Hey maincooncat, The only thing I can think of that might be added to your list is that those greedy wall street bloodsuckers are, at this very moment, continuing many of the same practices (some under different names) that brought all this to a head in the first place…AND…are busy thinking up new ways to drain the American taxpayer of even more cash, i.e. get us deeper into debt.
Otherwise, I liked your list a lot.
I remember Biden from years ago, growing up in Pennsylvania, he was a local politician in a nearby state. How strange that he is in charge.
I can no longer find the video (I think it has been scrubbed out pretty well from the net) but you remember this one:
"Gird your loins,” Biden told the crowd. “We’re gonna win with your help, God willing, we’re gonna win, but this is not gonna be an easy ride. This president, the next president, is gonna be left with the most significant task. It’s like cleaning the Augean stables, man. This is more than just, this is more than – think about it, literally, think about it – this is more than just a capital crisis, this is more than just markets. This is a systemic problem we have with this economy.”
Don’t know what he meant then but it seems oddly relevant. Except now they are loading the stables up with more horse doodoo (i.e. debt). Crazy stuff.
Regards and happy weekend to all
D
It’s an epitath for the American Dream.
Chris it is great to see the young Americans turn out to listen to you. That gives me some real hope for our future. Amazing the good sensible minds we have in this country (like your’s) & this administration lacks the common sense to gather some of these ideas.
Being facetious maybe Joe knows what he is really doing??? First you create inflation & then you fix it Jimmy style. Jimmy Vs Inflation. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,921854-1,00.html
Big Government has always proved to be bad for the people IMHO. Expansion of Big Govt is even worse, expansion of Big Inept Govt is a disaster! Then add in problems with the 3-Es & it becomes pretty clear…Houston WE Have A Problem.
Cycle9 says:Without a doubt C9, and it all started with the first mass-media enabled facist manipulation of our corporogovernment; a conspiracy which was designed by Edward Bernays, Freud's nephew (whom many of us here at CM are already uncomfortably familiar with, as may you be): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TyLnwNQfTQ&feature=PlayList&p=C8BCB8465846750D&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=1"It seems that a lot of the blame here and on other similar sites points to one of two things: our oversized government, and/or defective individual behavior. I have come to the view that these two are nice scapegoats for the real underlying cause: we’ve been sold out as a country by wealthy, corporate interests. They have bought our government, and they have bought our minds (through advertising)."
The Romans used fear (Catholicism); the U.S. Corporatocracy used fear (Consumerism); Nature, which will have the final word, will use?
Metalmongrel says:Sounds to me like a Jackson Browne song:'As Zappa says…
"The illusion of freedom [in America] will continue as long as it’s profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.'"
"Now the seats are all empty
Let the roadies take the stage
Pack it up and tear it down
Theyre the first to come and last to leave
Working for that minimum wage…"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtuvXrTz8DY (The Load Out)
Or, perhaps:
"Im going to be a happy idiot
And struggle for the legal tender
Where the ads take aim and lay their claim
To the heart and the soul of the spender
And I believe that whatever may lie in those things that money can buy…"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ii8lB82L8wc (The Pretender)
Mainecooncat said:Apparently you haven't been consulting "The Realist's Thesaurus" lately:"RE: My above post #9
I guess no one’s talkin’ me down yet!"
|
Main Entry: |
"Particularly doomerish" |
| Part of Speech: | financially bifurcated political adjective |
| Definition: | Right bifurcation: bleeding perspective of those who did not receive government bailouts; Left bifurcation: bleeding perspective of those who did not receive government bailouts. |
| Synonyms: | positively armageddonish; Celente-like; Google IPO participant-ish; without connections on Wall Street; Honest; Most likely to participate in violent purge of banker infestation after collapse |
Nichoman said:Need we look any further than the 2008 Presidential election to understand how quickly things can change in the information age? But if you really want to understand how quickly things can change, then consider that "denial" is something that truly exists, then spend the last five years abroad; i.e., Americans are the last to know."There’s more to occur than Bankruptcy and hyper-inflation; how about collapse(s) of governments at multiple levels, disorder…unfortunately also mayhem?
Maintain this will accelerate the remainder of this year.
Is everyone ready?"
