay raises while private sector wages remain frozen or worse. In short, the “Tea Parties” of tomorrow will likely not be so restrained.
Finally, between now and 2012, we are likely to see another earth-shaking national embarrassment on the scale of the 9/11 attacks or Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. This will demonstrate conclusively to all Americans that their government, even under a savior-figure like Obama, cannot, in fact, save them.
By 2012, there will be a general feeling that the nation is in immediate danger of blowing up or coming apart at the seams. This fear will be justified, given that the U.S. has always been held together by the promise of a continuously rising material standard of living—the famous “pursuit of happiness”—rather than any ethnic or religious ties. If that goes, so could everything else. We were lucky in the 1930s—we may not be so lucky again.
Disclosure: no positions relevant to this column.
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This article has 303 comments:
1) this recession is far more severe than any recent previous ones
2) in some industries (like most commodities, automobile, petrochemicals, etc.) the de-stocking was so severe that there's got to be some kind of re-stocking at some point. That is just normal. This is the "second derivative" improvement we are observing now.
3) don't be fooled by the media, the FED, and the big brokerage firms that are trying to bring back a positive tone to this market. These people are incentivised by markets that go up, not down. Beware more particularly of Goldman Sachs, a virtuose in the ability to screw their clients at their own profit. Strangly enough, they have been quite vocoal about improvement in commodities and in China (too funny, like they know what is going on threre!)
4) the bank stress test is just a big joke. The average american is over indebted, has a mortgage that worth way more than his home (if he bought it since 2003), and can not count on a quick rebound in the job market to increase his purchasing power. This means more bad loans coming down the road for banks and more need for capital.
In short, this is easy folks, for as long as the residential and the banks problems are not resolved, all rallies should and will be considered as bear market rallies. Keep on your lucky hat bulls but you will be disappointed.
Good luck to every one that buying this rally on hope.
Your points are well-enumerated, though I believe you left out a few, for example: continuing layoffs and wage reductions that erode discretionary consumer spending, cascading defaults from eastern Europe, shortfalls in municipal, county & state budgets, and falling global trade volume.
It seems to me that for a Bullish economy to arise, no more than one or two of the misfortunes you list can be tolerated, whereas, for a Bearish scenario to continue, only a few of the misfortunes need occur.
If that is the case, unfortunately, I estimate that the odds are significantly on the Bearish side.
Regards, Ubu.
On the other hand, you forgot about the "dog and cat plague" which will cause all of us to adopt apes as pets, who will then wind up taking over the planet.
The future is murky. The clouds are dark in spots. It is not going to happen as you describe however...
You seem confident that it won't turn out as described - would you care to tell us how it will turn out?
If you don't at least realize there's a snake eyes on the dice, find another pastime.
Likewise if you don't realize Obamas moves to date are detrimental to the future health of the economy, you're living in a dreamworld.
Taking control of auto manufacturers, continuing $50 an hour for assembly workers, will not produce cars that a populace without money or hope is going to buy!!. That's a dreamworld!.
Not prosecuting executives who have bankrupted their companies and continue to grab bonuses for themselves and Fed funds at the same time, will not discourage the practice. When dishonesty pays you're in a dreamworld.
Doubling the monetary base of the Country will lead to High/Hyper inflation, even if you turn off the tap, which is all you can do. To believe otherwise is to live in a dreamworld.
And worst of all: Denial of the above, just because you don't like it.
Is the ultimate dreamworld. Prepare Grasshoppers, winter's coming.
As far as why the market does not yet reflect any of this, remember the repeal of Glass-Steagall. The market, through TARP and .25% interest, is being pumped. The biggest banks are allowed to day-trade. They don't want to lend any money. Why should they? They can try to manipulate the market as it perfectly legal for them to do so.
This is why it is very easy in America to always be looking through rose-colored glasses. As long as the market turns positive, everything's fine. But why is it "positive"?
Finally. We actually need about 5% of the lawyers we now support. Lawyers feed off the carcasses of just about every person and corporation that is productive. Lawyers make money off people with personality disorders, the individuals who would have been kicked out of the wago train 130 years ago, or chased away from the cave and fire 20,000 years ago.
It's time to subject the legal profession to the same critical reviews we apply to health care (a service we can't live without), to reduce wasteful spending on legal services (which we can hardly tolerate).
The fact that I, as a Futures trader, am completely out of this market is my lead card in this play. Now, beyond that, my wife and I (childless, retired in a mountain top community, zero debt, and cash heavy) are in the final stages of a major move away from the USA:
1. We will sell our house for whatever it will fetch.
2. We are moving to Latin America.
3. I will trade into foreign currencies as quickly as I can and at the most ripe moment.
4. We will break all ties to the US tax system, since Tax rates on the "rich" (traders, income producers, and titans of industry - - those who make more than a dollar a day (HA!), will see their tax rates beat what we already see in the EU.
5. We will find our health care somewhere else as this will never be solved and the AMA has a complete strong-hold over the industry. Even the last word of my last sentence tells us something (profits from health is counter productive and leads to what we have now: huge insurance premiums, deductibles and we are scared doo-doo-less that a single health crisis will wipe us out---we are in our 50's and the BIG C could kills us in more than one way).
6. We will continue to believe not one word of the Wall Street spew we read every day.....and not one word of the 10Q's and Quarterly reports which contain lies, and misleading data...
I could go on and on, but folks the good OLE USA is doomed.
Thanks for saying it.
We can't afford all the lawyers that the law schools have pumped out in the last 40 years, and as the economy shrinks we have to shrink the number of lawyers. We actually need about 5% of the lawyers we now have, and most of what lawyers now do is nothing more than bleed the life and cash out of everything good and useful in this country.
Leading to Prediction 11: Reasonable, nice, productive people who have intact social skills wake up one morning and convince 19 out of every 20 lawyers around them to change careers and finally do something that doesn't destroy everything around them. Those lawyers who don't cooperate are sent to the countries where their former union clients and tort complainants have chased all the useful and productive work that used to be done in this country, and they set about the business of surviving parasitic infections and tribal conflicts.
Lawyers are predators who feed off the carcasses of individuals and corporations who actually do useful things and make useful things, to support a hugely inefficient and unregulated profession that is dominated by people with personality disorders who were born to argue or steal from the majority of people who are nice.
On May 03 10:25 AM Doc 224899 wrote:
> "...people have less money to spend on lawyers..."
>
> Thanks for saying it.
>
> We can't afford all the lawyers that the law schools have pumped
> out in the last 40 years, and as the economy shrinks we have to shrink
> the number of lawyers. We actually need about 5% of the lawyers we
> now have, and most of what lawyers now do is nothing more than bleed
> the life and cash out of everything good and useful in this country.
>
>
> Leading to Prediction 11: Reasonable, nice, productive people who
> have intact social skills wake up one morning and convince 19 out
> of every 20 lawyers around them to change careers and finally do
> something that doesn't destroy everything around them. Those lawyers
> who don't cooperate are sent to the countries where their former
> union clients and tort complainants have chased all the useful and
> productive work that used to be done in this country, and they set
> about the business of surviving parasitic infections and tribal conflicts.
>
>
> Lawyers are predators who feed off the carcasses of individuals and
> corporations who actually do useful things and make useful things,
> to support a hugely inefficient and unregulated profession that is
> dominated by people with personality disorders who were born to argue
> or steal from the majority of people who are nice.
On May 03 10:14 AM Pcatlow wrote:
> The piece is an interesting and compelling read. I lean more towards
> the author's view than against.....but, the time-line will be stretched
> out further.
>
> The fact that I, as a Futures trader, am completely out of this market
> is my lead card in this play. Now, beyond that, my wife and I (childless,
> retired in a mountain top community, zero debt, and cash heavy) are
> in the final stages of a major move away from the USA:
>
> 1. We will sell our house for whatever it will fetch.
> 2. We are moving to Latin America.
> 3. I will trade into foreign currencies as quickly as I can and at
> the most ripe moment.
> 4. We will break all ties to the US tax system, since Tax rates on
> the "rich" (traders, income producers, and titans of industry - -
> those who make more than a dollar a day (HA!), will see their tax
> rates beat what we already see in the EU.
> 5. We will find our health care somewhere else as this will never
> be solved and the AMA has a complete strong-hold over the industry.
> Even the last word of my last sentence tells us something (profits
> from health is counter productive and leads to what we have now:
> huge insurance premiums, deductibles and we are scared doo-doo-less
> that a single health crisis will wipe us out---we are in our 50's
> and the BIG C could kills us in more than one way).
> 6. We will continue to believe not one word of the Wall Street spew
> we read every day.....and not one word of the 10Q's and Quarterly
> reports which contain lies, and misleading data...
>
> I could go on and on, but folks the good OLE USA is doomed.
I have lost all faith in the markets, banks, government, and the dollar! I have worked my entire career investing my time and retirement money into companies that make stupid decisions with that hard-earned money. I now understand why and how the federal reserve is devaluing the currency and feel completely betrayed as a result. If I ever do return to a good paying job, I will invest my family’s financial future in gold and silver that I hold. Never again will I feel like a victim of the system! I might not have the biggest nest egg, but I will be able to purchase food for my family when the author’s scenario above comes to pass.
But, in the end the single biggest problem we have is too much debt.
If this ultimately is forced to be restructured we can begin to pro--
gress. And ultimately if prices become cheap enough here it will make sense once again to manufacture in the U.S.;-)
On May 03 11:35 AM Gregman2 wrote:
> Jake, I love reading you--this is akin to the film "MadMax." I tend
> to a greee with a few of your points (and scenarios). I too have
> wondered what a total breakdown and Balkanization would look like
> in the U.S.
> But, in the end the single biggest problem we have is too much debt.
>
> If this ultimately is forced to be restructured we can begin to pro--
>
> gress. And ultimately if prices become cheap enough here it will
> make sense once again to manufacture in the U.S.;-)
That Russian analyst Panarin puts it at 50% within 2 years. The author didn't give a likelihood. But if you haven't assigned a real risk factor (not zero or one) to this outcome, you might consider it.
Government is not shrinking. Today's government consumes 45% of the economy by its spending, plus another 13% of the economy via its un-funded regulatory mandates - - leaving less than half of the economy to the free-market private sector.
"45% of our economy today is dependent on government spending & control."
Slow, gradual government expansion over time is not recognized by the masses which gradually become dependant upon it. This leads to serfdom to the state. America is more a socialistic nation, and less a free-market economy, then ever before in its history, because our total economy has become significantly more government-dominated and dependent. Our founding fathers are rolling in their graves and weeping for the children of this once great land.
We are being extinguished and stupefied as a people, reduced to a flock of timid, subservient sheep of which the government is the shepherd.
mwhodges.home.att.net/...
On May 03 12:00 PM Sober Realist wrote:
> "The Despotism of Dependency" --- we have arrived.
>
> Government is not shrinking. Today's government consumes 45% of the
> economy by its spending, plus another 13% of the economy via its
> un-funded regulatory mandates - - leaving less than half of the economy
> to the free-market private sector.
>
> "45% of our economy today is dependent on government spending &
> control."
>
> Slow, gradual government expansion over time is not recognized by
> the masses which gradually become dependant upon it. This leads to
> serfdom to the state. America is more a socialistic nation, and less
> a free-market economy, then ever before in its history, because our
> total economy has become significantly more government-dominated
> and dependent. Our founding fathers are rolling in their graves and
> weeping for the children of this once great land.
>
> We are being extinguished and stupefied as a people, reduced to
> a flock of timid, subservient sheep of which the government is the
> shepherd.
> mwhodges.home.att.net/...
>
think of all the stops they have pulled out that use to work. Nothing is working now, the debt is simply too big and we are trying to cure debt by adding more. Height of insanity, bring 60's logic and policies to a 2009 ression and you get the greater depression with a lot of inflation and social unrest. Good luck to the fools who still believe in this government nonsense. Wake up it's over
At any point in time the scenarios outlined above could occur, its just that many don't realize untile some event, like September occurs and they go from one extreme to the other.
You are the pendulum that has swung too far. And I would bet 10 years ago you were one of those preaching the "new economics" and the suspension of the business cycle.
It seems to me that the author's future senarios are highly likely to occur within the time frame given. It is interesting to note that at least five civilization's calendars end with year 2012. I would like to know from Pcatlow, the former commodity trader which Latin American country to move to. My wife and I are considering that same strategy. Will they let me bring my two dogs into the country?
and so called socialism (hardeyhar)
are apparently too stupid to realize that most of our current problems were created by less regulations
see:
unregulated mortgages and greed and
a totally unregulated wall street a la Goldman Sachs-
now accepting tenders for a new Skylab company.....
If this is the situation that awaits us a prudent course of action is to dump all equities, buy guns and ammunition, sell your home for what it is worth, move up into the mountains and live the rest of your life in seclusion from society. Short of doing that can we have an alternate scenario for the future of our great republic? Here is an alternate scenario:
Prediction #1 – this great nation that survived and thrived its way through dozens of big and small crises since its founding will actually step up and lead the world out of the current quagmire which it was largely responsible in causing. President Obama who is much despised by the free market pundits will put a foundation and infrastructure in place for future and growth and prosperity. Unprecedented intervention (called meddling by some) by the Fed and the Treasury that has actually calmed the markets and led to the bull rally of the past few weeks will continue until the economy finds a firm footing at which point in time they will disengage just as fast allowing the newly fortified free market system to flourish and thrive into the future. At the end of the day Obama will likely go down in history books as one of the greatest presidents and leaders that led the recovery from rock bottom to a future of prosperity and wealth. Don’t get me wrong – I am not for Obama’s stimulus plan as I was for the republican agenda of giving credits to small businesses that would have helped this recession end a lot sooner. However, any spending is better than no spending even if some of it is wasteful and I believe that the impact of the stimulus plan has been greatly underestimated by economists. As a side note I am making a case that a reverse Black Swan event could be in the making for which I have constructed a portfolio that I named the Slumdog Millionaire Portfolio which is listed in my SeekingAlpha InstaBlog.
Prediction #2 – America has been stuck doing what it is not good in doing refusing to accept that a re-tooling of the education system and the workforce is needed for the new economy. That is why we build cars and things that we really are not the best people to be building instead of taking roles in the knowledge economy. Look at what Obama is doing with the auto industry. When he is done with the industry it will be restructured in such a way that either it will become competitive with the rest of the world or it will simply not exists. Look at his emphasis and investment in education. A massive re-tooling of our economy will happen over the next few years and the younger generation of today will find new jobs in the knowledge economy while the rest of the world will fill the vacuum we have created. American companies will lead in every sector as we build the blueprints for the rest of the world to implement. If you look at the situation today it is the leading American companies that are manufacturing in China and India and elsewhere that would bring the products back here to sell and now there is a momentum shift where we will lead the manufacturing of these goods and sell these goods to the people who manufactured it in the first place. We will emerge on top of the food chain being the master designers of products and services for consumption by us and the rest of the world. We will no longer be the leading consumers of the world as the rest of the world will step in as the newly created wealth will allow them to lead the kind of lifestyle we have taken for granted.
