SteveB
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Just learned that his majesty is coming to town:
http://www.fordschool.umich.edu/events/calendar/1447/
Don’t know whether I’ll bother to get a ticket, watch the webstream, or chop kindling.
Just learned that his majesty is coming to town:
https://www.fordschool.umich.edu/events/calendar/1447/
Don’t know whether I’ll bother to get a ticket, watch the webstream, or chop kindling.
kublikhan post=6263 wrote: You did not factor in interest rates in this analysis. Interest rates today are half what they were in 2003. Thus even though households are carrying a larger mortgage debt, the mortgage payment might be lower because the interest rate is lower. By 2010, mortgage interest payments had already fallen below 2003 levels, and the interest rate has dropped further since then.
I suspect that for most households, a lower mortgage payment simply enables them to pay of a little more credit card debt each month. If so, not the makings of a recovery. Anecdotally, friends trying to refinance haven’t been able to due to being ‘under water’. Those people who have been able to refinance aren’t likely to do so a second time due to the costs involved.
While low interest rates might make a difference for some individuals, they don’t seem to be significant in the big picture.
jal post=6222 wrote: Having thorium reactor as another heat producer does not seem me that there would be any decrease in the amount of heat that is being pumped into our environment.
Global warming problems … here we come.
jal, it’s not the heat that’s the problem, it’s the trapping of it. As for thorium, it’s already generating heat, just as all the other radioactive particles on/in the planet. It’s not as simple as just capturing the heat, but thorium reactors wouldn’t cause any kind of spike in heat relative to what we’re already generating, assuming that population and demand don’t climb further.
davefairtex post=6215 wrote: Usually, we only find out we entered a recession six months after the fact.
Dave,
That might just be the case.
The obvious question: is inventory up because no one’s buying it?
The emperor should be passing through any day now.
stoneleigh post=6204 wrote: We simply can’t say that any specific event is or is not a result of climate change. Climate science is probabilistic. The probability of a Sandy-like event may have gone up, but direct causation still can’t be drawn.
The Lakoff article on huffpo introduced the concept of “systemic causation” and quite effectively contrasted it with direct causation, I think. (I wonder if Kiwipoet had referenced that more directly in her/his lost comment, given that s/he referred to it as “Lakoff’s original post” in the subsequent one.)
That said, when a commenter has that much to say, with pertinent links (which cover the matter extensively), I don’t see the value in asking one of the TAE administrators to say it for them, beyond a request along the lines of, “How about a piece on climate change from your perspective?”
In general, a “say more” or “do more” request probably warrants a donation. 🙂
pipefit post=6156 wrote: The biggest lie of all is the extent to which the USA Dept. of Labor understates consumer price inflation. If they used the same methodology they used in 1990, the reported CPI inflation number would double the reported number (6% instead of 3%), and if they used the 1980 methodology, it would more than triple!!!
That reminds me of some relevant inaccuracies called out by Evans in Risk Intelligence regarding the credit rating agencies (2005-2007 data):
“The agencies gave the highest-rated securities (AAA) a mere 0.008 percent chance of defaulting in the next three years (that is, a chance of less than 1 in 10,000). The real chance, it turned out, was 0.1 percent (1 in 1,000). The agencies underestimated the probability of default by more than a factor of 10. With securities rated A+ the error was even worse, with the agencies underestimating the probability of default by more than a factor of 300!” (p. 119) [Note single exclamation point restraint. ;)]
davefairtex post=6152 wrote: The pessimists just curl up to die.
Is that true?
davefairtex post=6152 wrote: We need to maintain our optimism through these times because a positive attitude is critical to maintaining both motivation and good health, and at the same time remain clear-eyed in order to see through the lies embedded in unsustainable policies. How does one do this without turning pessimist/fatalist? That’s the trick, isn’t it?
I do it by questioning my thinking (and that of others as they express it–see above).
I’m reading Risk Intelligence: How to Live with Uncertainty, by Dylan Evans, and he offers a helpful discussion of optimism bias and related pitfalls. One interesting bit of info he shares is that depressed people are often more objective, but, paradoxically, their optimism bias can be high (due to their baseline being so low).
Optimism without bias isn’t pessimism, Dave, it’s just optimism–false dichotomies are another “gotcha”. 🙂
pipefit post=6108 wrote: I get the theory.
Not so, it seems.
A few suggestions: revisit what TAE has written about inflation vs. higher prices–“‘Inflation’ Deflated” (in the Primers section) was recommended by Stoneleigh recently; consider the validity of the indicators you cite; consider that what’s discussed publicly in the US is not necessarily a reflection of what’s to come; check your interpretation of the dollar price chart with what Prechter et al at EWI are saying about where it’s headed. My understanding from their recent email is that it’s quite different from (the opposite of?) your interpretation.
Your insistence raises the question (again?) of why you stick around here. If you’re open and interested in understanding I would think you’d be asking questions (not the type you answer yourself, that is) rather than making assertions.
stoneleigh post=6059 wrote: Things are about to get exciting (and not in a good way) IMO, so there’s going to be a lot to write about.
I agree.