Robinson said: "The problem is the corrupt goverment, and the goverment is peopleWhich is why I don't get the reluctance to act; in fact, we "act" as if there were something above people. Ain't true. Need to knock these underwear-wearing, shitting, farting, came-into-this-world-the-same-way-as-the-rest-of-us people off of their thrones; NOW! By whatever means! Problem solved.The problem is the corporation greed, and the corporations are people
The problem is the people egoism."
JAG said:It's tempting to consider that the "masters of the universe" have realized that they let their greed get out of hand (as Max Keiser has often suggested in the past), and now they are back-scratching, attempting (futilely) to keep the U.S. from collapsing by buying everything and everyone: they (GS) have to know that if Gerald Celente's predicitions for social breakdown obtain, it's the rich that will die first (Goldman Sach's employees will have a price on their heads); hence the attempt to levitate the Dow and appease "the beast." However, it's too late."It won’t happen, because Goldman Sachs wouldn’t be able to make any money if the financial system collapsed.
Its a government of Goldman Sachs, for Goldman Sachs, and by Goldman Sachs, so help me Goldman Sachs."
Unfortunatley, the "Sach"ing of the working-class wealth over the last couple of decades has been SO extreme (yet, to date, actually mostly unrealized, since the boomer withdrawals from the market are just beginning), that there is nothing they (the current Generals with temporary heads, AKA, Government Sachs) can do to save themselves from what We are about to become (and there are no places on this planet that an ex-Goldman employee can hide without being identified; I say that, having lived in most places a Suit with a case of $10,000 wine might be tempted to hide).
Jpitre said:Watch the spinning wheel and count backward from 100.... Your eyelids are beginning to feel heavy..."The truth is that wealth is created (as opposed to stolen) by the making things that are of value. Wall Street has nearly perfected the art of stealing from producers and pretending they are contributing to our well being, but only a small percentage of what passes for productive effort in the financial sector of the economy benefits anyone other than the few oligarchs in control."
Unfortunately for Wall Street, there are only so many rotations available in rotating mechanical systems before they wear out and seize up.
P.S. Thank you for saying what so few have said aloud!
God help us all if the US goes bankrupt.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/paulson-reveals-us-concerns-of-breakdown-in-law-and-order-1750076.html
Jessinica wrote:
help us all if the US goes bankrupt.I posted this or it is coming up in one of the DG's but Detroit is no longer going to prosecute low priority crimes. Their idea of low priority: Breaking and entering.
I guess what I am getting at is that as individual states go BK we will get a preview of what things may be like. Coming to your state soon…
Take care
More like, they were afraid Americans would come after THEM with pitchforks…
Now they should be worried about this w/Goldman Sachs as well as TPTB…Oh, I guess they’re all the same people. Actually, probably the best things that could happen is a bankrupt US so we could start over from scratch and roust the criminals out of power.
Jessinica there should be no worries right??? The first part of the article states:
The Bush administration and Congress discussed the possibility of a breakdown in law and order and the logistics of feeding US citizens if commerce and banking collapsed as a result of last autumn's financial panic, it was disclosed yesterday.Since we are under new management Joe Biden knows how to fix these things. It is purely a consumption issue. We just need to eat more & that should fix everything LOL.
From the Independent article:
"Making his first appearance on Capitol Hill since leaving office, the former Treasury secretary Hank Paulson said it was important at the time not to reveal the extent of officials’ concerns, for fear it would ‘terrify the American people and lead to an even bigger problem.’"
So what’s changed?
Hi. I enjoyed your talk last night in Boulder. A quick comment:
You can get a fit of 1.0 for the money plot (versus the .98 described) if you accept its logistic (not exponential) S curve nature http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logistic_function, topping out in the 1990’s.
The credit bubble of the 2000’s is the equivalent of a new "habitat" for money to grow, an unhealthy and untenable one, as you know. Hence, we are likely to see smaller s curves stacked on previous ones, at net forming a generalized exponential function.
So, I think your basic premise is sound, but can be informed by that very interesting flat line region of the 1990’s, which evidently hadn’t happened before in our data range, and was the equivalent of no new money for a short while that nonetheless aligned with a time of peace, growth, and increased security.
http://urbansurvival.com/week.htm
"Told you so!"
Paulson: Close to Collapse
Not that it comes as any surprise to people who read UrbanSurvival on a regular basis, but there’s a report in the UK Independent today that Hank "Paulson reveals US concerns of breakdown in law and order" should the financial system have failed in the wake of last year’s financial panic.