Prediction #3 – Let us step down from the macro level view to the micro view. Let us look at housing. The housing blip is only temporary. Every year America creates over a million and half households and we over- manufactured housing to far exceed demand. And now the pendulum of capitalism has swung to the other side and we are massively under manufacturing. The excess inventory we have due to foreclosures will dry up in the next year or two and we will then have a massive housing shortage unless the slack gets picked up sooner than having to wait two years. As it turns out this is already happening. Homebuilders are seeing an uptick in demand and new housing permits will start going up in the near future. A new class of investors has emerged that are buying up foreclosed homes that are helping put a bottom to the housing prices. The govt incentives to buy homes and ultra low once-in-a-generation interest rates is working as many Americans who could never afford a home are stepping into buy one. The housing crisis will be over soon.
Prediction #4 – What about the jobs situation? Being driven by consumer spending as we are for a significant portion of our GDP, the enormous pullback in spending by both people who have money and jobs and people that don’t caused an artificially low spending quarter to register at the end of 2008. However, this blip is only temporary. As people feel more secure about their jobs and the economy they will spend more as is already evidenced by the spending numbers, the consumer confidence numbers and the confidence number in Obama. Inventory numbers have reduced to a point where even a modest upsurge in spending will revitalize the need to build up inventory and thus hiring and thus job creation. It seems like people are ignoring these numbers instead choosing to look in the rearview mirror and focus on numbers that are already history. Jobs are always a lagging indicator and you will see media sensationalize job loss reports over the next several weeks while choosing to under-report new job creation that is bound to happen. If you look hard enough you will notice that jobs are being created and consumer confidence will keep going up. More and more jobs will be created in America but now we will begin to service the needs of Chindians and the consumers in the rest of the world!
Prediction #5 – This whole gobbledygook about crumbling 401K and retirement system will not come to pass because rising equity markets will undo the damage that has been done and set these systems on the path to recovery. 5 years down the road many Americans will look back and regret not having taken advantage of the greatest generational once-in-a-lifetime investment opportunity to better their future. However, a majority will find their savings replenished thanks to the equity market resurgence and also thanks to their own newer spendthrift ways that caused their savings to accelerate decently over the years! A few of us will be much more prosperous because during one of the darkest times in American history we had the common sense to know that this great nation of ours will not come to pass instead it will survive and thrive and we invested in her future.
Prediction #6 – Commercial overcapacity will be absorbed by the new entrepreneurs who will emerge to take advantage of the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to build new businesses and new enterprises. These new entrepreneurs are the ones who gave their life to corporate America only to be disposed when the economy contracted when they were mercilessly thrown to the roadside. Of all the countries I have seen no country like America exists in that it offers the best unfettered system for an entrepreneur to build a business with the least amount of regulations and headaches and zero corruption. Expect to see thousands such entrepreneurs who took the risk today emerge prosperous a few years down the road. Never underestimate the power of small businesses as they are the ones that led us out of the past recessions and will do so again this time around.
As I have said through the body of my response I happen to think completely contrary to the viewpoints expressed by this author. I happen to think that the kick in the jewels we got during 2008 has served as a wakeup call and awakened us in that we will emerge stronger from this fiasco and will actually work our way towards greater prosperity than in the past. In other words, we may very well have a reverse black swan event in the making and I urge readers not to miss what I believe is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to invest in the future or America and the world.
Factually and historically unlikely. Sex is the entertainment and final luxury of poor. They don't need a house, or even a bed. The dirt will do. Sex is also, paradoxically, the ultimate luxury of the rich and is distinguished from the poor only by surroundings and circumstance. Therefore, the birthrate of this dystopic state will rapidly ascend to Third World country proportions.
The next shoe to drop will be when world oilfields continue to deplete while new supplies remain at a standstill as most oil companies have shut down exploration, especially in the United States. Even a slight uptick in the economy will bring oil demand past our ability to produce it and make $150 oil look cheap soon thereafter. That will take care of the rest of people's ability to spend our way out of this mess. Thank you Barney Frank and friends for having the misguided desire for everyone to own a home, even those who could not repay! Democrate ideas and desires often are wanted by many of our population, but they almost always totally lack common sense and are doomed to fail. This time, they just may have succeeded in destroying us.
On May 03 01:38 PM InvestBaboo wrote:
> Dear Author, you have done one-up on Roubini. He is Dr. Doom but
> you are Dr. Death! This is a very entertaining read but I was disappointed
> not to see that Russian professor fruitcake's prediction of America
> breaking into different nations one aligned with and protected by
> the Swine Flu Republic (AKA Mexico), one aligned with the Russians,
> one aligned and protected by the Canadians and so on and on. To those
> interested doomsday readers -- please Google the words "Russian Nut
> Fruitcake Professor USA breakup predictions" and you will find meaningful
> links.
>
> If this is the situation that awaits us a prudent course of action
> is to dump all equities, buy guns and ammunition, sell your home
> for what it is worth, move up into the mountains and live the rest
> of your life in seclusion from society. Short of doing that can we
> have an alternate scenario for the future of our great republic?
> Here is an alternate scenario:
>
> Prediction #1 – this great nation that survived and thrived its way
> through dozens of big and small crises since its founding will actually
> step up and lead the world out of the current quagmire which it was
> largely responsible in causing. President Obama who is much despised
> by the free market pundits will put a foundation and infrastructure
> in place for future and growth and prosperity. Unprecedented intervention
> (called meddling by some) by the Fed and the Treasury that has actually
> calmed the markets and led to the bull rally of the past few weeks
> will continue until the economy finds a firm footing at which point
> in time they will disengage just as fast allowing the newly fortified
> free market system to flourish and thrive into the future. At the
> end of the day Obama will likely go down in history books as one
> of the greatest presidents and leaders that led the recovery from
> rock bottom to a future of prosperity and wealth. Don’t get me wrong
> – I am not for Obama’s stimulus plan as I was for the republican
> agenda of giving credits to small businesses that would have helped
> this recession end a lot sooner. However, any spending is better
> than no spending even if some of it is wasteful and I believe that
> the impact of the stimulus plan has been greatly underestimated by
> economists. As a side note I am making a case that a reverse Black
> Swan event could be in the making for which I have constructed a
> portfolio that I named the Slumdog Millionaire Portfolio which is
> listed in my SeekingAlpha InstaBlog.
>
> Prediction #2 – America has been stuck doing what it is not good
> in doing refusing to accept that a re-tooling of the education system
> and the workforce is needed for the new economy. That is why we build
> cars and things that we really are not the best people to be building
> instead of taking roles in the knowledge economy. Look at what Obama
> is doing with the auto industry. When he is done with the industry
> it will be restructured in such a way that either it will become
> competitive with the rest of the world or it will simply not exists.
> Look at his emphasis and investment in education. A massive re-tooling
> of our economy will happen over the next few years and the younger
> generation of today will find new jobs in the knowledge economy while
> the rest of the world will fill the vacuum we have created. American
> companies will lead in every sector as we build the blueprints for
> the rest of the world to implement. If you look at the situation
> today it is the leading American companies that are manufacturing
> in China and India and elsewhere that would bring the products back
> here to sell and now there is a momentum shift where we will lead
> the manufacturing of these goods and sell these goods to the people
> who manufactured it in the first place. We will emerge on top of
> the food chain being the master designers of products and services
> for consumption by us and the rest of the world. We will no longer
> be the leading consumers of the world as the rest of the world will
> step in as the newly created wealth will allow them to lead the kind
> of lifestyle we have taken for granted.
>
> Prediction #3 – Let us step down from the macro level view to the
> micro view. Let us look at housing. The housing blip is only temporary.
> Every year America creates over a million and half households and
> we over- manufactured housing to far exceed demand. And now the pendulum
> of capitalism has swung to the other side and we are massively under
> manufacturing. The excess inventory we have due to foreclosures will
> dry up in the next year or two and we will then have a massive housing
> shortage unless the slack gets picked up sooner than having to wait
> two years. As it turns out this is already happening. Homebuilders
> are seeing an uptick in demand and new housing permits will start
> going up in the near future. A new class of investors has emerged
> that are buying up foreclosed homes that are helping put a bottom
> to the housing prices. The govt incentives to buy homes and ultra
> low once-in-a-generation interest rates is working as many Americans
> who could never afford a home are stepping into buy one. The housing
> crisis will be over soon.
>
> Prediction #4 – What about the jobs situation? Being driven by consumer
> spending as we are for a significant portion of our GDP, the enormous
> pullback in spending by both people who have money and jobs and people
> that don’t caused an artificially low spending quarter to register
> at the end of 2008. However, this blip is only temporary. As people
> feel more secure about their jobs and the economy they will spend
> more as is already evidenced by the spending numbers, the consumer
> confidence numbers and the confidence number in Obama. Inventory
> numbers have reduced to a point where even a modest upsurge in spending
> will revitalize the need to build up inventory and thus hiring and
> thus job creation. It seems like people are ignoring these numbers
> instead choosing to look in the rearview mirror and focus on numbers
> that are already history. Jobs are always a lagging indicator and
> you will see media sensationalize job loss reports over the next
> several weeks while choosing to under-report new job creation that
> is bound to happen. If you look hard enough you will notice that
> jobs are being created and consumer confidence will keep going up.
> More and more jobs will be created in America but now we will begin
> to service the needs of Chindians and the consumers in the rest of
> the world!
>
> Prediction #5 – This whole gobbledygook about crumbling 401K and
> retirement system will not come to pass because rising equity markets
> will undo the damage that has been done and set these systems on
> the path to recovery. 5 years down the road many Americans will look
> back and regret not having taken advantage of the greatest generational
> once-in-a-lifetime investment opportunity to better their future.
> However, a majority will find their savings replenished thanks to
> the equity market resurgence and also thanks to their own newer spendthrift
> ways that caused their savings to accelerate decently over the years!
> A few of us will be much more prosperous because during one of the
> darkest times in American history we had the common sense to know
> that this great nation of ours will not come to pass instead it will
> survive and thrive and we invested in her future.
>
> Prediction #6 – Commercial overcapacity will be absorbed by the new
> entrepreneurs who will emerge to take advantage of the once-in-a-lifetime
> opportunity to build new businesses and new enterprises. These new
> entrepreneurs are the ones who gave their life to corporate America
> only to be disposed when the economy contracted when they were mercilessly
> thrown to the roadside. Of all the countries I have seen no country
> like America exists in that it offers the best unfettered system
> for an entrepreneur to build a business with the least amount of
> regulations and headaches and zero corruption. Expect to see thousands
> such entrepreneurs who took the risk today emerge prosperous a few
> years down the road. Never underestimate the power of small businesses
> as they are the ones that led us out of the past recessions and will
> do so again this time around.
>
> As I have said through the body of my response I happen to think
> completely contrary to the viewpoints expressed by this author. I
> happen to think that the kick in the jewels we got during 2008 has
> served as a wakeup call and awakened us in that we will emerge stronger
> from this fiasco and will actually work our way towards greater prosperity
> than in the past. In other words, we may very well have a reverse
> black swan event in the making and I urge readers not to miss what
> I believe is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to invest in the future
> or America and the world.
One disagreement with the scenario: #5 -- the Fed is not, ultimately, controlled by the government; it is an organization of privately-owned banks. In a situation as extreme as depicted here, they very well could decide to bail on the "public interest" and try to save their own capital by taking themselves out of the loop. Of course, that would only accelerate other elements of the process.
On May 03 12:17 PM Northstar10000 wrote:
> Article is spot for those who pause for a moment and project out
> current trends. Don't even think you can't do it that way. Every
> resesion has been brought under control by greater government spending
> and greater social unease. The current Fed government is comprised
> of those raised on 60's logic that socialism will be the answer.
> Unfortunately we are at critical mass in spending and debt.
> think of all the stops they have pulled out that use to work. Nothing
> is working now, the debt is simply too big and we are trying to cure
> debt by adding more. Height of insanity, bring 60's logic and policies
> to a 2009 ression and you get the greater depression with a lot of
> inflation and social unrest. Good luck to the fools who still believe
> in this government nonsense. Wake up it's over
Yes, the writer did go overboard on some of his predictions, but be aware that our government is guilty of not telling the whole truth. Government numbers are always wrong and restated a month later. We just can trust them.
The true cost is the way that litigation risk causes cover your ass decisions on the part of potential defendants. Its the lack of Obstetricians in John Edwards home state. Its the smartest young people avoiding high risk activities like medicine, and experienced doctors eager to retire so they aren't risking their life savings with every day at work.
I think FASB 157 is a natural result of accountants wanting to cover their asses from liability. After enrons accountants were prosecuted (rightly or not), it's only natural that others would prefer the safe course. By marking to market values, accountants avoided risky judgement calls about the performance of mortgages, but this created a self-perpetuating cycle of destruction, by impairing banks ability to lend.
Lawyers perform a valuable service by protecting rights - they're very important to a society based on laws and property rights. But the situation has gotten out of hand. I think its a major conflict of interest for lawyers to be writing the laws - they are naturally biased to think in terms of settling issues in court, which is a disaster for everybody else.
I think we are ruled by an oligarchy of lawyers, government employees and activist organisations. Outright communism would be an improvement over defining industrial and energy policy in court, one case at a time.
On May 03 02:27 PM WAKEUP wrote:
> Big Jake still can't believe the U.S.A.'s voters REJECTED any more
> years of Bush-like rule.
The rest of your predictions are excessively pessimistic. Although some may come to pass to a very limited extent, I doubt that they will happen to any extent approaching your dire prognostication. My expectation is that people will wake up to the need for real change, and bring back policymakers with Reagan-like and Volcker-like realism to set us on a path of meaningful recovery.
Re your "Prediction #1 – this great nation that survived and thrived its way through dozens of big and small crises since its founding will actually step up and lead the world out of the current quagmire which it was largely responsible in causing." - It would seem to me that a lot of the world just might have had enough of being led by America for now thanks? Perhaps if you think in terms of how America can work in with the "global team" and what America's realistic place in that team might be mid to longer term instead of so much in terms of "leadership" you'll be a bit closer to the mark.
The same theme comes through in your Prediction #2 where you comment "We will emerge on top of the food chain being the master designers of products and services for consumption by us and the rest of the world." - Your thinking is a bit grandiose for mine - Sort of the antithesis of the nutty Russian professor you mention who is predicting a disintegration of the US. I think those sorts of predictions are a bit nutty too - But I also think it is a bit nutty for America for think it is going be master of the universe again anytime soon - Let's face it - America had its chance - And blew it really badly (sadly) - And the Chinese are onto it and France and Germany and Russia - Plus a few others I suspect.
Re Prediction #6 - The good old American way of offering "the best unfettered system for an entrepreneur to build a business with the least amount of regulations" sounds like a fundamental part of the problem to me rather than the solution? Might be wise to have a real good think about that before American business continues happily on its unfettered, unregulated way perhaps?
Not that America shouldn't come out of this mess relatively OK - After a lot of hard work and pain with its citizens ultimately accepting that the good old days are gone - Because America really does have a very great amount going for it from what I can see.
