Roman_Fiddler

The Current Baseline Scenario for the U.S. Economy

Exactly! That is really what this boils down to at the end of the day. Too many superfluous people.
(Scared to even think this let alone type it, but maybe they'll be used as the masses were to end the last Depression....gun fodder? A war is a good way to get out of a depression.)
GDP and other stats sound like something Big Brother would pipe out to the people in 1984. We are being swindled before our very eyes, the system is entirely manipulated, the gap between rich and poor is increasing (gee, I wonder why?).....those that know the rules (and make/change them to suit) are having a field day, while the rest are controlled, manipulated. Basically at either end, everyone is feeding off the middle class.


On Oct 30 12:56 PM SAUBW wrote:

> The simple, but nasty truth is that we now have far too many people
> to do the work still available. Globalization and technology have
> gradually made a higher and higher percentage of our workforce obsolete;
> or at least not cost-effective enough to employ in our litigious
> and regulation-ridden business environment.

The Recession Is (Unofficially) Over

GDP is a hollow, meaningless, bogus stat. It has been pumped up artificially by the Cash for Clunkers stimulus money, and low interest rates and tax perks to encourage new property.

I'm not into gloom and doom, but that is how I see it. I think all govt intervention to re-inflate the consumer bubble is just setting us up for a yet bigger pop when it finally deflates properly (which it must).

Dollar Forced to Abdicate Its Throne

I don't think we'll ever get anyone with the power and the balls to actually pull off what is needed. I don't think taxing people more is really going to resolve this. What are our taxes going to anyway? If they were actually being used to resolve the situation that would be acceptable, but it would just be more money down the drain.

The Looming Threat of Peak Water, Part II

Yes, this is definitely going to become an issue in years to come.

I don't see daily washing as an issue, but I do think we need to urgently re-think how we do these domestic tasks, and ensure gray-water recycling is essential to all new buildings.

I am also amazed how few people collect rainwater from their roof, at least for use in the garden. This could also be used for flushing toilets, and plenty of other household uses, with a little re-thinking and plumbing.

I've heard a little about steam-cleaning clothes instead of washing every time, so maybe that will become more popular in the future.

Joblessness Drops? Hold the Applause

This will sound horribly negative, but I think it needs to be considered too:

Not to forget the bubble of 'useless' former consumers, and belying that, the bubble of an over-populated planet...


On Aug 07 11:58 AM conceptwizard wrote:

> While there is much talk of a recovery on the horizon, commentators
> are forgetting some crucial aspects of the financial crisis. The
> crisis is not simply composed of one bubble, the housing real estate
> bubble, which has already burst. The crisis has many bubbles, all
> of which dwarf the housing bubble burst of 2008. Indicators show
> that the next possible burst is the commercial real estate bubble.
> However, the main event on the horizon is the “bailout bubble” and
> the general world debt bubble, which will plunge the world into a
> Great Depression the likes of which have never before been seen.
>
>
> There is still an enormous oversupply of housing, which means that
> the direction of house prices will almost certainly continue to be
> downward.” Foreclosures are still rising in many states “such as
> Nevada, Georgia and Utah, and economists say rising unemployment
> may push foreclosures higher into next year.” Clearly, the housing
> crisis is still not at an end.
>
> In May, Bloomberg quoted Deutsche Bank CEO Josef Ackermann as saying,
> “It's either the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning.”
> Bloomberg further pointed out that, “A piece of the puzzle that must
> be calculated into any determination of the depth of our economic
> doldrums is the condition of commercial real estate -- the shopping
> malls, hotels, and office buildings that tend to go along with real-
> estate expansions.” Residential investment went down 28.9 % from
> 2006 to 2007, and at the same time, nonresidential investment grew
> 24.9%, thus, commercial real estate was “serving as a buffer against
> the declining housing market.”
>
> At the end of March of 2009, Bloomberg reported that, “The U.S. government
> and the Federal Reserve have spent, lent or committed $12.8 trillion,
> an amount that approaches the value of everything produced in the
> country last year.” This amount “works out to $42,105 for every man,
> woman and child in the U.S. and 14 times the $899.8 billion of currency
> in circulation. The nation’s gross domestic product was $14.2 trillion
> in 2008.
>
> However, this “bailout bubble” that Celente was referring to at the
> time was the $12.8 trillion reported by Bloomberg. As of July, estimates
> put this bubble at nearly double the previous estimate.
>
> This is the real bubble, the debt bubble. When it bursts, and it
> will burst, the world will enter into the Greatest Depression in
> world history.
>

Inflation vs. Deflation: Pick Your Poison

I'm fairly sure inflation will be the chosen poison. But I don't think it will be quite so painless as you imply.

