Economic depression

[Hinny]

Must be a bit unsettling knowing that over 50% of the population now own guns ... hungry angry people do not a friendly society make.

Their society is so violent there has only been one President in their history to have not sent troops into armed conflict in some foreign land. Pretty sad indictment.

Paul Wolfowitz reckoned on the David Letterman show that they had fifty countries lined up that needed dealing to. This was just after the start of the last Iraq invasion.He is commonly credited as being the architect of that invasion. He estimated that incursion would take three weeks to complete.

There are plenty of US states where the major industry is what they euphemistically call defence. They need to wage war to support their society. As George Bush Snr. said when justifying his invasion of Iraq "...it's about jobs, American jobs"

It also deflects attention from domestic strife and woes.
Forget about poverty, poor education, abysmal health system etc etc. lets just pray for our good men and women serving overseas blah blah blah

[Hinny]

So that I get it right, if I eat a lot of cashews the voices telling me to not bring my gun to work will go away?

Maybe the ones telling you to bring your gun to work.
But they may be rational voices and you may be able to smile as you use it.

[Pedrostt500]

This is just my view of things, once the dust settles, it will be the nations that are rich in natural resorces, and that can sustainably exploit these resourses that will become the power houses of the world, so the likes of Austrailia & Brazil, are the first 2 to come to mind, the Southern African nations could be very big players on the world stage if they could get their acts together and sort out their tribal issues.
New Zealands place in all of this, is we will never be a major player as an Industrial Nation, our place as it always has been will be as a food supplier, because we will always be able to grow food easily and cheaply, compared to many other Nations.
the likes of China, India and Japan, will if not already have to import all they need as theses countries will quickly use up their natural resources, and will be unable to support their own people with the little they can produce from their natural resources.
But at the end of the day we will look back on this period in time wonder what we learned and realise we learned nothing as we the people of the world are, Stupid, Glutonus, Hairless Monkeys that live in fear of all that is around us, and will continue making the same mistakes time and time again.

[alanzs]

Maybe the ones telling you to bring your gun to work.
But they may be rational voices and you may be able to smile as you use it.

I never liked Mondays either...

[alanzs]

But at the end of the day we will look back on this period in time wonder what we learned and realise we learned nothing as we the people of the world are, Stupid, Glutonus, Hairless Monkeys that live in fear of all that is around us, and will continue making the same mistakes time and time again.

I think someone forgot to take their happy pills!

[puddytat]

But at the end of the day we will look back on this period in time wonder what we learned and realise we learned nothing as we the people of the world are, Stupid, Glutonus, Hairless Monkeys that live in fear of all that is around us, and will continue making the same mistakes time and time again.

I agree with Pedrost on this & I just took my happy

[Manxman]

It's for real alright - the American empire is a dead duck. Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch, of course, although I do pity the poor US taxpayer (and their descendants) who'll be bent over and rogered comprehensively over this. I see some of them are getting off their arses (sorry, asses) and protesting - as the attached pic shows.

This is a good read from the Telegraph. Highlights:
"Mr Paulson admits: "Raw capitalism is a dead end. I've seen it.""
"the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity … is but swindling futurity on a large scale." - Jefferson
"Having collected sacks of gold at Goldman Sachs, this former champion of free markets (Paulson) wants to nationalise assets at a pace not seen since Che Guevara was lighting cigars with Batista's legacy."
"There is no policy yet invented that can make fifty cents worth two bucks forever."

Don't think the yanks are going to sink us though, we're doing a good enough job on that score ourselves. What'll happen here in little ole NZ? We'll take the eye off the ball again (do we even know what game we're playing?) and get all gloomy over world events and lose all sense of confidence, business and retail will slow, property will slide another 25%+, companies will close and jobs will be lost. Our service economy will encounter difficulties, leading to a further downturn. It will be uncomfortable. Far fewer new TVs will be bought. There may even be a need to cut down on cappuccino consumption! The morons we elect (whichever ones) will doubtless try to jump start things by flinging buckets of our money around.

Fortunately John and Helen have all the answers! Tui...

It's time for all of us to grow up and take some responsibility for what's happening around us. It's going to be a bumpy ride for the next 10 years or so.

....lurv the photo.

[terbang]

Well the house of cards continues to fall. They have all been borrowing too much money and I reckon they programmed themselves that way.
Turn on the TV and watch any yank show or movie. You see teenagers driving to school in $50,000 dollar cars or you see an all American hero saving the world from Ze Germans, Russins, Vietnameise and even aliens. Many variants of a common theme, we´re rich and influential.
So here they are now, their kids are driving expensive cars all on tick, they're saving the Iraqis from themselves and its all getting a bit expensive! Perhaps getting kicked out of ANZUS and moving closer to Asia wasn´t such a bad move after all.

[Ocean1]

Well the house of cards continues to fall.