A final point: A fair few of the perspectives from the main article reminded me of what happened in the 1990s when Russia collapsed catastrophically in a debt based, money printing, hyerinflationary scenario - I can only hope Mr Obama and Co don't lose their way on the QE thing or America might not come of things nearly as well as I guessing at this stage. Still, Volcker is on the sidelines waiting to be let off his leash. That's encouraging. But a reverse black swan? Doubt it - More like a lot of pain I'd say.
jameshowardkunstler.ty.../
Lastly, I'm not leaving the USA but I am worried about it's future. I don't think the predictions are that good but some of it may occur in some smaller dosage. The future of our country is very bleak.
me. First, back in 1968 it was SS retirement at the age of 62, then came IRA's and retirement at 65, then 401Ks, then stock market play, talk about privatizing, I call "Bull-shit". I don't want to work until the day I'm dead. Give it up America, get us old folks out of the work force and you young kids get to work building your future in this country. We baby boomers can spend the money and you can get paid for providing the goods and services and you can have babies, cook-outs, birthday parties, buy homes, buy cars but the thing is YOU NEED TO GO TO WORK!!!
Your number 4 is ludicrously silly and wrong. One cannot simultaneously have inflation and deflation (which you are predicting in your other comments). It just cannot happen.
Anyone that worries about inflation in 2009 has lost touch with reality. Prices keep falling everywhere.
Even for the most basic items. Recently, every week, at my local Publix (which probably is the best managed and most profitable grocer in the US), there are increasing numbers of items at discounts or "sales" plus increasing numbers of "buy one, get one free." The latter means that prices have fallen by 50%--especially since the cashiers don't stop one from stocking up on the "buy one, get. one free" items.
"Government numbers are always wrong and restated a month later. We just CAN'T trust them."??
On May 03 07:31 PM secmaven wrote:
> I now live on social security income for which over the years my
> employers and myself have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars.
> So let the hyper inflation come!
www.youtube.com/watch?...
On May 03 10:11 AM Doc 224899 wrote:
> "...people will have less money to spend on lawyers..."
>
> Finally. We actually need about 5% of the lawyers we now support.
> Lawyers feed off the carcasses of just about every person and corporation
> that is productive. Lawyers make money off people with personality
> disorders, the individuals who would have been kicked out of the
> wago train 130 years ago, or chased away from the cave and fire 20,000
> years ago.
>
> It's time to subject the legal profession to the same critical reviews
> we apply to health care (a service we can't live without), to reduce
> wasteful spending on legal services (which we can hardly tolerate).
1. invest like crazy, make the most of this depressed situation.
2. invest like crazy, make the most of this depressed situation and if things go to hell. well, last thing you'll have to worry about is paper money.
On May 03 03:17 AM Egg wrote:
> Prediction 11: None of the Above (Someone has to say it)
I regret wasting my time reading this article.
On May 03 01:25 PM MudEngineer wrote:
> I recently read that the total outstanding derivatives sum up to
> over 200 trillion dollars. Assuming that their values have plummeted
> at least 30% as most are tied to mortgages gone bad on depreciating
> real estate, that means a loss of 60 trillion dollars. Throwing
> even 5 trillion dollars at the problem is like pissing into the wind.
>
>
> It seems to me that the author's future senarios are highly likely
> to occur within the time frame given. It is interesting to note
> that at least five civilization's calendars end with year 2012.
> I would like to know from Pcatlow, the former commodity trader which
> Latin American country to move to. My wife and I are considering
> that same strategy. Will they let me bring my two dogs into the
> country?
Disclosure: Legless
Good luck!
Noworries
It seems like for my entire life we (the USA) has been on the verge of total meltdown. I remember people building bomb shelters for the nuclear war back in the 70s and 80s. Then in the 90s everyone was freeking out about the year 2000. Then there was the avian flu, the Iraqi WMDs (remember the whole duct tape your house thing?), and now swine flu. I remember reading advice on a gold site in 1999 that said that we should all spray paint our homes, flip our cars over, and light our cars on fire so the mob would think our homes were already hit... man I am glad I didn't follow that advice.
Anyways, thanks for the great article, it was very interesting.
On May 04 05:38 AM rick12345 wrote:
> North Korea, Pakistan, China and Afghanistan will form a secret alliance
> bringing about the onset of WW3. The Swine flu mutates with the bird
> flu to form a deadly new strain. After a massive nuclear war, the
> few people left in the world will face a nuclear winter that ultimately
> brings about a new Ice age, lasting 2000 years.
You accurately point out many of the problems facing this country. The US Dollar has weak fundamentals. The US Economy has overcapacity and there is no vital growing industry to absorb the unemployed. As well, the US debt and looming medicare and social security obligations are daunting.
I agree with Bruce Kasting "Neither your worst fears nor your highest expectations will come true."
I am not a pollyanna saying "everything is rosy - we will pull through all of this just fine and become a vibrant economy like we were in the 90's." But, I am also not a doom and gloomer saying that the US is doomed.
The fact is that the rest of the developed world faces similar problems to ours. I am not sure the extent of the debt and future entitlement problems in other countries. In some countries its better, and in other countries, much worse: Look at Italy and Greece they both have higher debt/GDP than we do and they are both were recently ranked as having a 10% chance of default on their sovereign debt.
On May 03 06:13 PM john1940 wrote:
> Let me try to help just a few of the responders on just one issue.
> The Federal Reserve is not a private bank. It's a bank created by
> federal law and designed for independence in it's action. There
> are 12 member banks that take care of Federal Reserve responsibilities
> in designated sections of the country. It is audited regularly and
> monitored by Congress. Profits go to the federal government. Go
> to www.federalreserve.gov... for a
> start on FRB. Then try Wikipedia. Stay out of the internet and
> blogs for information. A lot of internet sources are good but most
> of America's poorly educated can't differentiate nonsense from fact.
>
>
> Lastly, I'm not leaving the USA but I am worried about it's future.
> I don't think the predictions are that good but some of it may occur
> in some smaller dosage. The future of our country is very bleak.
I am of the same opinion. My question to you is why Latin America. I have 3 options in which I am currently building assets.
1. Latin America, specifically an island in Panama. Easy to grow food and fish, no A/C or heat required. But, more anarchy is likely.
2. Texas, specifically East Texas. Easy to grow food, fish, and livestock, plenty of natural gas for A/C. Republic of Texas seems viable.
3. Austria, specifically the foothills of the Alps. Easy to grow food, fish, and livestock, plenty of hydropower and wood for heat. Sense of community.
I have been building all three to have options, but I think I might need to consolidate. Any thoughts?
A place where the citizens are culturally not given to conflict and perhaps a generation at most away from the farm is the best candidate. Google escapeartist.
You are right about needing to consolidate and SOON!
On May 04 01:00 PM pragmattist wrote:
> Pcatlow:
>
> I am of the same opinion. My question to you is why Latin America.
> I have 3 options in which I am currently building assets.
>
> 1. Latin America, specifically an island in Panama. Easy to grow
> food and fish, no A/C or heat required. But, more anarchy is likely.
>
> 2. Texas, specifically East Texas. Easy to grow food, fish, and livestock,
> plenty of natural gas for A/C. Republic of Texas seems viable.<br/>3.
> Austria, specifically the foothills of the Alps. Easy to grow food,
> fish, and livestock, plenty of hydropower and wood for heat. Sense
> of community.
>
> I have been building all three to have options, but I think I might
> need to consolidate. Any thoughts?
www.stopshortingstocks.../
www.petitiononline.com...
finance.groups.yahoo.c.../
This economy will revert to a usual cyclical pattern, and 5, 10, 15 years when we sit on another bubble, we will once more forget that using margarita mixers as collateral to make margarita-backed securities is a relatively foolish plan.
On May 03 07:44 PM The Geoffster wrote:
> How can you live on social security?
Not my base case, but not out of the question either.
These are very apocalyptic predictions. While I am unable to label each of the ten (10) predictions with a likelihood figure, I would nonetheless venture to suggest an eleventh one below.
In the event that all 10 would come to past, a logical outcome as the 11th would be a coup d'etet by our military, as civil government had then been totally disintegrated.
However, whether our military is qualified, willing, and able to govern would be the subject of a different debate.
Let us hope that this would not come true, as we often looked upon those countries that went through coup's with such disdain and scorn.
Wait a minute, didn't good old Oliver Cromwell and his merry band of Puritan Round Heads do a good job with the Commonwealth? Remember the Bay Colony? Unfortunately, he died early with UTI, which would be easily treatable today with antibiotics.
Teutonic
This means, the rest of the world is powerless to prop up their currencies in the face of the US $. As the $ depreciates, so to will the currency market as a whole.
No nation in the world has a stronger safety net than the US, & that net is what's going to enable America's wealthy to re-organize their businesses & use capital to expand. Failed businesses in India & China will be gobbled up by America's Fortune 5000.
So I think America will recover her wealth faster than other nations. As for jobs, that's another story. America's Fortune 5000 shifted jobs overseas because they were looking for profits over market share. Foreign companies setup shops in America because they are looking for market share over profits. Toyota, Honda, & Kia are fine examples of this. So America's tax policies need to be competitive enough to attract companies looking for growth whether they be domestic or foreign.
Essential to those policies is the replacement of a general minimum wage standard with a sector based one. The sector based standard must be competitive with the global cost of labor. The excess in the wage is the difference between the value of America's marketplace vs that of say China's. I think America will face this reality on a municipal govt level first.
If the Dummycrats are not prepared to make these changes so that America is more competitve in the global economy than they will be voted out. As Clinton once said, "It's the economy stupid."
As for civil unrest, I agree it's coming to some degree. We already have the emergence of tent cities which basically act like refugee camps. They stress existing social services & when the govt comes up short, breakouts are inevitable. Our prisons are already filled to capacity so incarceration is giving way to "home arrest" which isn't much of a deterrent to criminal behavior.
But that can be acquiesed to a degree as well. The idea of "buy a home, get a greencard" is gaining support. If a foreign is able to buy a US home outright, he will get a greencard & be on a fast track for US citizenship. It's inevitable in a nation where the marketplace is the greatest asset that citizenship would be for sale.
Some have estimated such a policy to produce 1 mil new home sales / yr! If that were to happen, the tent cities would dry up as home values would begin to rise again.
However, I decided to say this:
Big Jake, you do your readers a disservice. Use your typing finger for something worthwhile, like poking yourself in the eye.
Most of the comments/ratings here reveal a level of hysteria that is disturbing. There is no reason for such incredible pessimism (unless you find it exciting, that is, and want to revel in morbid fantasies). When writers like this spew their melodramatic garbage in the form of cheap thrillers and lurid ghost stories, does anyone pause to think that the country is relatively young, vibrant and still in the experimental stages?
Why would any of these scenarios be even a vague possibility? There are plenty of smart people in the nation who can and will rebuild what needs to be rebuilt (if anything ends up broken) and tweak problem areas that develop in the future.
Even if a worst-case scenario develops, we are strong, valuable people who love this country. Do you think we'll let it fall?
Don't fear-monger yourselves out of a good investment smorgasbord because you're too busy seeking thrills at the end of a hypodermic.
There's no nutrition in that.
True, the prediction might just come true if we continue to spiral down, until that point our politicians would have no choice but to sell a river and a mountain to pay off our debts.
My granddad,viewing earth's worn cogs, Said,Things are going to the dogs"
His grandad, in a house of logs,Said,Things are going to the dogs"
His grandad, from the Irish bogs,Said "Things are going to the dogs"
His grandad, in rough jungle yogs, Said, "Things are going to the dogs".Well, here's one thing I'd like to state: The dogs have had a good long wait.
Lighten up, Big Jake, its not the end of the world.
>And the probability is extraordinarily high right now. I give it about a 5% chance over a 3 year >horizon.
If each of the 10 items has its own P{occurrence} (and some are not binary), and the P{occurrence} for each prediction is equal, a P{single predicted event} of .933033, i.e. 93% P[occurrence}, yields a 5% P{occurrence} for the set of 10 events. I’m not sure I would assess P{occurrence} = 93% for any of these predictions.
On May 03 10:14 AM Pcatlow wrote:
> The piece is an interesting and compelling read. I lean more towards
> the author's view than against.....but, the time-line will be stretched
> out further.
>
> The fact that I, as a Futures trader, am completely out of this market
> is my lead card in this play. Now, beyond that, my wife and I (childless,
> retired in a mountain top community, zero debt, and cash heavy) are
> in the final stages of a major move away from the USA:
>
> 1. We will sell our house for whatever it will fetch.
> 2. We are moving to Latin America.
> 3. I will trade into foreign currencies as quickly as I can and at
> the most ripe moment.
> 4. We will break all ties to the US tax system, since Tax rates on
> the "rich" (traders, income producers, and titans of industry - -
> those who make more than a dollar a day (HA!), will see their tax
> rates beat what we already see in the EU.
> 5. We will find our health care somewhere else as this will never
> be solved and the AMA has a complete strong-hold over the industry.
> Even the last word of my last sentence tells us something (profits
> from health is counter productive and leads to what we have now:
> huge insurance premiums, deductibles and we are scared doo-doo-less
> that a single health crisis will wipe us out---we are in our 50's
> and the BIG C could kills us in more than one way).
> 6. We will continue to believe not one word of the Wall Street spew
> we read every day.....and not one word of the 10Q's and Quarterly
> reports which contain lies, and misleading data...
>
> I could go on and on, but folks the good OLE USA is doomed.
I could go on and on and on, as our friend as here in this article. This simply won't play out. Economics and geopolitics, my friends. So many forget they play hand-in-hand. I am not advocating anything here...I just call reality, as it is. The US Dollar is the fait currency of the world, we can indeed print our way out of this, despite "Big Jake's" assertion we can't (Big Jake, we have printed more currency since November than in the previous 93 years - and the dollar ROSE against most major currencies - in your scenario, how can that possibly be?).
Them's the fact's my friends - Might Makes Right, as the Brits used to say. Before, of course, an any historian knows, they reached a point of government debt (study your history - Britain ruled 76.3% of the world's landmass based on a fantastic creation stemming from Belgium - The Treasury Bond) where their economists, spurred on by an uneducated media, a political correctness that ate away the heart of UK's strong, prideful resilience, and a public that listened to the doom, began shedding debt and delevering...and were exposed. No more Projection of Power, no more mightiest economy in the world, no more Empire. Again, no advocacy here...I call it as it is. In reality.
Cheers!
On May 03 01:38 PM InvestBaboo wrote:
> Dear Author, you have done one-up on Roubini. He is Dr. Doom but
> you are Dr. Death! This is a very entertaining read but I was disappointed
> not to see that Russian professor fruitcake's prediction of America
> breaking into different nations one aligned with and protected by
> the Swine Flu Republic (AKA Mexico), one aligned with the Russians,
> one aligned and protected by the Canadians and so on and on. To those
> interested doomsday readers -- please Google the words "Russian Nut
> Fruitcake Professor USA breakup predictions" and you will find meaningful
> links.
>
> If this is the situation that awaits us a prudent course of action
> is to dump all equities, buy guns and ammunition, sell your home
> for what it is worth, move up into the mountains and live the rest
> of your life in seclusion from society. Short of doing that can we
> have an alternate scenario for the future of our great republic?
