Raúl Ilargi Meijer
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Thanks Diogenes,
Yeah, and Reagan’s former budget director David Stockman actually had Lee Adler ask if I would join his Contra Club. As for the gold ‘discussion’, I don’t see that going anywhere. And you’re right, I just watch developments.
It’s exactly that dire emergency we’re talking about here, GO. And being labeled a leftist, a detractor and a hater makes me smile. It makes no difference how many times I say I have nothing against gold, if you’re not with us, you’re against us. And that smacks too much of a religion for me. As for that timeline, that fits in well with the million and one websites popping up that sell and promote gold. And that makes me think too much of snakeoil.
koso
I’m in Holland right now, don’t know for how long, after 20 years or so in North America and 4 years travelling with Nicole on her speaking tours. Don’t think there’s a place that I can call home anymore. Certainly not Holland, though I was born there and still carry the passport. The time setting is a fluke, and I don’t care enough to do anything about it. My computer is still set to Eastern time.
Boogaloo,
Yes, the euro demise is different from that of the dollar, if only because it can take on lots of different shapes. My point is more that the USD is the strongest currency in the world right now, because of all the global debt denominated in it.
If one country were to leave the euro, the ensuing uncertainty would not boost the euro, but make it futile.
As for “I imagine holders of dollars wanting to see their dollars to buy something else, perhaps gold, perhaps another currency, perhaps an operating business, perhaps land …”. I would say: what holders, what dollars? That 11% plunge in US holiday sales is a big red warning sign, and we’re just getting started in the post QE world.
Koso, thanks for the kind words. All I am vis a vis gold is neutral, certainly not against it. But it’s become a true religion. with all the non-thinking and zero tolerance that comes with it. So many places on the web try to sell you the stuff. In 10 years or 20 years gold may be great to have, but we have to live through those years first. And sure, the USD will fail at some point, but who would doubt the euro will go first? And how long is that going to take?
GO: Yeah, you can’t take Big Oil out of the picture and expect the rest to just move along. The entire shebang is fueled by oil, and thus the oil industry.
Koso: The rate rise will come. They’re very busy painting a picture of recovery, see Bloomberg’s headline ‘Black Friday Online Sales Jump 22% as Jobs Spur Shopping’ today, exactly because they’re preparing to hike rates. They’ll ‘show’ us how well America’s doing, and say they have no choice but to hike. It may come sooner than we think, as in before the oil collapse translates into broader markets.
Also, the fact that US purchases from OPEC nations are at a 30-year low should be noted, in my never terribly humble opinion. With both the US and China, together a huge part of the market, buying a lot less, producers can’t but be nervous. OPEC will come with some sort of statement later this week, but who knows what they actually sell through whatever channels? ISIS is founded through ‘illegal” sales, and that same under the table market could distort official numbers a lot.
No Steve, I know, but it becomes a more direct transaction. All our growth has always been based on eating someone’s kids, but now it’s our own, because no-one has enough kids anymore to satisfy our greed.
.. there’s probably an argument that all of us ‘enlightened’ TAE’ers should be out there making as much as we can, if only to keep it out of the hands of greedy 1%’ers
Won’t living according to their ways just make them richer?
I don’t hold any grudge against Hugh Hendry, I’m simply using him as an example, or as a mirror. David Stockman runs the article and called it ‘Making Money While The World Burns – The Troubling Case Of Hugh Hendry’. I would not do that. People need to make their own choices, Hugh makes his, and I make mine.
That said, I am surprised this is not a debate that many more people are having. If there is no growth, profits must come from squeezing others. Hence homeless children and issues such as that. (US homeless kids rose 50% in 4 years time). Question is, do we want that? And if not, what are the options?
John et al, I’m not sure that labelling every little prime minister a full blown sociopath is very useful. They surely all have symptoms, no doubt about it, but you don’t have to exhibit all traits to be very harmful. The most relevant question in my view is probably the very basic: what kind of person wants to be in that kind of position? You can take it from there, it all follows from that. But 100% sociopath is not a requirement, the true sociopaths may well remain one or two steps removed from the limelights.
Rapier, in southern Europe, 50%+ youth job misery, it might yet happen.but it would need to be something Brussels can’t manipulate, and that’s an big added challenge, given how they put technocrats in charge all over the place.
But Grillo is of course dead on when he says it’s either us or worse.
Euan,
I doubt that we can say much about this in anything but very general terms. You’d have to know what costs and taxes, including hidden ones, are exactly in play. That said, I doubt even more that the world’s perhaps most politically empowered corporations pay high taxes; it would shatter a well-established pattern.