I’ll be doing some writing in December as well. Slightly different topic. 😉
Thanks for your work, and please let me know if I can be of assistance.
stoneleigh post=6053 wrote: I realize it can be hard to find the big picture amid the huge amount of information that’s accumulated in five years. What we need to do is to sort out the primers to make them more organized and searchable. We may be able to find the time to do this over Christmas. Time is always a challenge however when there are only two people to do such things. I would very much like for the site to be more welcoming. Hopefully the new DVDs, which should be available very soon, will fill that role.
I have a great deal of patience with newbies and am happy to explain our worldview or point to specific primers (like Inflation Deflated for instance).
Understood and appreciated, Nicole. Is there anything in particular we could do to help?
I flipped through the Primers pages looking for “‘Inflation’ Deflated”, got to page 3 and just happened to notice it listed at the bottom under the “More Articles…” heading. A page 4 for those last three items might make them more visible.
I plan to (re?)read it.
I perused the site for a “here’s how we roll”-type message that might be pointed to when someone with Alan’s perspective or a newbie visits (or is directed by one of us regulars), but found nothing suitable. (Could’ve missed it, of course.) Something on the “Front Page” might be nice. Otherwise, the site and discussions probably appear somewhat unwelcoming and difficult to join.
stoneleigh post=6034 wrote: Politics is nothing more than prole-feed and misinfotainment. We only have the illusion of democracy, and it has been this way for a long time.
Because we use money. (Of course, I’m open to other opinions.)
stoneleigh post=6033 wrote: On a small scale solar is fine, although I wouldn’t go into debt to install it for obvious reasons. I wouldn’t grid connect it either. I have stand-alone solar with a battery back up myself, and I am very pleased with it. I do wish I had rewired for DC. Perhaps I will in the future. It isn’t a truly long term solution, as panels and inverters etc have a limited lifespan and at some point will no longer be able to be repaired or replaced. It’s a useful transitional technology though.
Nicole, would you mind expanding on your thoughts on switching to DC?
Also, care to speculate on what PV might be a transition to?
Elle post=6010 wrote: I’m surprised however nobody mentioned the newly invented energy storage: liquid batteries to store energy harvested from solar and wind enough for a city. It seems intermediate version: bigger than personal, much smaller than garganuan grids, enough for a larger community. 2 MWh of cheap storage, a size of a shipping container.
Huh. I thought it was going to be a water tower. Good luck to them beating that elegant system.
alan2102 post=5989 wrote: [quote=Carl post=5869]
(Since) 2008, over $40TT of the global ‘money’ supply vanished without a trace. Think about that.And yet, amazingly, prices for everything that people actually need and buy continue to increase, and gold and silver have doubled. Who woulda thunk?
Gold and silver only have the value that they’re sold or traded for. Doubling is irrelevant if the owner holds it all the way back down to–and perhaps past–its purchase price.The best use of gold is in the form of a ring. Get a spouse, a true partner. Then the rest won’t matter so much (as if it really did in the first place).
Variable81 post=5939 wrote:
I think you are more self sufficient than me & my family by orders of magnitude, but it suddenly dawned on me that I’m saving all my cash for… I don’t know what? Obviously for food/water/energy to ride out the deflation, but surely there must be some things that you are not willing to pay the risk premium to own now but will be looking to pick up after prices collapse (unless you truly are 100% self-sufficient – if so, congrats). Just curious to know what those items/things/services might be and your reasoning behind it?Here’s part of our list:
– Solar panels. Not sure about battery bank, but Ilargi’s comments are on my mind.
– Electric boiler to replace current natural gas-fueled one. Replaced pump last year, so that should last.
– Electric heat pump water heater and parts, or else regular electric one if heat pump model doesn’t have good track record by then.
– More insulation.
– LED lamps.
– Hand-pump water filter. Probably sooner rather than later.
– Another rain barrel for overflow.
– Solar oven.
– CSA share for meat to keep local farmer in business. (We grow most of our own veggies, will add mushrooms and egg-layers next year. Maybe bees. Already invested in jump start of 40 cubic yards of compost, 20+ fruit trees, berry patches, hundreds of native plants to supply food for pollinators and other beneficial insects, and more. Our city lot is about 0.22 acre.)
– Parts for our induction stove. (Still need to ask our appliance repair shop guy which are most likely to fail.)
We’ve been looking for other ideas. Thanks for asking, V.
davefairtex post=5912 wrote: illargi –
Then why are all those companies, GE, Siemens etc., closing their solar divisions?
…
But I stand by what I said before. Rooftop solar, even unsubsidized, is starting to look attractive – depending on location, especially in the low interest rate environment.
And in three years? I think it will be an even clearer win by then.
Dave, you seem to be projecting the present into the future. Ilargi’s question might have been seen as a reminder that that’s a futile exercise.
tall tom post=5773 wrote: Until you can understand this you will have little clue as to what is about to overwhelm you.
tall tom, I can understand imaginary bubbles, but not how they relate to reality. Could you put your example into more real context? In particular, what would correspond in reality to the bubble your hypothetical observer is standing on?
TIA
Professorlocknload post=5661 wrote: Trivuim,
Just knowin’ you’re gonna like this link! If you haven’t already seen it.