> Here is an alternate scenario:
>
> Prediction #1 – this great nation that survived and thrived its way
> through dozens of big and small crises since its founding will actually
> step up and lead the world out of the current quagmire which it was
> largely responsible in causing. President Obama who is much despised
> by the free market pundits will put a foundation and infrastructure
> in place for future and growth and prosperity. Unprecedented intervention
> (called meddling by some) by the Fed and the Treasury that has actually
> calmed the markets and led to the bull rally of the past few weeks
> will continue until the economy finds a firm footing at which point
> in time they will disengage just as fast allowing the newly fortified
> free market system to flourish and thrive into the future. At the
> end of the day Obama will likely go down in history books as one
> of the greatest presidents and leaders that led the recovery from
> rock bottom to a future of prosperity and wealth. Don’t get me wrong
> – I am not for Obama’s stimulus plan as I was for the republican
> agenda of giving credits to small businesses that would have helped
> this recession end a lot sooner. However, any spending is better
> than no spending even if some of it is wasteful and I believe that
> the impact of the stimulus plan has been greatly underestimated by
> economists. As a side note I am making a case that a reverse Black
> Swan event could be in the making for which I have constructed a
> portfolio that I named the Slumdog Millionaire Portfolio which is
> listed in my SeekingAlpha InstaBlog.
>
> Prediction #2 – America has been stuck doing what it is not good
> in doing refusing to accept that a re-tooling of the education system
> and the workforce is needed for the new economy. That is why we build
> cars and things that we really are not the best people to be building
> instead of taking roles in the knowledge economy. Look at what Obama
> is doing with the auto industry. When he is done with the industry
> it will be restructured in such a way that either it will become
> competitive with the rest of the world or it will simply not exists.
> Look at his emphasis and investment in education. A massive re-tooling
> of our economy will happen over the next few years and the younger
> generation of today will find new jobs in the knowledge economy while
> the rest of the world will fill the vacuum we have created. American
> companies will lead in every sector as we build the blueprints for
> the rest of the world to implement. If you look at the situation
> today it is the leading American companies that are manufacturing
> in China and India and elsewhere that would bring the products back
> here to sell and now there is a momentum shift where we will lead
> the manufacturing of these goods and sell these goods to the people
> who manufactured it in the first place. We will emerge on top of
> the food chain being the master designers of products and services
> for consumption by us and the rest of the world. We will no longer
> be the leading consumers of the world as the rest of the world will
> step in as the newly created wealth will allow them to lead the kind
> of lifestyle we have taken for granted.
>
> Prediction #3 – Let us step down from the macro level view to the
> micro view. Let us look at housing. The housing blip is only temporary.
> Every year America creates over a million and half households and
> we over- manufactured housing to far exceed demand. And now the pendulum
> of capitalism has swung to the other side and we are massively under
> manufacturing. The excess inventory we have due to foreclosures will
> dry up in the next year or two and we will then have a massive housing
> shortage unless the slack gets picked up sooner than having to wait
> two years. As it turns out this is already happening. Homebuilders
> are seeing an uptick in demand and new housing permits will start
> going up in the near future. A new class of investors has emerged
> that are buying up foreclosed homes that are helping put a bottom
> to the housing prices. The govt incentives to buy homes and ultra
> low once-in-a-generation interest rates is working as many Americans
> who could never afford a home are stepping into buy one. The housing
> crisis will be over soon.
>
> Prediction #4 – What about the jobs situation? Being driven by consumer
> spending as we are for a significant portion of our GDP, the enormous
> pullback in spending by both people who have money and jobs and people
> that don’t caused an artificially low spending quarter to register
> at the end of 2008. However, this blip is only temporary. As people
> feel more secure about their jobs and the economy they will spend
> more as is already evidenced by the spending numbers, the consumer
> confidence numbers and the confidence number in Obama. Inventory
> numbers have reduced to a point where even a modest upsurge in spending
> will revitalize the need to build up inventory and thus hiring and
> thus job creation. It seems like people are ignoring these numbers
> instead choosing to look in the rearview mirror and focus on numbers
> that are already history. Jobs are always a lagging indicator and
> you will see media sensationalize job loss reports over the next
> several weeks while choosing to under-report new job creation that
> is bound to happen. If you look hard enough you will notice that
> jobs are being created and consumer confidence will keep going up.
> More and more jobs will be created in America but now we will begin
> to service the needs of Chindians and the consumers in the rest of
> the world!
>
> Prediction #5 – This whole gobbledygook about crumbling 401K and
> retirement system will not come to pass because rising equity markets
> will undo the damage that has been done and set these systems on
> the path to recovery. 5 years down the road many Americans will look
> back and regret not having taken advantage of the greatest generational
> once-in-a-lifetime investment opportunity to better their future.
> However, a majority will find their savings replenished thanks to
> the equity market resurgence and also thanks to their own newer spendthrift
> ways that caused their savings to accelerate decently over the years!
> A few of us will be much more prosperous because during one of the
> darkest times in American history we had the common sense to know
> that this great nation of ours will not come to pass instead it will
> survive and thrive and we invested in her future.
>
> Prediction #6 – Commercial overcapacity will be absorbed by the new
> entrepreneurs who will emerge to take advantage of the once-in-a-lifetime
> opportunity to build new businesses and new enterprises. These new
> entrepreneurs are the ones who gave their life to corporate America
> only to be disposed when the economy contracted when they were mercilessly
> thrown to the roadside. Of all the countries I have seen no country
> like America exists in that it offers the best unfettered system
> for an entrepreneur to build a business with the least amount of
> regulations and headaches and zero corruption. Expect to see thousands
> such entrepreneurs who took the risk today emerge prosperous a few
> years down the road. Never underestimate the power of small businesses
> as they are the ones that led us out of the past recessions and will
> do so again this time around.
>
> As I have said through the body of my response I happen to think
> completely contrary to the viewpoints expressed by this author. I
> happen to think that the kick in the jewels we got during 2008 has
> served as a wakeup call and awakened us in that we will emerge stronger
> from this fiasco and will actually work our way towards greater prosperity
> than in the past. In other words, we may very well have a reverse
> black swan event in the making and I urge readers not to miss what
> I believe is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to invest in the future
> or America and the world.
On May 04 05:38 AM rick12345 wrote:
> North Korea, Pakistan, China and Afghanistan will form a secret alliance
> bringing about the onset of WW3. The Swine flu mutates with the bird
> flu to form a deadly new strain. After a massive nuclear war, the
> few people left in the world will face a nuclear winter that ultimately
> brings about a new Ice age, lasting 2000 years.
On May 05 10:50 AM Troy Jensen wrote:
> Right on, Egg, you have it right, "Prediction 11 - None of the Above,
> Somebody had to say it." This perhaps is the most RIDICULOUS thing
> I have ever read. And frankly, some of the comments below, "fleeing
> to Latin America and swapping dollars for foreign currencies as fast
> as possible..." Good Lord. This truly is the simplest concept I have
> ever come across. The United States cannot fail, because the world's
> other nation's can't do without it. Arrogant? It's not meant to be.
> It's simple...reality. If the scenario played out above, what would
> China (and the 50%+ GDP directly tied to the U.S. - probably more
> if you have some sense of the true money flows - funny how small
> Caribbean countries continue to buy a significant percentage of our
> debt, every single week) do? Can you imagine the turmoil through
> Southeast Asia? How would Russia react to the largest population
> in the world banging over their Southeastern border to take back
> their (in their view) rightful Mongolian territory? And WHERE in
> the world are you going to unwind you GIANT positions in the US Dollar
> to, Mr. Columnist? With nine carrier fleets capable of taking on
> four major war theaters, each at the same time, where does flight-to-safety
> look like to you? Gold? Finite commodity, don't be a silly 19th century
> economist. The Euro? Brace yourselves, my Socialist friends, live
> a few years in Europe. Demography is Destiny, and the Europeans have
> some pretty mighty trouble on their hands. And if this scenario were
> to play out, what would Europe use as defense against the absolute
> NEED for the Russians to begin advancing west for infrastructure
> and tactical reasons, because their eastern flank is being overrun
> by the largest employer in the world, the Chinese army? That mighty
> Euro-Force? The thought of tying my currency reserves to the fate
> of the mighty European Union Armed Forces would not let me rest easy
> at night. All this talk about the Chinese Army and our impending
> military disadvantage...does the "Doom and Gloom" crowd even realize
> China does not have a SINGLE aircraft carrier yet? Not one? Do you
> know the lead time to build just one of our Nimitz-Class carriers?
> Reality check!
> I could go on and on and on, as our friend as here in this article.
> This simply won't play out. Economics and geopolitics, my friends.
> So many forget they play hand-in-hand. I am not advocating anything
> here...I just call reality, as it is. The US Dollar is the fait currency
> of the world, we can indeed print our way out of this, despite "Big
> Jake's" assertion we can't (Big Jake, we have printed more currency
> since November than in the previous 93 years - and the dollar ROSE
> against most major currencies - in your scenario, how can that possibly
> be?).
> Them's the fact's my friends - Might Makes Right, as the Brits used
> to say. Before, of course, an any historian knows, they reached a
> point of government debt (study your history - Britain ruled 76.3%
> of the world's landmass based on a fantastic creation stemming from
> Belgium - The Treasury Bond) where their economists, spurred on by
> an uneducated media, a political correctness that ate away the heart
> of UK's strong, prideful resilience, and a public that listened to
> the doom, began shedding debt and delevering...and were exposed.
> No more Projection of Power, no more mightiest economy in the world,
> no more Empire. Again, no advocacy here...I call it as it is. In
> reality.
> in the final stages of a major move away from the USA:
>
> 5. We will find our health care somewhere else as this will never
> be solved and the AMA has a complete strong-hold over the industry.
PCATLOW - I read somewhere that you can get Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Peru for only $80 per month.
The good news, however, is that you probably have a heckuva screenwriting career out here in Hollywood if you should decide to go for it. Attend a few seminars, read some of those forumlaic screenplay structure books, pump out a few drafts and you never know. Nobody loves doom and gloom better than Hollywood, and no one seems to eat it up better than U.S. audiences (could be wish fulfillment, perhaps).
All that nonsense being said, it is nice to see someone actually pointing out the fact that a simple return to the good old ways (i.e., borrowing endlessly to consume needlessly) is not very likely (even if it were somehow desirable). If I read another article about how we're going to return to 3% GDP growth by mid-2010, I think I'll choke; the U.S. hasn't had actual 3% GDP growth (subtract MEWs, financial tomfoolery, dot com bubbles, etc.) in nearly two decades - and now we think they're somehow right around the corner?! That kind of kind exaggeration makes yours seem downright unimaginative. So keep it up, Jake. It was fun to read; turn it into a movie and you've got something.
that lower wages leads to lower tax base, which will lead to slimmer pensions for govt workers. Be careful for what you wish.
This US centric view of economic dynamics is one of the reasons that the US and sadly, brain-dead Europe, aren't pulling us out of this anytime soon.
This US centric view of economic dynamics is one of the reasons that the US and sadly, brain-dead Europe, aren't pulling us out of this anytime soon.
I thought it already popped in 2007-2008?
>> the government eventually banning short-selling altogether.
It took a herculean effort for them to re-instate the uptick rule. This will never happen.
>> Prediction two. With public pension systems and tens of
>> millions of 401k holders virtually wiped out—and with the Baby >> Boomers retiring en masse—there will be tremendous
>> pressure on the government to get into the stock market in
>> order to bid up prices.
Where will they get the money? The Chinese are getting wise and are about to cut us off. The government is already tapped out.
>> Prediction four. “Quantitative easing” will fail ...
>> However, comprehensive debt relief via a devaluation of
>> the dollar is even more likely.
Agreed
it can finance continuous multi-trillion-dollar deficits on the private market. By late 2010, the sole buyers of new U.S. Treasury and agency bonds will be the Federal Reserve and a few derelict financial institutions under government control. This may or may not lead to hyperinflation. (See prediction four).
Au contraire - the scenario above, if it came true, would certainly lead to hyperinflation. This is exactly what happened in the Weimar Republic.
>> Prediction six. As the need for financial industry paper-pushers declines and people have less money to spend on lawyers and Starbucks (SBUX), unemployment will rise until the private sector has eliminated all of its excess capacity and superfluous or socially needless jobs. The government’s narrow unemployment figure (U3) will rise into the high teens by late 2010. The government’s broader unemployment figure (U6) will cease to be reported when it reaches 25 percent
Wrong again. They will get work in newly-created government programs
On May 03 11:23 AM OldFordTruck wrote:
> Since being laid off in January, I have been home reading extensively
> trying to understand what has happened to my 401k and what was going
> on in the markets. I spent all my time before trying to become the
> best Manufacturing Manager I could be and assuming the buy and hold
> stagey for retirement would work. Being an "average Joe" in terms
> of the stock market, this author hits the nail on the head as far
> as I am concerned.
>
> I have lost all faith in the markets, banks, government, and the
> dollar! I have worked my entire career investing my time and retirement
> money into companies that make stupid decisions with that hard-earned
> money. I now understand why and how the federal reserve is devaluing
> the currency and feel completely betrayed as a result. If I ever
> do return to a good paying job, I will invest my family’s financial
> future in gold and silver that I hold. Never again will I feel like
> a victim of the system! I might not have the biggest nest egg, but
> I will be able to purchase food for my family when the author’s scenario
> above comes to pass.
The financials are terrible with no clarity, voo doo accounting practices, rising mortgage/credit card/auto payment defaults, existing toxic assets, existing credit default swaps, commercial real estate defaults..........
Unemployment rising causing more of the above problems. Consumers no longer consuming because 10 million people not including part time unemployed, don't have jobs, money, cars, homes!!!
Our government lying to us about economic conditions, indicators, stress test, just about everything.
Printing more money, growing government bigger and bigger, creating more entitlement programs, spending like there is no tomorrow..........
The reality folks, we have the biggest screwing coming down on us in the next six months that we can imagine.
Get ready, "THE SKY IS FALLING"
Let's consider that, by definition, the IQ of the average person is 100. Probably 95% people have an IQ between 95 and 105. The top two percent are geniuses and the bottom two percent are mentaly challenged.
World population is approaching 7 billions and the "sustainability/enviro... cultists claim that the earth can only support about one billion or fewer on a long term basis. If everyone with an IQ lower than about 107 is removed then the average IQ of the humanity suddenly rises to maybe 115, a 15% increase in the IQ of the average human. A substantial evolutionary leap!
Considering who is behind this economic crisii I have to wonder.
Sure, there will need to be huge adjustments to whatever reality they force upon us, but it won't be anything as bad as what is now being forecast by articles like this one.
This country will survive. America isn't going to implode because of the disaster of the financial policies and decisions that have been made. A few years of acute belt tightening until the next new wave takes hold and lifts us out of the doldrums.
There will always be some invention, or new type of technology that enables big gains in human productivity, or allows for the opening up of vast new areas of exploration.
Necessity has always been the engine that drives people forward.
Disclosure: Short VNO, but long American adaptability.
On May 03 11:26 AM Scooter-Pop wrote:
> Iran is about to be removed as a threat to Israel and the rest of
> the Free World. Don't get caught too deeply in equities. Maybe GLD
> and USO.