Here are some more estimates; they vary very widely:
Fossil Fuels With $550 Billion in Subsidy Hurt Renewables (Bloomberg)
Fossil fuels are reaping $550 billion a year in subsidies and holding back investment in cleaner forms of energy, the International Energy Agency said. Oil, coal and gas received more than four times the $120 billion paid out in subsidy for renewables including wind, solar and biofuels.
Energy Costs – Necessity, Not Folly
According to the SEEDS model, the total trend cost of energy this year should be of the order of $5 trillion.
Thorium is nonsense in the vein of the economic recovery: always just around the corner. The last thing we should do is rely on unproven technologies.
Zero motor cycles sure sounds like a way to save energy.
John Day, depicting deflation as even remotely positive (powering down) is not a good idea. It’s more like the bubonic plague of an economy, where fuel may well be saved, but is far from the first thing on people’s mind.
caith, I hear you
and it’s personal only up to a point, but it’s striking to me to what extent people feel disempowered, how people feel they just live in this world, but it’s not really theirs
polistra
the main difference between Greece and its neighbors is that one is in the eurozone, the others are not.
rapier, I’m not appealing to an empire, but to you: why do you let it happen? Why do we so easily let ourselves see this as something we have no control over? Because it feels easier that way? Because we have a get out of jail free card by pointing at ‘the elites’?
khiori,
A king in the past could declare a debt jubilee because in the end all debt was owed to him anyway, even if it was through a few middlemen (they owed him too). These days, such kings don’t exist, and debt is owed to many different parties. Plus, amounts of debt vary much more today than in days of old. The US owes China a lot more than vice versa. How do you solve that kind of problem. Your neighbor who’s underwater on a million dollar MacMansion owes much more than frugal you. But what’s more, his debt has been sold on to global markets in securities packages. Which raises the question why a Japanese investor would cancel your neighbor’s debt. The negotiations and litigation concerning a debt jubilee would take so long, if anyone even tried, that even if the issues could be resolved, it would be too late.
Carried over from yesterday’s Debt Rattle:
diogenes, there’s no such thing as a full width for youtube. you simple set the width on the clip page and then copy the embed code. 480px is fine here.
as for your other suggestions, I’m not sure I understand
diogenes, there’s no such thing as a full width for youtube. you simple set the width on the clip page. 480px is fine here.
Useful indeed, bluebird, it’s right up there in the banner menu. With platforms, and the specific themes developed for them, you get all kinds of things you wouldn’t choose, but are stuck with anyway.
When families feel threatened, insecure, and are barely able to stay on the treadmill, they’re not going to have more children.
Families have never been richer than they were in the exact same time the fertility rate plunged. Whether they would perhaps still have felt insecure for 40-odd years now? I don’t know.
On the one hand, anyone who falls for the Wealth Building Home Loan gets what they deserve. But given the average IQ in America these days, maybe the government should offer at least a minimum of protection. If not, you might as well make any and all breaking and entering legal.
Someone asked the other day if they could donate to TAE in bitcoin. This is our address:
1HYLLUR2JFs24X1zTS4XbNJidGo2XNHiTT
kibbinayye,
It’s not that easy, since not all countries issue truly short-term sovereign bonds. But the shortest term you can get, for sure.
kibbinayye
We’ve long held the point of view that short-term government bonds are the safest place for Americans. That hasn’t changed. Part of the system perhaps, but one the system can’t easily touch, since the government won’t default – not for now. Other than that, productive assets are obviously always good. Arable land, tools, skills.
koso,
It’s a three step move. Raising the dollar but not interest rates is very inefficient. The Fed views this from the perspective of the banks, not the real economy. They’ve given up on the latter, if they were ever even interested in it at all. Ergo, they’ve looked for the best ways to profit from the deflationary event.
My, you guys are negative; what’s up with that? I bring you all these happy tidings on a daily basis, and look at you!
The US is now checking on 80 people in the Dallas area alone whom the carrier has been in touch with. And that’s just the people they know of. The number could be 180, depending on what he’s done, did he go shopping, shake hands etc. It doesn’t include anyone who was at the Brussels airport where he had a stopover, and it doesn’t include many others either. The assumption is that one can only get contagious when symptoms appear, but no matter how fast the disease sets in, it can still take a day before the symptoms are recognized for what they are. So when you look at how lightly he was dismissed at one of more hospitals, while he was already exhibiting the symptoms (!), the grey area becomes a mile and a half wide. If I were a betting man, I’d venture there’s still a lot of complacency in the west.
Jeff, we live in a world where money is far more important than truth. That’s the pivotal point. It opens our doors to those for whom the truth is a hindrance to getting what they want. Since man is better at lying more than any other ‘quality’, perhaps that’s inevitable, but I still think trying to turn it around is the only hope we have. And no, I don’t think we can switch human behavior off or on by toying with circumstances. We are who we are, and it takes, as I wrote, 24/7 vigilance to keep us from falling into the trap we are by design.