Yup. They also found a couple of decades ago that actually producing anything is just too much hard work. Much easier to sub all that out to south America and Asia.

There's an economic maxim that all wealth comes from the production of marketable goods. So if you stop making shit not only does your economy shrink but it leaks offshore, to those economies that actually do produce the shit you still can’t do without.

In the meantime they’ve spent the last couple of decades throwing their economic weight around and manipulating exchange rates, queering trade deals etc, all to keep the US$ value worth enough to pay for all those Toyotas and Samsungs.

They bought their own bullshit, believing they could all live the good life without actually producing enough to support the spending. Even those who made nothing whatsoever.

Sound familiar? The time to pay the piper’s well and truly here, if you’re not actively involved in producing something tangible you might want to consider a career change.

[scumdog]

The sky is falling, the sky is falling...

[terbang]

The sky is falling, the sky is falling...

Nope, but it´ll be raining cheap V8´s shortly. Here in Jeddah, I went down to the car auctions the other day, what a sight. Second hand imported yank tanks galore. You name it, it was there and the bigger the engine the better it seemed. At around 12c per litre, they just snap them up and you see them thundering around the highways a day or so later. Just missed out on an 8 litre Lincoln that went for roughly a grand Kiwi.

[slowpoke]

As someone born, raised and living in the US I'm getting a kick out of these replies.

On behalf of the American people I apologize for our stupidity and the fact that our failure at basic math has caused you guys financial hardship......

(edited for reasons of space)

.....Lots of people like me have seen this coming. Even though I could have afforded to buy a nice house for several years now I've continued to rent because prices were just totally unsustainable. I've also been keeping money in the bank instead of new investing or buying stupid shit. All of the stocks I owned have lost about 75% of their value this year. Good times.

This is the best "real world" post I've seen on this subject.

As the cluey bloke above mentioned, the banks/companies are left with no choice but to push their profit making to the limit otherwise you and I see them as economic lepers. If their profits aren't "up there" then they aren't seen as doing their job.

Most people are going on about "those yanks" "the greed of the rich" "the chickens are home to roost on Wall Street" etc yet the mentality of everyday Mum and Dad small investors is a carbon copy of those wanker bankers.

We don't choose to invest a couple of grand from an inheritance, or our kids Uni fund, or our superannuation etc in low percentile investments. We chase the biggest/fastest return we can get, almost without fail. Even now there are a lot of people rubbing their hands in glee going "Fucking great! I can buy up large now that stocks are down and make a motza!"

We deliberately max out our mortgages to buy in the fastest appreciating suburb in a suitable town/city. We revel in the fact that our property has skyrocketed in value.....based on what exactly? Even if we can comfortably pay it off we are still worshippers of the "growth is good" mantra. The problem is that despite being collective drivers and participants in the system the average Mum/Dad investor has no control whatsover

One of the previous posts attached a letter proclaiming that government regulation is the problem not the cure.....which just smacks of self serving foolishness. If someone has proven themselves incapable of driving responsibly despite limited guidance then I don't see how less guidance is going to improve the situation.

As a result it must be the job of Governements to having the guiding hand. These are the people who are (hopefully) truly aware of the big picture, and able to exert appropriate influence when and where appropriate. Yeah, it's a laughable view sometimes but there is no alternative. Really, there is no alternative. Sure they are self serving but far less so than those with direct monetary return from dealings that don't just put themselves but also others at risk. Now is the time to put a framework in place such that wealth creation is based on concrete capital projects/improvements not just shuffling electronic paper around the globe or "clever" accounting practices.

John Ralston Saul wrote something particularly apt well before all the latest shit went down:

"The conclusion drawn by ... most of our élites ... is that the population constitutes a deep and dangerous well of ignorance and irrationality; if our civilization is in crisis the fault must lie with the populace which is not rising to the inescapable challenges. And yet civilizations do not collapse because the citizenry are corrupt or lazy or anti-intellectual. These people do not have the power and influence to either lead or destroy. Civilizations collapse when those who have power fail to do their jobs."

[Zapf]

Oddly our policy is quite the opposite. Our stock levels are higher than they have ever been and increasing.

guess the question is, how long can you afford to keep the high stock level on for.

[scumdog]

Nope, but it´ll be raining cheap V8´s shortly. Here in Jeddah, I went down to the car auctions the other day, what a sight. Second hand imported yank tanks galore. You name it, it was there and the bigger the engine the better it seemed. At around 12c per litre, they just snap them up and you see them thundering around the highways a day or so later. Just missed out on an 8 litre Lincoln that went for roughly a grand Kiwi.

I followed the impact carefully on car prices during the last 'recession' when petrol prices were also high.

The V8s stayed the same price but the 'oh-so-economical' 4 cylinder cars went through the roof in price.

[alanzs]

I was back in LA in July. It was MUCH cheaper to rent a big SUV or Van than a small car. The world has turned upside down.