Ken Times - You really think government cares about the boomers who have worked like dogs , educated themselves , their children + took care of their parents ? Yes they have stolen our Social Security surplus . Reagan unlocked the " locked fund " Alan Greenspan , under Bill Clintons watch , took FOOD + energy out of Social Security raises , SS checks would be about 55-70 % higher if FOOD + energy were left in . Oh , Did I forget old + truly disabled folks Don't need to eat or heat their homes . Yes All the takers from the social security fund , NEEDS to STOP . Wives who NEVER worked a day in their lives , Getting 1/2 the husband's check while he's alive , then Gets his whole amount when He's dead . All the welfare " underdeveeloped kids , need off this _ they get food stamps only . SS Should be ONLY for the workers who pay into the system . Catatrosphic illness SHOULD not bankrupt one ! ONLY in the US does this happen . Insurance firms have bankrupted the healthcare system . I see NO Bankers , Goldman Sachs et al , being prosecuted .Where's the OUTRAGE ! Oh yes , WW111 is here , no jobs for the young folks , might get restless if left to their own devices . Obama was chosen for his position . If you don't realize this , you truly have been " dumbed down " Watch more NFL football + Nascar folks !
there is no doubt that technology will likely continute to improve and increase real GDP/worker although the prosperity and pace of growth that US once enjoyed may come to an end.
in the past 2 century, USA was the untapped virgin. its abundant natural resources allow it to flood the world market with cheap goods (much like China does today with cheap labour). but that advantage is reaching an end. smokestack America is history. if the US wants to keep up, it will need to tighten its belt and go to school more.
welcome to club Earth.
I thought The Mayan calander " predicted " the end of times , December 21 , 2012 . Please correct me if I'm wrong . Nostadomous also predicted the " end " at this time .
Doesn't it say in Scripture , the " next destuction of the world " will come by fire ? Where as the 1st came by flood ?
I have read previously " that there is a very large asteroid coming mighty close to earth + might collide ". Apparently they don't want the maases to know . what's the point ? There's absolutely NOTHING they can do about it . We'll never know what hit us .
For the record : " I have a photographic memory " Once I see something -it stays with me .I have nerve damage to fingers , which keeps my typing much less than it should be . My brain goes soo much faster than my 2 fingers can .
On May 05 11:24 AM User 357705 wrote:
> Jingoistic nonsense.
On May 03 01:38 PM InvestBaboo wrote:
> Dear Author, you have done one-up on Roubini. He is Dr. Doom but
> you are Dr. Death! This is a very entertaining read but I was disappointed
> not to see that Russian professor fruitcake's prediction of America
> breaking into different nations one aligned with and protected by
> the Swine Flu Republic (AKA Mexico), one aligned with the Russians,
> one aligned and protected by the Canadians and so on and on. To those
> interested doomsday readers -- please Google the words "Russian Nut
> Fruitcake Professor USA breakup predictions" and you will find meaningful
> links.
>
> If this is the situation that awaits us a prudent course of action
> is to dump all equities, buy guns and ammunition, sell your home
> for what it is worth, move up into the mountains and live the rest
> of your life in seclusion from society. Short of doing that can we
> have an alternate scenario for the future of our great republic?
> Here is an alternate scenario:
>
> Prediction #1 – this great nation that survived and thrived its way
> through dozens of big and small crises since its founding will actually
> step up and lead the world out of the current quagmire which it was
> largely responsible in causing. President Obama who is much despised
> by the free market pundits will put a foundation and infrastructure
> in place for future and growth and prosperity. Unprecedented intervention
> (called meddling by some) by the Fed and the Treasury that has actually
> calmed the markets and led to the bull rally of the past few weeks
> will continue until the economy finds a firm footing at which point
> in time they will disengage just as fast allowing the newly fortified
> free market system to flourish and thrive into the future. At the
> end of the day Obama will likely go down in history books as one
> of the greatest presidents and leaders that led the recovery from
> rock bottom to a future of prosperity and wealth. Don’t get me wrong
> – I am not for Obama’s stimulus plan as I was for the republican
> agenda of giving credits to small businesses that would have helped
> this recession end a lot sooner. However, any spending is better
> than no spending even if some of it is wasteful and I believe that
> the impact of the stimulus plan has been greatly underestimated by
> economists. As a side note I am making a case that a reverse Black
> Swan event could be in the making for which I have constructed a
> portfolio that I named the Slumdog Millionaire Portfolio which is
> listed in my SeekingAlpha InstaBlog.
>
> Prediction #2 – America has been stuck doing what it is not good
> in doing refusing to accept that a re-tooling of the education system
> and the workforce is needed for the new economy. That is why we build
> cars and things that we really are not the best people to be building
> instead of taking roles in the knowledge economy. Look at what Obama
> is doing with the auto industry. When he is done with the industry
> it will be restructured in such a way that either it will become
> competitive with the rest of the world or it will simply not exists.
> Look at his emphasis and investment in education. A massive re-tooling
> of our economy will happen over the next few years and the younger
> generation of today will find new jobs in the knowledge economy while
> the rest of the world will fill the vacuum we have created. American
> companies will lead in every sector as we build the blueprints for
> the rest of the world to implement. If you look at the situation
> today it is the leading American companies that are manufacturing
> in China and India and elsewhere that would bring the products back
> here to sell and now there is a momentum shift where we will lead
> the manufacturing of these goods and sell these goods to the people
> who manufactured it in the first place. We will emerge on top of
> the food chain being the master designers of products and services
> for consumption by us and the rest of the world. We will no longer
> be the leading consumers of the world as the rest of the world will
> step in as the newly created wealth will allow them to lead the kind
> of lifestyle we have taken for granted.
>
> Prediction #3 – Let us step down from the macro level view to the
> micro view. Let us look at housing. The housing blip is only temporary.
> Every year America creates over a million and half households and
> we over- manufactured housing to far exceed demand. And now the pendulum
> of capitalism has swung to the other side and we are massively under
> manufacturing. The excess inventory we have due to foreclosures will
> dry up in the next year or two and we will then have a massive housing
> shortage unless the slack gets picked up sooner than having to wait
> two years. As it turns out this is already happening. Homebuilders
> are seeing an uptick in demand and new housing permits will start
> going up in the near future. A new class of investors has emerged
> that are buying up foreclosed homes that are helping put a bottom
> to the housing prices. The govt incentives to buy homes and ultra
> low once-in-a-generation interest rates is working as many Americans
> who could never afford a home are stepping into buy one. The housing
> crisis will be over soon.
>
> Prediction #4 – What about the jobs situation? Being driven by consumer
> spending as we are for a significant portion of our GDP, the enormous
> pullback in spending by both people who have money and jobs and people
> that don’t caused an artificially low spending quarter to register
> at the end of 2008. However, this blip is only temporary. As people
> feel more secure about their jobs and the economy they will spend
> more as is already evidenced by the spending numbers, the consumer
> confidence numbers and the confidence number in Obama. Inventory
> numbers have reduced to a point where even a modest upsurge in spending
> will revitalize the need to build up inventory and thus hiring and
> thus job creation. It seems like people are ignoring these numbers
> instead choosing to look in the rearview mirror and focus on numbers
> that are already history. Jobs are always a lagging indicator and
> you will see media sensationalize job loss reports over the next
> several weeks while choosing to under-report new job creation that
> is bound to happen. If you look hard enough you will notice that
> jobs are being created and consumer confidence will keep going up.
> More and more jobs will be created in America but now we will begin
> to service the needs of Chindians and the consumers in the rest of
> the world!
>
> Prediction #5 – This whole gobbledygook about crumbling 401K and
> retirement system will not come to pass because rising equity markets
> will undo the damage that has been done and set these systems on
> the path to recovery. 5 years down the road many Americans will look
> back and regret not having taken advantage of the greatest generational
> once-in-a-lifetime investment opportunity to better their future.
> However, a majority will find their savings replenished thanks to
> the equity market resurgence and also thanks to their own newer spendthrift
> ways that caused their savings to accelerate decently over the years!
> A few of us will be much more prosperous because during one of the
> darkest times in American history we had the common sense to know
> that this great nation of ours will not come to pass instead it will
> survive and thrive and we invested in her future.
>
> Prediction #6 – Commercial overcapacity will be absorbed by the new
> entrepreneurs who will emerge to take advantage of the once-in-a-lifetime
> opportunity to build new businesses and new enterprises. These new
> entrepreneurs are the ones who gave their life to corporate America
> only to be disposed when the economy contracted when they were mercilessly
> thrown to the roadside. Of all the countries I have seen no country
> like America exists in that it offers the best unfettered system
> for an entrepreneur to build a business with the least amount of
> regulations and headaches and zero corruption. Expect to see thousands
> such entrepreneurs who took the risk today emerge prosperous a few
> years down the road. Never underestimate the power of small businesses
> as they are the ones that led us out of the past recessions and will
> do so again this time around.
>
> As I have said through the body of my response I happen to think
> completely contrary to the viewpoints expressed by this author. I
> happen to think that the kick in the jewels we got during 2008 has
> served as a wakeup call and awakened us in that we will emerge stronger
> from this fiasco and will actually work our way towards greater prosperity
> than in the past. In other words, we may very well have a reverse
> black swan event in the making and I urge readers not to miss what
> I believe is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to invest in the future
> or America and the world.
What happen to the looking for ways to cut back and closing depts.
He is going to take a year to fine something to cut.
Why is the Treasury not staffed after after 6 months? Could it be that they only want a few to know what is going on. You know they had to be planning in Nov. if not before.
Look at the revolving door Gov, Fed, Tres, Goldman.
On May 03 12:00 PM Sober Realist wrote:
> "The Despotism of Dependency" --- we have arrived.
>
> Government is not shrinking. Today's government consumes 45% of the
> economy by its spending, plus another 13% of the economy via its
> un-funded regulatory mandates - - leaving less than half of the economy
> to the free-market private sector.
>
> "45% of our economy today is dependent on government spending &
> control."
>
> Slow, gradual government expansion over time is not recognized by
> the masses which gradually become dependant upon it. This leads to
> serfdom to the state. America is more a socialistic nation, and less
> a free-market economy, then ever before in its history, because our
> total economy has become significantly more government-dominated
> and dependent. Our founding fathers are rolling in their graves and
> weeping for the children of this once great land.
>
> We are being extin­guished and stupefied as a people, reduced
> to a flock of timid, subservient sheep of which the government is
> the shepherd.
> mwhodges.home.att.net/...
>
On May 03 10:14 AM Pcatlow wrote:
> The piece is an interesting and compelling read. I lean more towards
> the author's view than against.....but, the time-line will be stretched
> out further.
>
> The fact that I, as a Futures trader, am completely out of this market
> is my lead card in this play. Now, beyond that, my wife and I (childless,
> retired in a mountain top community, zero debt, and cash heavy) are
> in the final stages of a major move away from the USA:
>
> 1. We will sell our house for whatever it will fetch.
> 2. We are moving to Latin America.
> 3. I will trade into foreign currencies as quickly as I can and
> at the most ripe moment.
> 4. We will break all ties to the US tax system, since Tax rates
> on the "rich" (traders, income producers, and titans of industry
> - - those who make more than a dollar a day (HA!), will see their
> tax rates beat what we already see in the EU.
> 5. We will find our health care somewhere else as this will never
> be solved and the AMA has a complete strong-hold over the industry.
> Even the last word of my last sentence tells us something (profits
> from health is counter productive and leads to what we have now:
> huge insurance premiums, deductibles and we are scared doo-doo-less
> that a single health crisis will wipe us out---we are in our 50's
> and the BIG C could kills us in more than one way).
> 6. We will continue to believe not one word of the Wall Street spew
> we read every day.....and not one word of the 10Q's and Quarterly
> reports which contain lies, and misleading data...
>
> I could go on and on, but folks the good OLE USA is doomed.
1. Create a new financial system with constant economic growth, full employment and without crisis, see:
www.naturalmoney.org/s...
www.naturalmoney.org/f...
2. This is not a joke. Famous economists and scientists in the past saw this too:
www.naturalmoney.org/s...
3. Make a conversion plan to the new economic system, so the old system can collapse without harming the economy:
www.naturalmoney.org/c...
4. Build a new sustainable society using the new financial system:
www.naturalmoney.org/b...
I hope you like it because until now I have not seen anybody come up with a solution that will work.
Got Gold?
On May 03 03:17 AM Egg wrote:
> Prediction 11: None of the Above (Someone has to say it)
- Daniel Ivandjiiski
On May 03 01:27 PM Kakabeka wrote:
> The two morons above complaining about the growth of govt
> and so called socialism (hardeyhar)
> are apparently too stupid to realize that most of our current problems
> were created by less regulations
> see:
> unregulated mortgages and greed and
> a totally unregulated wall street a la Goldman Sachs-
> now accepting tenders for a new Skylab company.....
you say U3 measured unemployment will be in the high teens ....while U6 will stop being reported when it reaches 25%.....
I just don't see how U3 even in a depression could rise that high WITH THE GOV'Ts built in POLITICIZING of the numbers built in to the formula........I think what is more likely is that unemployment (U3) will peak around 9-9.5% and U6 will keep growing probably to around 22% or so.....
You see alot of those people who lost their jobs 6 months ago (when the uptick began) will not be finding full time work.......(or even any work) but they will be TAKEN Out of the Workforce calculations none-the-less......which will Automatically place downward pressure on the unemployment rate...(U3) ....but the U6 number will still include them and keep rising months after u3 peaks
On May 04 07:38 AM nomorries wrote:
> It still amazes me that some people still dont get it. These coming
> yrs will be about 1 thing SURVIVAL! Rome is burning.
>
> Good luck!
>
> Noworries
On May 06 09:49 AM slay wrote:
> You're right, a much bigger government is the answer to all our problems.
>
On May 03 01:25 PM MudEngineer wrote:
> I recently read that the total outstanding derivatives sum up to
> over 200 trillion dollars. Assuming that their values have plummeted
> at least 30% as most are tied to mortgages gone bad on depreciating
> real estate, that means a loss of 60 trillion dollars. Throwing
> even 5 trillion dollars at the problem is like pissing into the wind.
>
>
> It seems to me that the author's future senarios are highly likely
> to occur within the time frame given. It is interesting to note
> that at least five civilization's calendars end with year 2012.
> I would like to know from Pcatlow, the former commodity trader which
> Latin American country to move to. My wife and I are considering
> that same strategy. Will they let me bring my two dogs into the
> country?
I don't disagree with you about science & technology innovation except for one thing. It takes capital and credit to fund this type of innovation. Sadly we are witnessing massive demolition of capital with more to come as Obama attempts to "rewrite" bankruptcy law (Chrysler bondholders). The brutal reality is that our credit markets are still dysfunctional no matter what the LIBOR says or what the cheerleaders opine at CNBC. The Fed has so many fingers "plugged in the dike" to stop the flooding that they can't know for sure when it's safe to take their fingers out. The credit "patient" remains on life-support. Recovery is years away. So much structural damage has been done to the banking system that it could well take at least a decade to recover from this disaster. Expecting a return to 4-5% econonic growth in 2010 is a complete "fantasy". Simply not possible with over 5 million jobs lost in less than one year and small businesses unable to access credit and commerical paper markets. The bankers have completely destroyed this entire economy with their greed, corruption, and stupidity. They should NOT be rewarded with bailouts, bonuses, or other "wasteful" misallocation of resources. They need to go to jail.
