"But what it comes down to in my mind is I like the "earthy" lifestyle, and no matter what happens, it’ll make me healthier and happier - so there are goals common to both catastrophic and relatively unchanged living situations."
Amen to that.
That’s the path I’ve been on for a few years now. In fact, I was on the earthy path long before I was terrified by the fragility of our way of life, now I’ve just kicked things into overdrive a little bit. But beyond that, the direction I’m taking is where I’ve always wanted to go. So not that I don’t care what happens or that it doesn’t matter because I do and it does, it’s just that either way (if you want to look at this as a collapse/no collapse equation) my life makes sense.
Ok, so I know this isn’t my debate here, but Erik is not wrong, and has a good understanding of money (from all posts I have read of his). 5000 years of history gives the debasement (printing) of the money supply a zero % chance of sucess. No empire in history since the beginning of money has ever succeeded at it…ever. Although I do agree that the government is the only ones with the right to issue money and the fed sucks, That alone at this point will not fix the expansion of the money supply in play right now. The idea that 97% of all money "in circulation" was written in books is a bit silly, especially with the fact the the government backs all deposits in the US through the FDIC, therefore out of all those banks that ‘failed’ no depositor lost their money. This isn’t the great depression, the money didnt just all go away, some did, but not 97%, no way, not even close…nothing like the collapse of the money supply seen in the 30’s.
The fact is that money that was printed, and thrown at the problem is sitting out there, and the Fed is the only one that has to suck all those trillions back in, by selling the assets on their balance sheet, unfortunitly that window is small…if there is a window at all anymore, let alone the fact that half their balance sheet is distressed assets, and bonds (which I feel wont be as easy to offload in the future based off the intended yearly budget being proposed). Even if they do get 50cents on the dollar that still leaves trillions floating. If they raise interest rates (as they should, but wont) it will suck the little bit off life out of the economy…but still leave t he trillions they have already pumped in.
Now that mark to market rules are out the window it seems to me a wild card is in play. Banks can manipulate their assets freely now, as well as the hundreds of billions (trillions) these banks are sitting on may more freely be lent, then deposited in another bank, then re-lent again, then deposited in yet another bank, and so on. Do I think this will happen right away? No clue, I dont have a crystal ball, but the idea that all that money is now gone is ridiculous, and to tell someone they just ‘simply don’t understand’ when they are talking about historical fact is silly. Debasing money didnt work on a gold standard, and it definitely didn’t work when governments came off of them, ever.
It strikes me that this is one of the primary goals for Chris and Company…to facilitate preparedness and awareness that leads to this level of contentment.
I agree that would be one possibility, esp. if the prices increase very quickly and dramatically, which I seems entirely possible and confirmed by the latest Martenson Report.
But the scenario that would scare me the most would be Obama being assasinated. I think that would spark massive civil unrest almost instantly. I sure hope the secret service are on the ball!
Maybe what I’m saying is that from a purely objective & analytical
point of veiw - What are the risks to our views that could prove us
wrong?. (maybe not entirely but …to a degree)
There are a few risks actually.
1.The biggest of all is to close your eyes but in the same time pretend you are open-minded
2.Looking at everything from the economic perspective. Forgetting about other aspects of our so little understood world. People, will, mind, intelligence and soul. That is what matters. All else is relative. Including time.
3.Applying conspiracy and mainpulatory judgements to the economics sector only and considering energy data as "reliable" and not manipulated. Believing that truth has not been hidden and cover-up tries have not been attempted regarding true and new revolutionary sources of energy.
4.Assuming that everyone in Washinton is plain stupid and especially not understanding thet sometimes BAD means GOOD. Including measures taken by Obama and others. Remember that you first have to distroy the old in order to be able to rebuild the new.
5.Believing that in science all you see now is all we have. Is like believing all that media tells you about banks. Tip of iceberg and nothing more. Try explaining the first guy you meet on the street about derivatives or Peak Oil. Ask him if he knows about CM and his great CraschC. Is the same thing with you trying to find out or understand Tesla or other inventor’s work
And last but not least, disconsidering the guy that tells you that a gas engine can run 100% on water and electricity. Especially when the guy is one of the first that presented the demonstration on youtube by itself.
Even while a wave of reflex nausea washed over America last week, and
the unemployment rolls swelled by much more than another half million,
the greatest stock market suckers’ rally in seventy years pulled in the
last of the credulous. These are strange days. The earth is heaving and
the buds swelling again – at least north of the equator, where most of
the action is – and the global economy, which was supposed to be a
permanent new add-on to the human condition, is sloughing away in big
horrid gobs. But no one in charge of anything can believe it. The
banking fiasco has introduced so much noise into the system that world
leadership can’t think straight.