The reason that this is so important is that it gives credence to the report that back in (going by memory here) March 2008, CONgress held a secret session (only its fourth in history) and talked about how dire/grim/scary things would be should the system break down.
Ooops. memory isn’t completely gone yet…here’s a posting off the Honorable Ron Paul’s web site from that period under the heading "Congress Secret session March 13, 2008":
"Not only did members discuss new surveillance provisions as was the publicly stated reason for the closed door session, they also discussed:
the imminent collapse of the U.S. economy to occur by September 2008,
the imminent collapse of US federal government finances by February 2009,
the possibility of Civil War inside the USA as a result of the collapse,
advance round-ups of "insurgent U.S. citizens" likely to move against the government,
The detention of those rounded-up at "REX 84" camps constructed throughout the USA,
the possibility of retaliation against members of Congress for the collapses,
the location of "safe facilities" for members of Congress and their families to reside during expected massive civil unrest
the necessary and unavoidable merger of the United States with Canada (for its natural resources) and with Mexico (for its cheap labor pool),
the issuance of a new currency - THE AMERO - for all three nations as the proposed solution to the coming economic Armageddon.
Members of Congress were FORBIDDEN to reveal what was discussed. Several are so furious and concerned about the future of the country, they have begun leaking info."
Initially, these reports were passed over - OK, buried then - by the MainStreamMedia, which we assume had also been brought to heel through various scare-tactics which instead of reporting the news and risks directly, sat on the story while the printing press kicked taxpayer money to the biggest of the banks, auto companies, and so forth. As it turns out, that put what seems still to be coming on hold - but just for a while.
What few places talk about even today is the notion that all we’ve really done with the bailouts and fancy footwork is put off the day of reckoning so that when it comes, it will be just that much worse for all the additional debt, relevering, & money printing that will be further piled on to our past egregious financial misfeasance.
While there is still time for alert people to hedge their bets by investing in self sufficiency, there’s also a good case that by this time next year you’ll be looking back at even the relatively high unemployment rates and insane levels of government spending TODAY as ‘the good old days’. No doubt, the push for national health care and such is all part of ‘make work’ programs that government can retain control over.
The government’s strategic problem is that a massive Second Depression which we’re already into now will result in a serious downsizing of not only government, but of the general population as things like the globalist model of 'free trade/labor wage rate differential spreads - break down accompanied by a much, much lower standard of living in the US - not to mention the wholesale theft of a whole generation’s retirement planning by watering down the money supply in order to paper our way through events to come this fall and through next year.
Seat belt tight? Barf bag at hand? You ain’t seen nothing yet, although I’ll have to file the Paulson confessional under the ‘secrets revealed’ meta data set in modelspace and warn you that if you think my outlook this morning is grim, wait till you see the updated predictive linguistics report next week from www.halfpasthuman.com.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY&feature=related
Youtube video called Arithmetic, Population and Energy: by Dr. Albert Bartlett. Worth a watch.
With Kohn’s recent arguments against a Fed audit, the growing outrage over the recent "profits" by bailout recipients while many Americans continue to wallow, the 300% additional debt purchases referenced by the Sprott article, the comments from the Ron Paul website posted by damnthematrix, etc. ad nauseam…is this a powder keg with fuse lit with a bang in the near future or a slow burning rubber tire fire that’s been going for years and will continue to smolder?
Jeff
At the risk of swimming against a pretty strong tide in the comments here, Joe Biden’s comment reflects a large body of Keynesian thinking, e.g. fiscal stimulus - government spending - will lift the economy out of its stagnancy, tax collection at the state and federal level will go up, and the deficit will get smaller. Paul Krugman’s writings reflect this line of argument: see his 12/1/08 op ed piece titled"Deficits and the Future" from which the following is copied:
"Just to be clear, I’m not arguing that trying to reduce the budget deficit is always bad for private investment. You can make a reasonable case that Bill Clinton’s fiscal restraint in the 1990s helped fuel the great U.S. investment boom of that decade, which in turn helped cause a resurgence in productivity growth.
What made fiscal austerity such a bad idea both in Roosevelt’s America and in 1990s Japan were special circumstances: in both cases the government pulled back in the face of a liquidity trap, a situation in which the monetary authority had cut interest rates as far as it could, yet the economy was still operating far below capacity.