Yank
On May 03 03:35 PM fletcher wrote:
> The pessimism of this kind of thinking can be offset in part by hypothesizing
> that something comparable to the internet is now latent in science
> and technology that will revolutionize productivity. Nanotechnology,
> molecular manufacturing, robotics, biotech, revolutionary energy
> generation, the Space Elevator, are all possible candidates. If you
> wrote an article like the this one in 1992, you would certainly have
> missed the transformational global economic impact of the web. Science
> and technology are not over, they are just getting started. In a
> decade you may not be able to recognize the global economy, not because
> of financial strains, but because of profoundly important technological
> change and the application of these changes to the world.
On May 05 09:13 PM User 408011 wrote:
> The end of This age is scheduled for 12 December 2012. Those who
> make this claim say that humanity must "evolve" to the next level
> at that time. What might this mean?
> Let's consider that, by definition, the IQ of the average person
> is 100. Probably 95% people have an IQ between 95 and 105. The
> top two percent are geniuses and the bottom two percent are mentaly
> challenged.
> World population is approaching 7 billions and the "sustainability/enviro...
> cultists claim that the earth can only support about one billion
> or fewer on a long term basis. If everyone with an IQ lower than
> about 107 is removed then the average IQ of the humanity suddenly
> rises to maybe 115, a 15% increase in the IQ of the average human.
> A substantial evolutionary leap!
> Considering who is behind this economic crisii I have to wonder.
>
>
SP500 will hit 1250 before end of 2010. Growth in US will be subdued perhaps as long as a decade. But higher growth rates outside US will allow several mega caps prosper. Stay with large cap quality US MNC's and watch your portfolio outperform your wildest dreams over the next 5 to 7 years; no doubt there will be ups and downs - that is the nature of the beast and it is what allows people to both make and lose money.
It can always get worse. The question is- what are you going to do about it? Stay in bed, load up on guns and ammo, or something constructive?
On May 04 08:24 AM MartyT wrote:
> Thanks for the great article. I enjoyed it a lot and I think it
> definitely represents a "Worst Case Scenario" as per your title.
>
>
> It seems like for my entire life we (the USA) has been on the verge
> of total meltdown. I remember people building bomb shelters for
> the nuclear war back in the 70s and 80s. Then in the 90s everyone
> was freeking out about the year 2000. Then there was the avian flu,
> the Iraqi WMDs (remember the whole duct tape your house thing?),
> and now swine flu. I remember reading advice on a gold site in 1999
> that said that we should all spray paint our homes, flip our cars
> over, and light our cars on fire so the mob would think our homes
> were already hit... man I am glad I didn't follow that advice.<br/>
>
> Anyways, thanks for the great article, it was very interesting.
On May 03 10:25 AM Doc 224899 wrote:
> "...people have less money to spend on lawyers..."
>
> Thanks for saying it.
>
> We can't afford all the lawyers that the law schools have pumped
> out in the last 40 years, and as the economy shrinks we have to shrink
> the number of lawyers. We actually need about 5% of the lawyers we
> now have, and most of what lawyers now do is nothing more than bleed
> the life and cash out of everything good and useful in this country.
>
>
> Leading to Prediction 11: Reasonable, nice, productive people who
> have intact social skills wake up one morning and convince 19 out
> of every 20 lawyers around them to change careers and finally do
> something that doesn't destroy everything around them. Those lawyers
> who don't cooperate are sent to the countries where their former
> union clients and tort complainants have chased all the useful and
> productive work that used to be done in this country, and they set
> about the business of surviving parasitic infections and tribal conflicts.
>
>
> Lawyers are predators who feed off the carcasses of individuals and
> corporations who actually do useful things and make useful things,
> to support a hugely inefficient and unregulated profession that is
> dominated by people with personality disorders who were born to argue
> or steal from the majority of people who are nice.
On May 04 08:24 AM MartyT wrote:
> Thanks for the great article. I enjoyed it a lot and I think it
> definitely represents a "Worst Case Scenario" as per your title.
>
>
> It seems like for my entire life we (the USA) has been on the verge
> of total meltdown. I remember people building bomb shelters for
> the nuclear war back in the 70s and 80s. Then in the 90s everyone
> was freeking out about the year 2000. Then there was the avian flu,
> the Iraqi WMDs (remember the whole duct tape your house thing?),
> and now swine flu. I remember reading advice on a gold site in 1999
> that said that we should all spray paint our homes, flip our cars
> over, and light our cars on fire so the mob would think our homes
> were already hit... man I am glad I didn't follow that advice.<br/>
>
> Anyways, thanks for the great article, it was very interesting.
The American dream promised your generation was unsustainable (enough benefits to pay all of your bills for life). That part about broken promises is true and it is sad. The current mules funding the entitlements will become less productive. The average hours worked in 2000 was 38. The average is now 33. Small business owners must now protect themselves against a hostile government and employees looking for someone to rob as there personal incomes decline. I am an optimist and as such, will simply say the American dream is on pause for a good number of years. I do not see a simple way for those in power accelerating the breadth of government to step down, another burden for the public to deal with on top of everything else.
On May 03 06:29 PM Ken Times wrote:
> Solution, beef up baby boomers Social Security retirement checks,
> lower the retirement age to 60, discontinue welfare checks. Spend
> the government money on those who have a) have put $$ into the system,
> b) paid off lifes big investment (homes) c) will spend, save or give
> away the bucks d) have a shorter time left on this earth (the payments
> will END. Baby boomers hand over the tiller to the younger generations,
> those with a) education b) new families c) need to work to support
> families, d) need to invest in their future. Maybe if we oldies trust
> that they can get it right for themselves we will be willing to get
> the hell out of their way. I don't know about you but I'm tired of
> the broken promises our government has heaped on
> me. First, back in 1968 it was SS retirement at the age of 62, then
> came IRA's and retirement at 65, then 401Ks, then stock market play,
> talk about privatizing, I call "Bull-shit". I don't want to work
> until the day I'm dead. Give it up America, get us old folks out
> of the work force and you young kids get to work building your future
> in this country. We baby boomers can spend the money and you can
> get paid for providing the goods and services and you can have babies,
> cook-outs, birthday parties, buy homes, buy cars but the thing is
> YOU NEED TO GO TO WORK!!!
recovery is just around the corner? What took 25 yrs going will take 25 yrs coming! Fundamentals are just too complicated for all said above.
Read this over and over again..........
"No Export = No Recovery"... Ponce
Every one ignores the elephant in the living room and the why that he is there. Back in 1929 the US was able to recover for the following....1= 65% of the population were farmers 2= 87% of what we produced was for export 3= WWII gave everyone a job.
But now.......1= only 1% are farmers (if that) 2= the world is now able to produced cheaper and many times better quality products 3= most of the war material that we use is either produced overseas or made by robots here in the US.
WTSHTF is here and yet you are blind, I have seen in Cuba what WTSHTF means and here in the states it will be worse because almost no one is ready for what is to come.
"If you don't hold it, you don't own it"....Ponce
Disregard my grammar and pay attention to the message.
----------------------...
slay 6 Comments Follow
You're right, a much bigger government is the answer to all our problems.
On May 06 01:58 PM RoberttheBruceless wrote:
> Of course it's not. But you've missed the point -- simply keeping
> regulations like Glass-Steagal would've helped avoid this whole mortgage-securities
> crisis in the first place. Nobody's asking for more govt., just a
> stop to the greed-induced repeal of laws designed to help us avoid
> such financial fiascos. In this case, private industry meddling in
> the affairs of govt. are what got us here, not the other way around.
>
>
>
> ----------------------...
> slay 6 Comments Follow
> You're right, a much bigger government is the answer to all our problems.
>
On May 06 02:14 PM The Original Iconoclast wrote:
> Dealbreaker 5/5/09
>
> It is time to really expose this poser. Liberal "smart money" (a
> new oxymoron!) that backed Obama deserves their no lube a$$ fcking.
>
>
> Wake up and lets buy up the media while its cheap and expose the
> Halfrican-American for what he is. A fascist.
>
> The guy got in the US House by running in an IL democratic district
> and disqualifying all his primary opponents from the ballot on technicalities.
> Then he gets into the US Senate because the Jerry Ryan divorce swinger
> scandal was leaked to the media (most likely by Obama's friends in
> the democratic controlled Cook County courts. Ryan's husband, Obama's
> opponent drops out at the last minute and unknown Obama wins. <br/>
>
> Look all this up for yourself.
>
> Was this covered in the presidential election? No. Sex scandal and
> a presidential candidate not covered? Come on, when does that happen.
>
>
> And no one knows where Obama was born like what hospital. All they
> have provided is the Hawaii short form birth certificate which doesn't
> show the hospital. Also Hawaii was giving these out to anyone who
> was born within a year of coming to Hawaii according to reports.
> And there have been reasonable evidence that Obama's mother might
> not (or could not) have been in Hawaii at the time of his birth (in
> Seattle or Africa).
>
> There is also the question of whether his citizenship in the US was
> renounced when he was in Malaysia (Indonesia?) and they didn't allow
> dual citizenship. Once renouced, citenzship can not merely be reassumed.
>
>
> So he disqualifies his opponents on technicalities and gets a free
> ride on the most important requirement for president - a native born
> citizen.
>
> Smart? No just arrogant and well spoken. Big difference. All of us
> that went to top tier schools know the difference. Plenty of classmates
> were smart compared to the public at large which is faint praise
> but we also knew they didn't below there.
>
> I was at Harvard roughly when Obama was. In one of their other equally
> prestigious grad schools there were plenty of legacies and affirmative
> action cases that obviously didn't belong there.
>
> Obama was both a legacy and an affirmative action case. Has anyone
> ever looked at his SATs or LSATs the way people harped on Bush's
> (which reportedly were about the same as Gore's by the way). Did
> he get and deserve affirmitative action since he is half white and
> raised by a white family (making him arguably more white than black).
> Plus his black half is direct from Kenya and attended Harvard so
> how was his black half disadvantaged by slavery or segreation in
> the US?
>
> Did he really belong at Harvard?
>
> Law Review? The guy has no respect for contract or bankruptcy law.
> Supreme Court he wants someone that has empathy? Empathy for who?
> The Supreme Court doesn't really decide cases, it decides law. And
> not just for one case, but for decades if not hundreds of years.
> You don't have to go to law school to know this.
>
> Obama has an agenda far different than upholding the laws of this
> nation and the constitution.
>
> We should call for empeachment hearings as he is not upholding the
> laws.
>
> What constitutional basis does he have to do these bailouts?
>
> 10th amendment provides for the regulation of interstate commerce
> - not the participation in it.
>
> Start using your money to fight back. Shun Obama supporters in business
> and reward his opponents. Give Oppenheimer extra business for fighting
> the Chrysler deal and pull money from Perella and others who caved.
>
>
> Do not advertise with or buy from Obamas supporters. Boycott hiring
> from schools supporting Obama (and other liberal idiocacy). Columbia,
> Harvard Law, Yale Law are good places to start. If the students and
> alumni can't get hired they might start pressuring their Boards or
> even better take over the boards and return sanity to their institutions.
>
>
> Frankly I think the guy has severe mental issues stemming from being
> abandonded by his dad. He is more interested in his personal agenda
> than in what is best for the country. He writes a book, Dreams of
> My Father but he doesn't know his father who he spent what, 2 months
> with? His father who a Kenyan gets a chance to go to Harvard is just
> a drunk, reportedly a bigamist, and then loses his legs in one drunken
> car wreck and doesn't learn and kills himself in another.
>
> So we have the product of a naive idiot liberal and a drunken Kenyan
> loser bigamist as our President.
>
No need to argue about it.
On May 06 02:14 PM The Original Iconoclast wrote:
> Dealbreaker 5/5/09
>
> It is time to really expose this poser. Liberal "smart money" (a
> new oxymoron!) that backed Obama deserves their no lube a$$ fcking.
>
>
> Wake up and lets buy up the media while its cheap and expose the
> Halfrican-American for what he is. A fascist.
>
> The guy got in the US House by running in an IL democratic district
> and disqualifying all his primary opponents from the ballot on technicalities.
> Then he gets into the US Senate because the Jerry Ryan divorce swinger
> scandal was leaked to the media (most likely by Obama's friends in
> the democratic controlled Cook County courts. Ryan's husband, Obama's
> opponent drops out at the last minute and unknown Obama wins. <br/>
>
> Look all this up for yourself.
>
> Was this covered in the presidential election? No. Sex scandal and
> a presidential candidate not covered? Come on, when does that happen.
>
>
> And no one knows where Obama was born like what hospital. All they
> have provided is the Hawaii short form birth certificate which doesn't
> show the hospital. Also Hawaii was giving these out to anyone who
> was born within a year of coming to Hawaii according to reports.
> And there have been reasonable evidence that Obama's mother might
> not (or could not) have been in Hawaii at the time of his birth (in
> Seattle or Africa).
>
> There is also the question of whether his citizenship in the US was
> renounced when he was in Malaysia (Indonesia?) and they didn't allow
> dual citizenship. Once renouced, citenzship can not merely be reassumed.
>
>
> So he disqualifies his opponents on technicalities and gets a free
> ride on the most important requirement for president - a native born
> citizen.
>
> Smart? No just arrogant and well spoken. Big difference. All of us
> that went to top tier schools know the difference. Plenty of classmates
> were smart compared to the public at large which is faint praise
> but we also knew they didn't below there.
>
> I was at Harvard roughly when Obama was. In one of their other equally
> prestigious grad schools there were plenty of legacies and affirmative
> action cases that obviously didn't belong there.
>
> Obama was both a legacy and an affirmative action case. Has anyone
> ever looked at his SATs or LSATs the way people harped on Bush's
> (which reportedly were about the same as Gore's by the way). Did
> he get and deserve affirmitative action since he is half white and
> raised by a white family (making him arguably more white than black).
> Plus his black half is direct from Kenya and attended Harvard so
> how was his black half disadvantaged by slavery or segreation in
> the US?
>
> Did he really belong at Harvard?
>
> Law Review? The guy has no respect for contract or bankruptcy law.
> Supreme Court he wants someone that has empathy? Empathy for who?
> The Supreme Court doesn't really decide cases, it decides law. And
> not just for one case, but for decades if not hundreds of years.
> You don't have to go to law school to know this.
>
> Obama has an agenda far different than upholding the laws of this
> nation and the constitution.
>
> We should call for empeachment hearings as he is not upholding the
> laws.
>
> What constitutional basis does he have to do these bailouts?
>
> 10th amendment provides for the regulation of interstate commerce
> - not the participation in it.
>
> Start using your money to fight back. Shun Obama supporters in business
> and reward his opponents. Give Oppenheimer extra business for fighting
> the Chrysler deal and pull money from Perella and others who caved.
>
>
> Do not advertise with or buy from Obamas supporters. Boycott hiring
> from schools supporting Obama (and other liberal idiocacy). Columbia,
> Harvard Law, Yale Law are good places to start. If the students and
> alumni can't get hired they might start pressuring their Boards or
> even better take over the boards and return sanity to their institutions.
>
>
> Frankly I think the guy has severe mental issues stemming from being
> abandonded by his dad. He is more interested in his personal agenda
> than in what is best for the country. He writes a book, Dreams of
> My Father but he doesn't know his father who he spent what, 2 months
> with? His father who a Kenyan gets a chance to go to Harvard is just
> a drunk, reportedly a bigamist, and then loses his legs in one drunken
> car wreck and doesn't learn and kills himself in another.
