[ARCHIVED THREAD] - How long do we have? (Page 1 of 3)
Posted: 3/30/2009 6:26:43 PM EDT
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How long do we have before the wheels come off and the whole shebang goes a$$ over tincup?
This business will get out of control. It will get out of control and we'll be lucky to live through it. |
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Six months ago I laughed at the notion of the wheels coming off... I'm not laughing any longer.  The rate at which things can change is startling. One wonders at what point things like the economy are no longer recoverable. We are incurring staggering debt, has anyone calculated how long, if at all possible, it could be reconciled? |
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My question is; Will the new George Washington be able to defeat the new Hitler, whoever they happen to be? When it's time to pick up the pieces, who will emerge on top? Will the populace be so sickened of the rampant crime and violence, that cessation of violence under ANY power is acceptable, or will freedom once again triumph?
One last question. What will you do if the unfavorable side comes to power? Liberty or death (or oppression, both the same to me)? You don't have to answer these here, just consider them. Know where you stand. **Edited for continuity. |
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I'm pretty sure it's all going to come to an end in Summer 2012. I'm pretty confident about that, because a feathered Mayan crocodile god told me, in a secret language that only I understand, during a dream I had after eating too much Chinese food last year. With all due respect, the numbers do warrant some consideration. Easier perhaps in pictures (I'm a very visually-oriented person) 
.png/764px-Us_federal_spending(4).png)
Maybe you can find something more encouraging... I'm not seeing anything positive out there |
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Quoted: Quoted: I'm pretty sure it's all going to come to an end in Summer 2012. I'm pretty confident about that, because a feathered Mayan crocodile god told me, in a secret language that only I understand, during a dream I had after eating too much Chinese food last year. With all due respect, the numbers do warrant some consideration. Easier perhaps in pictures (I'm a very visually-oriented person) http://www.citizenstrade.org/images/fast-track-trade-balance.jpg http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/history.gif http://investing.curiouscatblog.net/images/real-debt-versus-saving.png http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/61/Annual_federal_outlay.png http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/43/Us_federal_spending(4).png/764px-Us_federal_spending(4).png http://www.urban.org/images/1001093.jpg http://jayreding.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/debttogdp.png Maybe you can find something more encouraging... I'm not seeing anything positive out there A lot of fail in those pics.  |
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I read the portion below of this blog http://www.kunstler.com/index.html to my wife. It might be finally sinking in to her that I'm not overreacting about what is happening.
"What’s going on now is nature’s way of telling you that America’s standard of living has to be reduced by something between 20 and 50 percent. You can have it in the form of a compressive deflationary depression, including widespread bankruptcies… or you can have by way of inflation, in which money loses its value. But there’s one basic qualification to this: the way down is not symmetrical with the way up. That is, it’s really not just a matter of ratcheting down to a standard of living half of what it was, say, in 2006, because in the event all the various complex systems that support everyday life enter failure mode before our society re-sets at a theoretically lower level of equilibrium. By this I mean our methods for getting food, for moving about the landscape, for deploying capital, for trading and manufacturing, for schooling, doctoring, and running public services all destabilize and, to some degree or other, fail to deliver their contribution to normal daily life. Banking (capital deployment) is already mortally wounded. It remains to be seen how this will affect the food supply half a year ahead in the harvest system. Capital is as big an “input” for our method of farming as diesel fuel or fertilizers made from methane gas. The failure of banking will combine with city and state insolvency to crush public transit, law enforcement, fire protection, and whatever flimsy local safety nets exist to keep the ultra-poor and helpless from die-off. The lowering of living standards by 20 to 50 percent essentially eliminates all but the must critical commerce, meaning that most of the stores in the malls and strip malls lose their customers and shed employees, while the mall and strip mall owners lose their rents, and the bankers lose performing commercial real estate loans. As all this occurs, tax revenues go way down, schools can’t pay their employees or buy diesel fuel for their yellow bus fleets. More people lose the ability to carry health insurance. Hospital emergency rooms are overwhelmed. Health care descends to Third World levels. Meanwhile, pensions are destroyed, the elderly live on dog food and ketchup. . . . This is where we’re headed. It could easily be worse than the 1930s, when we still had plenty of family farms, plenty of oil, plenty of factories in good running order, and a highly regimented population of workers unaccustomed to luxury, leisure, and entitlement. We’ve hardly begun to see the potential political repercussions of economic disorder now underway. I think it will start to show in a big way not long after Memorial Day, when the current false euphoric Wall Street rally ends in yet another pool of tears, and the despair trickles downward. A crucial piece of the outcome depends on what happens over at Attorney General Eric Holder’s Justice Department – which lately seems to have seceded from the federal government. A peeved public is going to start wondering why the bankers and insurers have not been called in by the criminal division to do a little ‘splainin'. As the spring yields to summer, the Obama team’s current fix-it plans are also likely to have run out of credibility. Mr. O better be prepared to get a new game." I find that rather chilling. So chilling that I went to Dick's Sports during lunch and picked up another 200 round box of .223. By the way, they were just about out of ammo. No handgun calibers. A few boxes of .270 and .308. Things are going to get ugly. |