P.S. I think the fisher pirate would 'accidentally' feed the woodsman pirate some puffer fish and keep all the gold to himself.

Analyzing the Australian Dollar, Up, Down and Under

Thank you, I found this very useful and informative.

A Thoroughly Exhausted Bull Market

Yes, I'll admit I could use some help here. I get the gist, but not a lot more, since the details are lost on me.

On Jul 23 02:42 PM bob will wrote:

> I eagerly read Tyler; however, I rarely know the meanings of his
> numerous abbreviations. We are amateur speculators; probably 98%
> of Tyler's readers do not understand his abbreviations. Please eliminate
> your "a"s, Tyler.

Bernanke Is a Man with a Plan

Even if Bernanke's plan works (which I highly doubt), the underlying problems of this mess are still all there, festering away below the surface.
And even if they managed to start a bubble in stocks to compensate the deflation of real estate (which I highly doubt), it's just a surface fix, just buying time.

The problems are systemic. We can't survive forever on speculation and creating money out of thin air.

Faber Expects a Total Collapse

Canada sounds good.
How about Australia?


On Jul 21 03:04 PM conceptwizard wrote:

> Canada

Faber Expects a Total Collapse

Okay, so if there is a total collapse (and I tend to agree it is more 'when' rather than 'if'), what country is the best place to be?

Of course self-sufficiency and a nice stash of gold, silver and ammo would help in such a situation, but where is least likely to feel the worst?

Six Signs Economy Is Turning the Corner

Turning a corner, sure...but what is around the corner...I don't think it's a recovery, that is for sure. I don't even want to THINK too hard about what is around that corner, let alone go there.

I don't know much about this huge mess, but I'm sure there are more than 6 signs that we are nowhere near the bottom yet.

Washington's Dilemma: This Isn't a Recession, It's a Collapse

Maybe the Disbanded States of America should leave CA to 'californicate' itself all the way to May-hee-co....

Winter's Coming for the Boomers: Part 2

The article does has a bit of a Nastradamus feel to it, but I liked it a lot. I really do see things heading somewhere along this path, sadly. It's pretty ugly, and I'm sad for my kids growing up with such a hard path to follow.

Honestly, it would be best if swine flu took out a huge bunch of us and replaced the war as the 'outside threat', then we could lower the population without decimating the planet as a whole. If there were a lot less people we might actually value human life, which we really don't just now (we value one another as consumers or in a parasitic way). We are for the most part selfish and greedy, have little or no clue about how to really fend for ourselves (I don't mean how to drive to the store or fill in a food-stamp application).

The oil dependence has to change, and fast, wherever you think the peak is. Even with gas supplies to last however long, you think the people controlling it are just going to hand it out to the masses to run their cars for cheap? I don't think so. I'm not sure if oil will be the trigger, but it will certainly add to our woes along the way. The middle class is going to be absolutely pulverized.

We need to go back to pre-industrialized life and pick and choose what worked back then, and apply it to today's technology. It really could be a good thing. We need to value nature and the limited resources we have, and stop being so wasteful. We need to work harder but most of all smarter, and with an awareness that we are part of an ecological web, and that everything we do has an impact that will finally come back to affect us.

It's an overwhelming amount of change we need. It is definitely going to hurt getting there.

Two Charts Imply Current U.S. Recession May Be Longest in History

Sadly, I'm convinced it will be much longer and worse than the previous 'Great' depression. I wish I could believe otherwise. I don't think we've really seen anything yet, this is the tip of the iceberg.

As for a fix, there are so many areas that need a massive overhaul in the US and beyond that it is just overwhelming to say the least. But it has to happen. I think this will definitely span many generations. It is tied in with our survival as a species. We think we're so smart, but we miss the most obvious connections all the time. Every economist should study ecology, and see how interlinked we all are, how the repercussions flow on and the entire system can collapse.

So many people don't seem to realise our economy is not in a vacuum, they still don't get it. They still see this time as purely an opportunity to buy the right stock and make a killing and laugh at how all the other suckers fared so badly.

They still don't get that all economies are reliant upon resources, and pretty much everything we have is on this this fragile little planet, and you can only suck the life out of it for so long.

We need an enormous paradigm shift. We need to create an eco-economy, where resources are truly valued, not just for a quick buck, but for the long-term impact their use can have. We need to revere the natural world in ways that neolithic cultures did, instead of worshiping a metaphor of 'money', or our own selfish gain. We need to use technology to get back to our most basic needs. People need to get back in touch with nature, instead of conquering it in a 4WD now and then. We need to have less people on this planet and actually value those that are left.

Enough, my head hurts.