And we’re in the same kind of trap today — which is why deficit worries are misplaced.
One more thing: Fiscal expansion will be even better for America’s future if a large part of the expansion takes the form of public investment — of building roads, repairing bridges and developing new technologies, all of which make the nation richer in the long run.
Should the government have a permanent policy of running large budget deficits? Of course not. Although public debt isn’t as bad a thing as many people believe — it’s basically money we owe to ourselves — in the long run the government, like private individuals, has to match its spending to its income.
But right now we have a fundamental shortfall in private spending: consumers are rediscovering the virtues of saving at the same moment that businesses, burned by past excesses and hamstrung by the troubles of the financial system, are cutting back on investment. That gap will eventually close, but until it does, government spending must take up the slack. Otherwise, private investment, and the economy as a whole, will plunge even more.
The bottom line, then, is that people who think that fiscal expansion today is bad for future generations have got it exactly wrong. The best course of action, both for today’s workers and for their children, is to do whatever it takes to get this economy on the road to recovery."
I’m not saying that Krugman is right; I’m saying that Biden’s comment reflects a whole branch of economic thinking. Simply bashing fiscal stimulus as simple minded and idiotic is easy, but not very illuminating.
I agree with 99% of what I’ve read Chris write. The Crash Course and weekly articles are clear and bold at stating the magnitude of the problems we face as a society. I’d be interested in seeing debate on a few more federal level policy ideas. Stockpiling gold and food in my basement has some appeal as a short term, contingency strategy for helping my family and neighbors; but doesn’t satisfy my interest in working at a larger policy level. I’d be interested in a discussion of the vision for organizing at the community or state level or even federal level at the same time that we look after our own crisis needs.
hi szwells. welcome.
What you’re seeing as "simply bashing" is the cliff notes version of what tons of threads on here have done in substantively debating economics.
If you’re looking for more substance to refute Keynesianism, though in our guts we all instinctively know that doubling down on debt (that’s what federal spending is) when systemic overleverage is the problem in the first place is a horrific idea, then start with Steve Keen’s site at Steve Keen's Debtwatch - Analysing the Collapse of the Global Debt Bubble and Irving Fisher’s old debt theories from the depression, and also read some Austrian econ.
The problem is that Keynesianism and today’s evolution called neoclassical economics, assumes away debt. The real world has just obliterated that assumption. If Keynesianism were true, this crash would not have happened…govt spending was already galactic. Unfortunately 6.7 billion people in the world are going to miserably suffer as a result to learn the lesson that debt matters.
For starters though, I recommend just thinking through these Krugman lines. How could they possibly be true? I know in ivory tower lingo we could make a case, but in the real world, what’s your gut?
Hilarious. He’s so caught up in systemic thinking he misses the humanity behind all this. It’s money we owe to ourselves? No it’s american citizens owing it to investors…some are Asians and some are super-rich american investors. That’s not "ourselves."
[quote=Krugman]But right now we have a fundamental shortfall in private spending: consumers are rediscovering the virtues of saving at the same moment that businesses, burned by past excesses and hamstrung by the troubles of the financial system, are cutting back on investment. That gap will eventually close, but until it does, government spending must take up the slack. Otherwise, private investment, and the economy as a whole, will plunge even more.[/quote]
There is no such thing as government spending…it has no money…it goes into debt to spend. Therefore, it is forced private spending of future citizens against the will of current citizens who know in their gut it’s not a time to spend. With that clarification, what’s your gut say?
[quote=Krugman]The bottom line, then, is that people who think that fiscal expansion today is bad for future generations have got it exactly wrong. The best course of action, both for today’s workers and for their children, is to do whatever it takes to get this economy on the road to recovery."[/quote]
Again it’s scary how clueless some ivy leaguers can be. His last sentence is true. But he thinks government spending money it doesn’t have is the "whatever it takes." Nope. "Whatever it takes" is letting the economy correct, letting the debt deflate, letting things reset, letting savings be created again, then a production engine for our future generations can be built. That is going to happen regardless. It’s better to let it happen immediately, rather than doubling down on the debt (the problem in the first place) which just transfers trillions from the many to the rich few the government chooses to "spend" with.