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I'm pretty sure it's all going to come to an end in Summer 2012. I'm pretty confident about that, because a feathered Mayan crocodile god told me, in a secret language that only I understand, during a dream I had after eating too much Chinese food last year. With all due respect, the numbers do warrant some consideration. Easier perhaps in pictures (I'm a very visually-oriented person) http://www.citizenstrade.org/images/fast-track-trade-balance.jpg http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/history.gif http://investing.curiouscatblog.net/images/real-debt-versus-saving.png http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/61/Annual_federal_outlay.png http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/43/Us_federal_spending(4).png/764px-Us_federal_spending(4).png http://www.urban.org/images/1001093.jpg http://jayreding.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/debttogdp.png Maybe you can find something more encouraging... I'm not seeing anything positive out there To me, most of those charts are EXTREMELY misleading, and can lead people to draw the wrong conclusions. When looking at figured like debt, trade balance, deficit, etc. one HAS TO look at things as a percentage of the economy, NOT the absolute numbers. (The only one of your figures that really does that is the final one - all the others are deceptive because they are looking at absolute numbers that are meaningless without knowing the percentage) If I told you that I knew two families, one of whom had a $100,000 mortgage, and the other who had a $400,000 mortgage, can you tell me which one is in better financial shape? Just based on the DEBT numbers alone? Of course you cannot. You need to know how much income and savings each family has. If both families have $50,000 income, then the second family is probably in a bad situation. But if the first family is one welfare, and the second family has a $450,000 annual income, as well as fully funded 401k's, savings, etc - then it turns out that the family in trouble is actualyl the first one, and not the one with "more" debt. So most of those figures are meaningless, because they are not showing the correct numbers. |
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I'm pretty sure it's all going to come to an end in Summer 2012. I'm pretty confident about that, because a feathered Mayan crocodile god told me, in a secret language that only I understand, during a dream I had after eating too much Chinese food last year. With all due respect, the numbers do warrant some consideration. Easier perhaps in pictures (I'm a very visually-oriented person) http://www.citizenstrade.org/images/fast-track-trade-balance.jpg http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/history.gif http://investing.curiouscatblog.net/images/real-debt-versus-saving.png http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/61/Annual_federal_outlay.png http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/43/Us_federal_spending(4).png/764px-Us_federal_spending(4).png http://www.urban.org/images/1001093.jpg http://jayreding.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/debttogdp.png Maybe you can find something more encouraging... I'm not seeing anything positive out there A lot of fail in those pics.
It's all Obama's fault. |
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I'm pretty sure it's all going to come to an end in Summer 2012. I'm pretty confident about that, because a feathered Mayan crocodile god told me, in a secret language that only I understand, during a dream I had after eating too much Chinese food last year. With all due respect, the numbers do warrant some consideration. Easier perhaps in pictures (I'm a very visually-oriented person) http://www.citizenstrade.org/images/fast-track-trade-balance.jpg http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/history.gif http://investing.curiouscatblog.net/images/real-debt-versus-saving.png http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/61/Annual_federal_outlay.png http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/43/Us_federal_spending(4).png/764px-Us_federal_spending(4).png http://www.urban.org/images/1001093.jpg http://jayreding.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/debttogdp.png Maybe you can find something more encouraging... I'm not seeing anything positive out there To me, most of those charts are EXTREMELY misleading, and can lead people to draw the wrong conclusions. When looking at figured like debt, trade balance, deficit, etc. one HAS TO look at things as a percentage of the economy, NOT the absolute numbers. (The only one of your figures that really does that is the final one - all the others are deceptive because they are looking at absolute numbers that are meaningless without knowing the percentage) If I told you that I knew two families, one of whom had a $100,000 mortgage, and the other who had a $400,000 mortgage, can you tell me which one is in better financial shape? Just based on the DEBT numbers alone? Of course you cannot. You need to know how much income and savings each family has. If both families have $50,000 income, then the second family is probably in a bad situation. But if the first family is one welfare, and the second family has a $450,000 annual income, as well as fully funded 401k's, savings, etc - then it turns out that the family in trouble is actualyl the first one, and not the one with "more" debt. So most of those figures are meaningless, because they are not showing the correct numbers. Then by all means post the correct numbers. I'm not finding any metrics that give me any confidence whatsoever. |