What they’re missing is real
simple: peak oil means no more ability to service debt at all levels,
personal, corporate, and government. End of story. All the other
exertions being performed in opposition to this basic fact-of-life
amount to a spastic soft-shoe performed before a smokescreen concealing
a world of hurt. If the "quantitative easing" (money creation) and
fiscal legerdemain (TARPs, TARFs, et cetera) happen to jack up the
"velocity" of the new funny-money, and the world resumes its previous
level of oil use, the price of oil would rise again – this time
astronomically because the previous crash of oil prices crushed the
development of new oil projects to offset depletion – and the global
economy will crash again. Only the next phase of the disease is liable
to move beyond the financial and into the social and political realms.
Disorder of various kinds will rule – toppled governments, civil
unrest, international tension and conflict. <MORE>
Hello Becky:
Wow, I wish I had a memory like you - or at all for that matter. Malden I would highly reccomend peeking at that book. I’d be most interested in getting your opinion of just that one chapter. Take care
[quote=ErikTownsend][quote=Lemonyellowschwin]
But if you’re looking for the trigger point for social unrest, I think it’s got to be the price of gas. Don’t you all?
[/quote]
I agree that would be one possibility, esp. if the prices increase very quickly and dramatically, which I seems entirely possible and confirmed by the latest Martenson Report.
But the scenario that would scare me the most would be Obama being assasinated. I think that would spark massive civil unrest almost instantly. I sure hope the secret service are on the ball!
Erik
[/quote]
Well,
I think there are the possibility of more than one trigger. Each of the
ones you both mention. Now, consider, as the states become less and
less solvent, they can no longer hand out the welfare checks. or cut
them back. Or, cut services, police and Fire.
I think there are many triggers that can lead to civil unrest. I
hope upon all hopes that we have a quiet natural disaster year.
However, with areas like Fargo being affected, one can only think what
happens as the surge of water heads downstream.
High gas prices will be sure to bring ruin in short order. I think civil unrest would be just the beginning.
I’ve heard Europe has higher prices than we saw at the peak last year, but I’ve not heard of massive unrest there due to gas prices. I think complete unavailability of gas for an extended period could increase unrest, especially if it causes shortages in life sustaining items such as food and water.
[quote=RNcarl][quote=ErikTownsend][quote=Lemonyellowschwin]
But if you’re looking for the trigger point for social unrest, I think it’s got to be the price of gas. Don’t you all?
[/quote]
I agree that would be one possibility, esp. if the prices increase very quickly and dramatically, which I seems entirely possible and confirmed by the latest Martenson Report.
But the scenario that would scare me the most would be Obama being assasinated. I think that would spark massive civil unrest almost instantly. I sure hope the secret service are on the ball!
Erik
[/quote]
Well,
I think there are the possibility of more than one trigger. Each of the
ones you both mention. Now, consider, as the states become less and
less solvent, they can no longer hand out the welfare checks. or cut
them back. Or, cut services, police and Fire.
I think there are many triggers that can lead to civil unrest. I
hope upon all hopes that we have a quiet natural disaster year.
However, with areas like Fargo being affected, one can only think what
happens as the surge of water heads downstream.
High gas prices will be sure to bring ruin in short order. I think civil unrest would be just the beginning.
C.
[/quote]
I agree with your logic. And it’s really one of the reasons I was kind of skittish about voting for Obama. If anything happens to him or anybody around him. . . . . . . . . it’s gonna be awful. it’s gonna be 1967 Detroit, Watts, 1968 Chicago combined. There’s sooo many people with sooo much invested in him and it’s impossible for him to ever live up to what he’s been made out to be(by the press, who worship him), especially if he keeps people like Timothy Geithner around him, but at least the way things are going, things might get better, or he might be Jimmy Carter, but if he’s assassinated, I don’t even want to think about how people are going to react. It’s almost better if he’s just kind of a "normal" president and not this mythical figure that the press made him out to be.
To your point, one of the best thinkers around on energy matters, Matt Simmons, recently observed that $140 oil was cheap. He thinks that $400-500 dollar oil is what is needed to spur further development and exploration. That means gas priced in excess of $10/gal. He also said we need to be thinking not of building more conservative cars, we need to be thinking of not travelling so much. I don’t think he meant by that that we should cancel our summer vacation at the shore. My sense is that he thinks we need to completely redesign our transportation infrastructure. Back in the 70’s when I was in college, I saw some numbers on what the automobile was actually costing us. It was then, and I assume still is, the biggest single expenditure supporting our way of life. Unfortunately, changing that in any significant way will be enormously challenging with very painful transition costs.
All that being said, I’m still not sure if you’re right or if taxes will be the final straw. Most of the anger I see locally is on the tax issue, which, I will parenthetically note, is also a big part of the cost of automobiles to our culture.
I remembered that you’d talked about the book ("Mean Markets and Lizard Brains") – sounded really interesting, btw, and then I just used the search feature. Fortunately, seashells aren’t discussed too often in this forum.