>
> So we have the product of a naive idiot liberal and a drunken Kenyan
> loser bigamist as our President.
>
If the economic fortunes of the U.S. get worse (now 2009), there may be the strong possibility of growing support for a type of right-wing extremist movement in America ... claiming they are the true answer to an American Republic on the decline (much like the Nazi Socialist Party came into power in Germany in the mid 1930's and taking advantage of the declining social situation in Germany).
If the economics in the U.S. continue to decline, I think Americans will have to face the possible scenario that we may face a similar horrible national "nightmare" that we will haunt the American psyche for generations. Something similar to what Germany went through in the period of 1933 - 1945 ... and will always be a "stain" on that great county's name ... forever!
Read up on the German Weimar Republic (early 1920's - 1933), because what we don't learn from history we are doomed to repeat.
On May 03 10:11 AM Doc 224899 wrote:
> "...people will have less money to spend on lawyers..."
>
> Finally. We actually need about 5% of the lawyers we now support.
> Lawyers feed off the carcasses of just about every person and corporation
> that is productive. Lawyers make money off people with personality
> disorders, the individuals who would have been kicked out of the
> wago train 130 years ago, or chased away from the cave and fire 20,000
> years ago.
>
> It's time to subject the legal profession to the same critical reviews
> we apply to health care (a service we can't live without), to reduce
> wasteful spending on legal services (which we can hardly tolerate).
Think twice before characterizing lawyers so poorly. If you look at America and its historic rise of the past few centuries, you will notice that it has been lead by lawyers -- of America’s forty-three presidents, twenty-five have been lawyers.
On May 03 10:11 AM Doc 224899 wrote:
> "...people will have less money to spend on lawyers..."
>
> Finally. We actually need about 5% of the lawyers we now support.
> Lawyers feed off the carcasses of just about every person and corporation
> that is productive. Lawyers make money off people with personality
> disorders, the individuals who would have been kicked out of the
> wago train 130 years ago, or chased away from the cave and fire 20,000
> years ago.
>
> It's time to subject the legal profession to the same critical reviews
> we apply to health care (a service we can't live without), to reduce
> wasteful spending on legal services (which we can hardly tolerate).
Boohoo.
On May 06 02:14 PM The Original Iconoclast wrote:
> Dealbreaker 5/5/09
>
> It is time to really expose this poser. Liberal "smart money" (a
> new oxymoron!) that backed Obama deserves their no lube a$$ fcking.
>
>
> Wake up and lets buy up the media while its cheap and expose the
> Halfrican-American for what he is. A fascist.
We all hope that you're right and everything is going to be peachy.
However, you really ought to think about buying a gun and some heirloom seeds.
This cr*p was created by the Big Banksters to destroy the dollar so we can have the Amero or one-world currency. Result: we have NO MONEY. No medium of exchange.
Solution: BYPASS the dollar. It is not sacred. Invest in farms and ask for food instead of money return. Trade your goods for things you need. See Jay Abraham's books and others for coping with recession. There is a website reinventingmoney.com that will help, too.
Do you honestly expect developed nations to let humankind flame out because of banking and accounting rules??
(exuse me one second... ahahahahahahhahhahha...)
This could be wiped away with strokes of pens folks.
Laws be damned, 'precedent' be damned. The noose around the neck clarifies the mind. Swaps would be invalidated for the monopoly money they are and thrown in the furnace. Government(s) would back pensions, local governments, and other essentials hit in the unwind. Others can eat it. This might even be cheaper than keeping AIG afloat.
banks wouldn't protest due to panic/depopulation/sta... being generally bad for business.
It's sad to read all these Boomers (or so I assume), retreating to their bunkers. Your generation had such promise.
The author put forth a worst case scenario and I will give him credit for being true to his word.
I guess I was looking for a reality based worst case scenario. I am not sure why you would read SeekingAlpha if you believed this scenario.
I'm sure the golden vampires will do just fine, but for the millions of the rest of us, the golden age may be over.
How many "immigrants" like you are still here? Why are they here?Why did they get in in the first place?
Good riddance!
When you're back in Mumbai, rejoice in the fact that you can now walk on roads built by starving women and children, drink tea harvested by child laborers, shop at malls built by the hands of suffering.
No doubt, you owe America your "high-tech" proclivities, but remember this:
You're returning to India as uneducated, immoral and disloyal as you were when you got here.
On May 06 02:28 PM perf_guru wrote:
> I'm in high-tech, have been in the US for 20+ years, and am heading
> back to India for better growth and stability. In the US, we have
> spent 6% more than what we produced for the last five years and so
> have built an overcapacity of ~30%. Even assuming 2% real growth
> rates, going forward, it will take over a decade for the overcapacity
> to be productively utilized. So, resources are better channeled to
> use the machinery we have built here and redirecting that to customers
> / users world-wide. The world as a whole is feeling the pain from
> this great recession but countries with higher reserves / cushion
> will grow out of the pain faster.
But I think I have it figured out ... early investors in this rally have concluded that the Fed and Uncle Sam are now so demonstrably "all-in", that there is practically no short-term risk in buying long. President Obama will not allow Citi or BoA, or GM, or Chrysler, or The Boston Globe or any other union-shop newspapers, or Fannie or Freddie, or AIG, or just about any other company to "actually fail". But it doesn't stop at corporate handouts. Individual homeowners and those with credit cards are also being swiftly "absolved" of any actual obligations, too, in the name of "social justice", I suppose.
Even if that means at least a $20 trillion national debt, and even if it means an insolvent Federal Reserve, and the likelihood (as pointed out in this intensely negative but likely plausible article) of a CRUSHING unraveling of our economy, which is intertwined globally, and which will be made all the more severe by exploding hyperinflation culminating in massive societal catastrophe.
So, recognizing we are STARRING INTO AN ABYSS brought about by the complete and utter DISREGARD OF ANY ACCOUNTABILITY or desire to do anything in the interest of "the greater good", the 'smart money' has figured out 'we better get it, while the getting is good'. The positive euphoria arising from all this Helicopter Ben activity has many feeling that "we have hit the bottom; it won't get worse from here, but if it does, let's trade now and ride it while we can."
"And no one knows where Obama was born like what hospital. All they have provided is the Hawaii short form birth certificate which doesn't show the hospital. Also Hawaii was giving these out to anyone who was born within a year of coming to Hawaii according to reports. And there have been reasonable evidence that Obama's mother might not (or could not) have been in Hawaii at the time of his birth (in Seattle or Africa)."
You seem to imply that BHO isn't a US citizen IF his place of birth isn't within the US or its territories. Your dead wrong.. he can be born anywhere in the world (or in space, for that matter) and still be a US citizen IF one (or both) parents are US citizens. That is the law.
Check it out: travel.state.gov/passp...
The Original Iconoclast also said:
"There is also the question of whether his citizenship in the US was renounced when he was in Malaysia (Indonesia?) and they didn't allow dual citizenship. Once renouced, citenzship can not merely be reassumed."
A US citizen cannot declare or renounce their citizenship in the US until they are either 18 or 21 y/o. If BHO was living in Indonesia before the age of 18, he could not have made any such declaration and have it be binding in the US. No other person could legally have made such a declaration for BHO on his behalf as well.
I suspect other falsehoods might be lurking in your posting as well, given that these two were uttered without a check of the law or facts.
I am NOT a Democrat nor did I vote for BHO.
I suspect that any blog which receives over 175 reply comments is prone to get dimishing returns after about the first 100 or so.
Why would he spend almost a 1M$ on lawyers trying to dismiss all lawsuits - it would have been much easier to go to the court and show the copy of the original birth certificate (if it exists).
In one of his books he claimed that he had found an old folded copy of the original birth certificate. However, this is not the document presented on a friendly web page? I suspect that he lied in his book to create an image of being a natural-born citizen. All we have as a proof is his word.
Current US law regarding the citizenship status for babies born in a foreign country is irrelevant. According to the law in 1961, for Obama to get automatic US citizenship, his mother had to be at least 19 years old. As she was only 18, he would not have qualified to be a US citizen if he was born in a foreign country.
Why is it that Obama's college records are sealed. Was he merely a mediocre student and does not want to tarnish the image created by the media or did he apply as a foreign student?
He promised transparency - we got the most secretive presidential candidate in history when it comes to his past.
How did he travel to Pakistan while he was in college. At the time a US passport holders could not travel there. Which passport did he use? Indonesian?
A simple explanation that ties all these issues together would be that Obama was not born in the US, he is not a natural-born citizen and is not eligible for presidency.
Do you have a better explanation for Obama's behavior?
On May 07 02:00 AM proxyjoe wrote:
> The Original Iconoclast said:
>
> "And no one knows where Obama was born like what hospital. All they
> have provided is the Hawaii short form birth certificate which doesn't
> show the hospital. Also Hawaii was giving these out to anyone who
> was born within a year of coming to Hawaii according to reports.
> And there have been reasonable evidence that Obama's mother might
> not (or could not) have been in Hawaii at the time of his birth (in
> Seattle or Africa)."
>
> You seem to imply that BHO isn't a US citizen IF his place of birth
> isn't within the US or its territories. Your dead wrong.. he can
> be born anywhere in the world (or in space, for that matter) and
> still be a US citizen IF one (or both) parents are US citizens. That
> is the law.
> Check it out: travel.state.gov/passp...
>
>
>
> The Original Iconoclast also said:
>
> "There is also the question of whether his citizenship in the US
> was renounced when he was in Malaysia (Indonesia?) and they didn't
> allow dual citizenship. Once renouced, citenzship can not merely
> be reassumed."
>
> A US citizen cannot declare or renounce their citizenship in the
> US until they are either 18 or 21 y/o. If BHO was living in Indonesia
> before the age of 18, he could not have made any such declaration
> and have it be binding in the US. No other person could legally have
> made such a declaration for BHO on his behalf as well.
>
> I suspect other falsehoods might be lurking in your posting as well,
> given that these two were uttered without a check of the law or facts.
>
>
> I am NOT a Democrat nor did I vote for BHO.
>
> I suspect that any blog which receives over 175 reply comments is
> prone to get dimishing returns after about the first 100 or so.
But it's very possible that some will. Perhaps enough will.
What is it that's said? Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.
If history tells us one thing it is we each have a dark side, a beast within us. Keep it fed, supply its basic needs, preoccupy it with trinkets and shiny things, and it will content itself to a shadowy life in our subconscious. Wall Street is not Main Street. The 10.5 trillion dollar bail out may have indeed patched humpdee-dumpitee back together again, for awhile anyway, but so what? Life on global main street will continue its downward spiral. Things are going to get ugly. Corruption, discontent, greed, a population of 6.5 billlion people and growing, trapped on a planet with diminishing natural resources including fresh water. Increasing religious and social strife, homelessness, hunger, and the threads that hold civilization together continue to fray, till finally the beast within breaks out of its chains.
Empires, civilizations, countries have came and gone throughout history. I know, I know , its a story that repeats itself throughout history over and over again, but it could never happen here. Yeah, right. This time its different folks. This time we are armed with nukes up the gazoo. This time when its over its really really over. And now you know the rest of the story. Good night!
Even if the people can't pay the big banks Citi B.O.A. Wells Fargo etc what will they do sell the repoed homes to foreign investors whom will they sell the homes to no one will have any worthwhile currency to transact business with.We have asituation where we will be in for a hard way to learn to live like we were in a third world nation as we can't rob any materail goods from a third world nation whom would we sell it to and with what acceptible currency would the tranaction be done with, silver gold tey a loaf of bread and a tire for the car and some brake pads.Good night Mrs callabash where ever you are?
On May 03 11:23 AM OldFordTruck wrote:
> Since being laid off in January, I have been home reading extensively
> trying to understand what has happened to my 401k and what was going
> on in the markets. I spent all my time before trying to become the
> best Manufacturing Manager I could be and assuming the buy and hold
> stagey for retirement would work. Being an "average Joe" in terms
> of the stock market, this author hits the nail on the head as far
> as I am concerned.
>
> I have lost all faith in the markets, banks, government, and the
> dollar! I have worked my entire career investing my time and retirement
> money into companies that make stupid decisions with that hard-earned
> money. I now understand why and how the federal reserve is devaluing
> the currency and feel completely betrayed as a result. If I ever
> do return to a good paying job, I will invest my family’s financial
> future in gold and silver that I hold. Never again will I feel like
> a victim of the system! I might not have the biggest nest egg, but
> I will be able to purchase food for my family when the author’s scenario
> above comes to pass.
Market chatter is getting to much attention.
I figure food for a 6 month period and after that if they don't get things working well you better move someplace else. No i really figure i should move before the 6 months but where.
I 'm sickened by America's ways as i knew this was coming and my Corp. pension is worthless the Govt is as bad and if you go some where what makes people think another country will want people from the U.S.A.
The ugly American???? Do you blame them?
Where are yo going to work as a senior citizen really?
I want out now i don't want to wait the banks will take a holiday ordered by the govt and they will share your left over money to keep the riots under control for a few months. Hey yeah call a lawyer! More likely some loyal guy that used to be your boyscout leader from the National guard will follow a govt order call you a threat to society and your house will go up in smoke in 30 seconds and in this way legally the insurance company doesn't have to pay as it will be a act of insurgence a war like event. Your bank account will be frozen like in the 1930's
Folks Find a remote place bring food seeds and fuel and medicine and don't forget to change your address so the govt sends your social security check forwarding it to you and your family. Remember the post man always delivers.
Any savings you have will be used to support the needy and you well your just one of those collateral damages they speak of. Naturally this could never happen this is America not Durfur.
And i'm gonna work as a stand up com-mic so i can laugh myself to death.
The Govt in power right now walked into this mess and it has been brewing for decades so. You'll be like a space shuttle that runs out of fuel just past the half way mark to it's destination and can't turn back or get where it's going for what to survive for another month.What would you do if tomorrow your bank or broker shut down and the govt did what the State govt did last time the insurance companies went bad in N.Y.S. and they paid off from the fund 35 cents to the dollar for a life time of work to helpless people? Doesn't anyone want to speak about the reality of what is? What good is a Home owners policy that the ins. cos. are already reneging on by cutting the most important needed benefit for your area because they want to retain capital. you pay for 25 years and then they stick it to you all preplanned and you have no where to go.
They are doing it to your insurance agents policy as well.
If they print this lets see if or how others really feel about this.
Thanks guys for reading this as the market's gobbledygook won't be worth printing or reading later on.
On May 03 11:23 AM OldFordTruck wrote:
> Since being laid off in January, I have been home reading extensively
> trying to understand what has happened to my 401k and what was going
> on in the markets. I spent all my time before trying to become the
> best Manufacturing Manager I could be and assuming the buy and hold
> stagey for retirement would work. Being an "average Joe" in terms
> of the stock market, this author hits the nail on the head as far
> as I am concerned.