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Six months ago I laughed at the notion of the wheels coming off... I'm not laughing any longer. The rate at which things can change is startling. One wonders at what point things like the economy are no longer recoverable. We are incurring staggering debt, has anyone calculated how long, if at all possible, it could be reconciled? The "economy" is a rather nebulous concept, there's always going to be commerce, work to be done, goods to be produced and consumed. The economic conditions of the 25 years prior to the top aren't coming back. They were built on falsehoods and debt. As the reality of that fact sinks into the collective consciousness the institutions dependent on the fictions for survival will fail, and new institutions based on reality will emerge. The economy will go on, just not in the manner to which we've grown accustomed. People are going to continue to look for somebody to blame for the fact that their expectations for the future aren't going to be met though, and there will be blood. It's really an open question how much. My biggest fear is that this is all leading to a Kondrietiev style trough war. |
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Quoted:
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Six months ago I laughed at the notion of the wheels coming off... I'm not laughing any longer. The rate at which things can change is startling. One wonders at what point things like the economy are no longer recoverable. We are incurring staggering debt, has anyone calculated how long, if at all possible, it could be reconciled? The "economy" is a rather nebulous concept, there's always going to be commerce, work to be done, goods to be produced and consumed. The economic conditions of the 25 years prior to the top aren't coming back. They were built on falsehoods and debt. As the reality of that fact sinks into the collective consciousness the institutions dependent on the fictions for survival will fail, and new institutions based on reality will emerge. The economy will go on, just not in the manner to which we've grown accustomed. People are going to continue to look for somebody to blame for the fact that their expectations for the future aren't going to be met though, and there will be blood. It's really an open question how much. My biggest fear is that this is all leading to a Kondrietiev style trough war. 
Not sure what will drive the next peak... |
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Go over every major industry that involves the hiring and advancement of workers from blue to white collar positions....
Housing/construction: overbuilt (chasing the money) to the point where we have 2 yr inventory plus the recent foreclosure crisis..... no quick turn around here. Steel/metals: with construction down (and autos too) most mills are running at 40% capacity.... they're on life support. Shipping, freight: Ever notice how empty the ports are? Farming: if it weren't for massive subsidies and ethanol.... autos, heavy machinery: GM, C and Ford all struggling with too much capacity, too many legacy costs...they'll be CUTTING jobs for the next decade to "right size"... the heavy machinery industry is alive only because of foreign sales (China, India). Oil, NG, coal, Nuclear.... no prospects for NEW power plants, new fields to exploit, etc. all on statis thanks to the Luddite Green party. We'll keep what we have but not add much if any new capacity - so no new construction. Defense spending on big ticket items like ships, planes, weapon systems: all halted or downgraded while Barney Fwank wants 25% cut in total expenses (just in time for the next land war in Asia!) That means a hellava lot of white collar engineers and specialists being let go from the major Defense contractors, Boeing, etc. So what IS booming? Not retail. Not car rentals, not the tourism industry (thanks Obama for dissing corporate travel!). Maybe the firearm and ammo industry? Rebar and home security people? Government (but only the useless bureaucrats.... cops and prison guards are still being let go by the states and local jurisdictions... while we retain useless admin people in the 'education' complex.... We've lost 2m jobs in the last year. 1m since last summer. Once their 26 weeks of unemployment runs out.... we'll see another wave of foreclosures. It's not going to get back to where it was for a generation, sad to say. 9mm was going for $1 per round at the local massive sporting goods store.... 
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Six months ago I laughed at the notion of the wheels coming off... I'm not laughing any longer. The rate at which things can change is startling. One wonders at what point things like the economy are no longer recoverable. We are incurring staggering debt, has anyone calculated how long, if at all possible, it could be reconciled? The "economy" is a rather nebulous concept, there's always going to be commerce, work to be done, goods to be produced and consumed. The economic conditions of the 25 years prior to the top aren't coming back. They were built on falsehoods and debt. As the reality of that fact sinks into the collective consciousness the institutions dependent on the fictions for survival will fail, and new institutions based on reality will emerge. The economy will go on, just not in the manner to which we've grown accustomed. People are going to continue to look for somebody to blame for the fact that their expectations for the future aren't going to be met though, and there will be blood. It's really an open question how much. My biggest fear is that this is all leading to a Kondrietiev style trough war. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/Kondratieff_Wave.gif Not sure what will drive the next peak... The information technology peak is the Bull Shit era where they stacked it deep and sold it cheap. 
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