Strabes said:Given that the system is utterly gamed and that the rich have an advantage that could in no way be overcome--with regards to some "investment" plan that the masses could participate in, it seems that the only possible outcome is that the rich will be dead before any semblance of justice and fairness returns to our system; the sooner, the better. I hope those who are about to begin the necessary purge have informed leaders such that the innocent are not exterminated along with the ruthless, self-serving scum; aka, Goldman Sachs executives.‘Again it’s scary how clueless some ivy leaguers can be. His last sentence is true. But he thinks government spending money it doesn’t have is the "whatever it takes." Nope. "Whatever it takes" is letting the economy correct, letting the debt deflate, letting things reset, letting savings be created again, then a production engine for our future generations can be built. That is going to happen regardless. It’s better to let it happen immediately, rather than doubling down on the debt (the problem in the first place) which just transfers trillions from the many to the rich few the government chooses to "spend" with.’
P.S. Dear Moderator,
This is not advocating violence, it is merely acknowledging the reality of the future that is already ticking toward us… If you disagree, you’d be advised to expand on your understanding of history; something more lengthy than the term of your limited years within the realm of socio-economic cognizance, as what we have here has only rarely happended in the past 2000 years, and it has pretty much always ended the same…
I am so disgusted with the USA and our government’s bailout of the banking industry,
I myself lost everything in the crash of 2001-2003 and I had only earned it in the previous few years thanks to a good paying job which I no longer have.
Capitalism is based on competition and the free market system and when greed enters the equation it gets pretty ugly. If the U.S. Government wants to bailout our country’s economic crisis then the newly printed inflationary trillions should at least go to the taxpayers who face foreclosure and bankrupsty because of the unscrupulous policies of our banking system and credit markets. Bush’s $300 was a drop in the bucket; a single taxpayer’s portion of the $2 trillion dollar bailout would probably be somewhere in the $10,000-$20,000 range and that is what could of helped prime the pump, payoff credit debt and mortgage payments and helped unemployed families survive a while longer while the economy recovered.
Additionally massive tax increases on the ultra wealthy and corporate profits could be imposed to rebuild our countries infrastructure. How long will the USA be able to survive when millions of people are lacking the basics of subsistence? Surely our already massive prison population will grow and the only probable solution for our government will be to enter a large scale war and put the poor and unemployed onto the battlefields to fight for more control of oil rich middle east countries that are supporting "terrorism"
I am currently considering defaulting on my credit card debt and maybe even killing myself because I am now an economic slave with no desire to work to enrich the banking industry that should of been bankrupted itself.
Our government must let companies rise and fall and should stand aside when they come crashing down.
Bail out PEOPLE not corporations!
The last straw was having the bailed out corporations use the bailout money to give themselves millions in bonuses. That is so dispicable and grotesque that the entire population should just not pay anymore credit card debt or income tax and should march on Washington D.C. in the tens of millions!
With the earths resources dwindling and the population exploding things sure look dire for the future.
RM
ronmeisels,
Welcome to the site. I totally sympathize with you. I get more frustrated every day. But, please do not do harm to yourself. You are among friends on this site and I am sure we have much to learn from you and your experiences. It’s late here and I need to sign off for the night, but I hope to see more of you in the forum in the days to come.
becky
I think the reason for wall street’s. . .errr, Joe Biden’s comment is quite clear. When everything comes crashing down, they want not a penny left in the pocket of those who would be their ‘marks’. Spend, spend, spend - save yourselves by saving the economy. It’s utter nonsense of course, but there are so many who fall for it.
When I started telling my friends about the coming financial collapse over a decade ago, I explained that the stock markets would be the last thing to go. It is used by the government and media as a tool to convince people of the strength of the economy. In reality is has little to do with it. In times past it may have been an indicator of confidence, but in this day, you really can’t rule out it being propped up by the FED.
BTW, I just found you website and your work Chris and have to say - you are a miracle! Really loved the ‘Crash course’, Watched the whole thing in one go. Of course, I’m an old-timer when it comes to this stuff, Used to read Jay Hansen’s die-off.org way back in the day and have watched Bartlett’s lecture many many times. Also very keen on Paul Grignon’s ‘money as debt’ and highly recommend it, apparently there’s a part II he just produced.
Cheers,
Tyler Jordan (American financial refugee living in Tasmania)