>
> I have lost all faith in the markets, banks, government, and the
> dollar! I have worked my entire career investing my time and retirement
> money into companies that make stupid decisions with that hard-earned
> money. I now understand why and how the federal reserve is devaluing
> the currency and feel completely betrayed as a result. If I ever
> do return to a good paying job, I will invest my family’s financial
> future in gold and silver that I hold. Never again will I feel like
> a victim of the system! I might not have the biggest nest egg, but
> I will be able to purchase food for my family when the author’s scenario
> above comes to pass.
Possibility of electricity shortages loom worldwide.
Coal to the rescue?
"jhenry@americaspowera...
To: bpayne37@comcast.net
Sent: Tuesday, May 5, 2009 2:20:28 PM GMT -08:00 Tijuana / Baja California
Subject: From mine to plug: America's Power tour explains coal-generated electricity process
Dear William:
We have just launched a brand new tour showing the coal-generated electricity process from mine to plug and would love for you to check the video out.
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Thanks,
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On behalf of America's Power Army
----------------------...
America's Power Army · PO Box 1638 · Alexandria, VA 22314 · Tel: 1-877-358-6699 | Fax: 1-866-605-ABEC
©2009 America's Power Army "
links in Henry's email included here.
home.comcast.net/~bpayne37/pnmelectric...
I had about 1,000 word reply written before I decided to focus on this one thing:
"This will demonstrate conclusively to all Americans that their government, even under a savior-figure like Obama, cannot, in fact, save them."
NOT A CHANCE IN HELL! The American people will choose "more government, please" as the answer to every crisis and government failure.
Americans, you have willingly elected to be boiled frogs. You got out the pot, poured the water, turned on the heat, and climbed in. You have been complicit in every way and at every turn.
Nice article, Big Jake. Been a long time since I've seen this many comments. That says something.
On May 03 10:14 AM Pcatlow wrote:
> The piece is an interesting and compelling read. I lean more towards
> the author's view than against.....but, the time-line will be stretched
> out further.
>
> The fact that I, as a Futures trader, am completely out of this market
> is my lead card in this play. Now, beyond that, my wife and I (childless,
> retired in a mountain top community, zero debt, and cash heavy) are
> in the final stages of a major move away from the USA:
>
> 1. We will sell our house for whatever it will fetch.
> 2. We are moving to Latin America.
> 3. I will trade into foreign currencies as quickly as I can and at
> the most ripe moment.
> 4. We will break all ties to the US tax system, since Tax rates on
> the "rich" (traders, income producers, and titans of industry - -
> those who make more than a dollar a day (HA!), will see their tax
> rates beat what we already see in the EU.
> 5. We will find our health care somewhere else as this will never
> be solved and the AMA has a complete strong-hold over the industry.
> Even the last word of my last sentence tells us something (profits
> from health is counter productive and leads to what we have now:
> huge insurance premiums, deductibles and we are scared doo-doo-less
> that a single health crisis will wipe us out---we are in our 50's
> and the BIG C could kills us in more than one way).
> 6. We will continue to believe not one word of the Wall Street spew
> we read every day.....and not one word of the 10Q's and Quarterly
> reports which contain lies, and misleading data...
>
> I could go on and on, but folks the good OLE USA is doomed.
The boomers delivered untold wealth ( confiscatory taxation) into the hands of these robber baron govts. But it wasn't enough, it never is. The govts grew ever larger and with this growth so grew the debt. This was by design. It was no accident. Even the beloved " conservative" Reagan grew the debt exponentially.
Dead man walking.
Wait, if we were not sheeple before, how did we arrive at this point?
Bond market takin a weed-whacker to the green shoots after that 30 auction...
> The author of this article is describing the best case scenario.
>
> This time we are armed with nukes
> up the gazoo. This time when its over its really really over. And
> now you know the rest of the story. Good night!
How do you know it's different this time? How do you know we haven't come this far before with nukes etc. and the only things left standing were stonehenge, easter island and the pyramids :)
I think this article is fascinating. But even more so are the disbelievers who comment. How magnificent to be able to nibble on this bitter pill and still be smiling! There is one possible hope - and anyone who has travelled will have probably noticed this - the US is disproportionately populated with can do optimists. Yes, we're soft at the moment, too much delightful illegal help. But we have been told through the media, by parents and in school since infancy that anything is possible, and we should try. Not all countries install this belief.
There is work being done in every village everywhere and always will be. The question isn't whether the US can survive. It's whether it figures out how to do it comfortably before we get so bogged down that it takes us generations to return to this life of luxury. So many empires have collapsed and rebounded to a satisfactory lifestyle. Of course it's our turn. But isn't it be better to start building a trampoline, or at least a parachute instead of just pissing into the quicksand?
I think "demand[ing] your rights" is exactly what's gotten us in the trouble this article outlines. The USA has gone from a society that balances independence with interdependence, to a society that's "me-first" all the time. You see it in the abortion debate, in the gay marriage debate, in huge consumer credit balances... which were enabled by companies who want huge (usurious) returns on this unsecured debt... and the list goes on.
It's a good thing to stand up for justice, but that should be a rare occurrence in a life otherwise lived in service and care for others. This is what builds trust, what builds relationships, and what builds a strong society.
In addition, some balance between production and service must be established in our economy, because when we have to buy everything from overseas, we lose all leverage.
On May 03 10:18 AM The Geoffster wrote:
> Well, it would make for a good movie... Still, if the worst happened,
> I think we'd be looking at some sort of dictatorship. I suspect it
> would be right wing but who knows? It's interesting to speculate
> though. We tend to flirt with socialism when the economy falters
> but it's not a sustainable model. I doubt our current path will work
> either. Our politicians keep promising us the moon and we keep rewarding
> them with our votes/campaign donations, bribes, rides on private
> jets, hookers, etc. This has been going on since the beginning of
> the Republic so maybe we will survive. My advice: go read the Constitution
> and demand your rights.
When a pit fighting dog is worn out the owner takes it out back and puts it down. We are fleas and our dog's collar is being slipped off. In other words, we are experiencing the engineered take-down of the US.
Read about how we evolved into sheeple:
standupforamerica.word.../
scroll down to the series entitled March Towards Socialism Parts 1 - 6
On May 07 12:28 PM coldcut wrote:
> "We are being extin­guished and stupefied as a people, reduced
> to a flock of timid, subservient sheep of which the government is
> the shepherd."
>
> Wait, if we were not sheeple before, how did we arrive at this point?
>
>
>
why dont add a few more "predictions" as a follow-up to this beauty....
As for all the 2012 references - i suggest this be read by everyone.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
I'm positioned for the ten. What about ya, now?
On May 06 03:33 PM Gross Profits wrote:
> I have a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and do research on micro/nano
> technology, which is said to keep the US competitive in the global
> economy. I hear from the politicians that the future lies with high
> tech innovations. Most of the students in my graduate program were
> foreign born. Many are now going back home. My wife is an employment
> lawyer and makes three times my salary. I'm looking to switch into
> patent law or put my quantitative skills to a more selfish use with
> an investment firm.
Hi Big Jake, long time reader (courtesy of the Automatic Earth), first time caller.
If you can hear me above all the racket ... I'd really like to know what makes you think that the US as a nation state will survive the enormous social and economic consequences of your predictions coming true?
I'd be keen to read your thoughts on why the US is/isn't going to fragment into a collection of individual states. There are massive disparities in wealth distribution across the US at the moment and according to your predictions (if I read them correctly), those disparities are about to get vastly worse over the next few years and that's not a good recipe for the stability of large-scale organisations - as a few people have observed about the EU.
It's seems pretty obvious to anyone with a couple of brain cells to rub together that the current model is quite profoundly broken and it's no surprise to me (a cognitive psychologist) that the guys who've been in the driving seat are having such a hard time coming to terms with the consequences of their behaviour. If you're interested, may I suggest that you read up on Leon Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance [1] and ponder a while on what kind of a massive psychological shock these guys must have had.
The down side of this is that it's going to take quite a while for them to be displaced by people who have a better bead on the situation (read "for their fingers to be prized from the levers of power") and during that time things are just going to get worse and worse as they quite understandably cling tighter and tighter to what they "know" to be the only solution.
Poor sods, they really need some effective psychological therapy, it must have been a huge shock to wake up and discover that instead of being amongst the beatified financial few, they had become a national hate figure --- not a terribly safe place in the gun-slinging USofA. Shades of "Ve vas only followink (buy/sell) orders." It's no wonder that they are in total denial because, according to Festinger, the alternative is literally unthinkable to them.
Anyway, you write: "There will be widespread tax collection issues, and a huge backlash against Federal and state bureaucrats" --- what do you mean by "backlash" here? Protests in the streets just doesn't seem to cut it these days, as we've recently discovered here in the UK. Obviously there is the possibility of tax strikes but will they be aimed at Federal or State taxation or (blindly) both?
Yours from t'other side of the pond,
Graham.
[1] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Jefferson was right & we will now will wait to see if Americans have the guts like like our founders had!
Jefferson was right & we will now will wait to see if Americans have the guts like like our founders had!
www.chrismartenson.com...
On May 03 11:23 AM OldFordTruck wrote:
> Since being laid off in January, I have been home reading extensively
> trying to understand what has happened to my 401k and what was going
> on in the markets. I spent all my time before trying to become the
> best Manufacturing Manager I could be and assuming the buy and hold
> stagey for retirement would work. Being an "average Joe" in terms
> of the stock market, this author hits the nail on the head as far
> as I am concerned.
>
> I have lost all faith in the markets, banks, government, and the
> dollar! I have worked my entire career investing my time and retirement
> money into companies that make stupid decisions with that hard-earned
> money. I now understand why and how the federal reserve is devaluing
> the currency and feel completely betrayed as a result. If I ever
> do return to a good paying job, I will invest my family’s financial
> future in gold and silver that I hold. Never again will I feel like
> a victim of the system! I might not have the biggest nest egg, but
> I will be able to purchase food for my family when the author’s scenario
> above comes to pass.
more or less the rupture of society and the economy will fall along the the articles description over the next few years, possibly even faster. Civil unrest will lead to attempts by the government to contain the populace by martial law, forced into the cities because that will be the only places the government controlled food will be available, most of the sheeple that will be starving and turn against their neighbor, no more going to the grocery store or walmart...the country will become divided ruler against ruler, those embracing the new world order system, others will fight for the constitution, the patriot movement (they will die). Those who are wise will be escaping the land, returning to their own country before the assembly of nations coming from the north led by the spirit of the medes, ambushes the most proud who says i am a queen, the lady of nations, who has driven the whole world mad through her coveteous ways. . she will be burned in ONE HOUR all her cities, And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buys their merchandise any more, the waves of the sea will swallow the land on the east and the west leaving only desert that will not be inhabited by man forever.
On May 03 11:35 AM Gregman2 wrote:
> Jake, I love reading you--this is akin to the film "MadMax." I tend
> to a greee with a few of your points (and scenarios). I too have
> wondered what a total breakdown and Balkanization would look like
> in the U.S.
> But, in the end the single biggest problem we have is too much debt.
>
> If this ultimately is forced to be restructured we can begin to pro--
>
> gress. And ultimately if prices become cheap enough here it will
> make sense once again to manufacture in the U.S.;-)
This time wallstreet held it together just long enough to be in the midst of an election cycle during the collapse to benefit from immediate popularist monetary inflation policy. The closest thing in history for comparison is the French revolutionary government, which driven by popularist demands for more and more paper cuuency issuance caused the complete collapse of the currency and all business, and violent social chaos within 4 short years. France in 1793 was the most powerful nation on the earth, not a Zimabwe circa 2000.
There will be consequences for printing 12 + trillion dollars out of thin air. Look to the history of the a French revolutionary period to see the result to a large powerful 'modern'country.
1. USA goes to war in the middle east for oil (yep, happened)
2. Iraw blows up Kuwait's oil wells (yep, that too)
3. Oil runs short and economic activity stops (happening right now)
4. Here's what the script says happens next:
To understand who he was, you have to go back to another time
when the world was powered by the black fuel
and the deserts sprouted great cities of pipe and steel.
Gone now swept away.
For reasons long forgotten, two mighty warrior tribes went to war
and touched off a blaze which engulfed them all.
Without fuel they were nothing. They'd built a house of straw.
The thundering machines sputtered and stopped.
Their leaders talked and talked and talked
but nothing could stem the avalanche.
Their world crumbled the cities exploded.
A whirlwind of looting
a firestorm of fear.
Men began to feed on men.
On the roads it was a white-line nightmare.
Only those mobile enough to scavenge
brutal enough to pillage would survive.
The gangs took over the highways
ready to wage war for a tank of juice.
And in this maelstrom of decay
ordinary men were battered and smashed.
On May 03 10:18 AM The Geoffster wrote:
> Well, it would make for a good movie... Still, if the worst happened,
> I think we'd be looking at some sort of dictatorship. I suspect it
> would be right wing but who knows? It's interesting to speculate
> though. We tend to flirt with socialism when the economy falters
> but it's not a sustainable model. I doubt our current path will work
> either. Our politicians keep promising us the moon and we keep rewarding
> them with our votes/campaign donations, bribes, rides on private
> jets, hookers, etc. This has been going on since the beginning of
> the Republic so maybe we will survive. My advice: go read the Constitution
> and demand your rights.
Toilet paper will also be quite valuable (as the people Katrina-new Orleans discovered).
On May 07 06:40 PM Dean M wrote:
> Haven't you made enough dumb moves already socking it all away in
> the stock market? Now you're going to buy into a gold bubble? Sorry
> dude, there is no buy and hold investment that works forever. Managing
> the nest egg is now like a full time job. Just make sure you spend
> more time on useful research than you do on fluff like this article.
>
Slavery only works when they cannot see our chains. Chains made of usuary interest, cheap credit and our private printing presss aka FED.
the Iluminati
couldnt have done it withour feminazi's destroying mens resistance to our oppression via family law court, cupcake support and restraining orders. Long live disarmament.
I believe both of these articles are worst case sitiations but definately could happen. I have been preparing for this outcome for 15 years and am now ready to survive the worst case.
Ammo is about to be unavailabe at any price. It will become a barter item only. Any ammo manufactured will be quickly purchased by whomever is closest to the factory. If you can find it, buy now!
financial company will crash and be gone, country will prosper. One day, the great american will force Fed into ashes. New government will elected. Old honest law will be restored.
That will happen before what you described will happen
On May 07 11:22 PM MadMadJusty wrote:
> Forget gold, dude. Invest in ammo and freeze-dried food. You can't
> eat gold or even trade it in a subsistence economy.
>
> Toilet paper will also be quite valuable (as the people Katrina-new
> Orleans discovered).
>
Excerpted from the Wikipedia: "...Pharaoh had an uneasy dream of seven lean kine devouring seven fat kine on the Nile, and of seven withered ears devouring seven full, ripe ears... Joseph interpreted Pharaoh's dream as foretelling that seven years of abundance would be followed by seven years of famine and advised the king to appoint some able man to store the surplus grain during the period of abundance...During the seven years of abundance, Joseph amassed for the king a great supply of grain, which he sold to both Egyptians and foreigners (Gen. 41:48-49, 54-57)..."
In retrospect, by comparison, I believe we have a double wammy here. Only only did we not have the Joseph to foretell and fore warn us to prepare for the seven lean years to come (2008-2015) during the previous (2001-2008) abundant years, we instead indulged ourselves in excesses during that seven contrived years of so-called abundance.