Pretty funny. Prof, meet Triv.
Triv, it’s overwhelming. And to what end? Why slog through it in order to (just maybe) understand it?
TheTrivium4TW post=5520 wrote: Ilargi, IMHO, your commentary and insight into how this fraudulent, Debt Money Tyranny operates is excellent, but Bill’s pounding the table on the root cause… private control of the money supply, money defined as debt and fractional reserve debt money counterfeiting… points the way towards a more clear understanding of a workable solution.
Triv, are you under the impression that TAE is here for the purpose of finding “solution[s]”? That’s not my understanding of their goal.
davefairtex post=5496 wrote: I agree with the professor that civil unrest, increasing euroskepticism, the threat of civil war, and possible military coups are an increasing danger as time passes, and having a chart for the forces that act to bring such things about might prove interesting.
What I’m interested in is why such behaviors arise and why we seem to know they will and still don’t know what to do about it.
For the first, is it because people see no viable alternative?
For the latter, is it because we limit our thinking?
ilargi post=5475 wrote: My position, our position, often stated, is that the depression will be so severe that anyone who presently owns less than $1 million (complete ballpark number, but certainly no less that that) in real wealth (not stocks, pensions, real estate etc.), will have no use for gold. It will plummet with everything else once credit ceases to be available.
Viscount, Ilargi refers to wealth, not cash, so I suspect he’s not talking about all of that wealth being liquid.
Professorlocknload post=5400 wrote: Most gold coins seem to outlast the empires that minted them,so…?
So buy gold if you’re out of debt, flush with cash, employed, healthy and relatively young. Otherwise the empire will probably outlast you if not the gold. If you’re not there now, you probably have a few months to get there.
Synchro post=5385 wrote: However, if I had taken that $1000., and purchased gold instead, I would have $2280. in purchasing power today. Based on the fact that most people would rather have $2280. than $920.
Only if you sell the gold today. Are you going to sell it today (and perhaps buy something of real value, like insulation) or hold onto it until after its price drops back down below $778/oz., perhaps in a single day?
The choice for most people is not between $1000 and $2280, but between $1000 and much less than that (like a few hundred $) after the ‘crash’.
My choice was to cash out my IRAs, pay the penalty and taxes, and then pay off all remaining credit card debt after divorce. A few years since, my new wife and I paid off our mortgage with other savings and added passive solar glazing, thermal mass (tile), a wood stove, and insulation to our house, then bought about 40 cubic yards of finished compost (over time) and 15 semi-dwarf fruit trees and half a dozen berry vines/bushes and planted out our quarter acre on top of the former lawn and car garage site. Egg-layers to come next spring. Maybe honeybees the following year. We got shovels and trees as wedding gifts. We’re debt-free, sharing the surplus, loving life, and prepared to lose our jobs.
Oh, and we’re selling what physical gold we have by the end of the year.
davefairtex post=5328 wrote: If what you’re asking is for me to list scenarios and assign probabilities…maybe that’s a group task! And one you can help with!
I was asking more about the perception of such scenarios as “negative”. I don’t see the negative in paying debts. Less positive? Maybe, but compared to what realistic scenario.
Nevertheless, I appreciate your laying out scenarios and considering relative risk. That’s my preferred approach as well, for similar reasons. (I also recently read NNT’s The Black Swan, which was helpful in that regard.)
davefairtex post=5352 wrote: That is, when you are trying to leave somewhere with some of your wealth intact, and the government is controlling currency transfers (as in Argentina today) there’s no substitute for gold.
Leave to where?
davefairtex post=5324 wrote: Debt reduction, assuming you have the resources, has a positive payoff for some futures, and a negative payoff in others.
Do you really believe there would be a “negative payoff”, Dave? If so, could you be more specific? I’m asking for your personal opinion, not your assessment of popular opinion.
At some point, sharing different perspectives than what we believe of others (aka, conventional wisdom) might begin to have a “positive payoff”. I’m picking on you only because of expediency–you put something out for me to point to. 🙂
Viscount St. Albans post=5321 wrote:
Morbid Curiosity
That explains the reading but not the posting and commenting.
[quote=Viscount St. Albans post=5318]If you look through the archives, you’d be amazed the number of small market dips over the last 3 years that led her to warn of imminent market collapse.
Examples/links would help to evaluate the data, though I don’t know how it could help make the Guardian article more clearly applicable than it appears from a quick skimming. Are you perhaps (ironically) jumping to a conclusion?
[quote=Viscount St. Albans post=5318]
As of July 2012, she refused to acknowledge that the markets had surpassed their Spring 2011 levels. I pretty much gave up at that point.
Gave up on what? You’re still reading, posting, and commenting. What’s your objective in sticking around?
From their web site:
“About NCUA
Backed by the full faith of the U.S. Government, NCUA insures the deposits of nearly 92 million account holders in all federal credit unions and the overwhelming majority of state-chartered credit unions.”
Sounds about the same.
Golden Oxen post=5187 wrote: In a deflation, I picture crashing stock markets and corporate bond markets, with everyone selling and placing the proceeds in government bonds and FDIC insured bank deposits for their implicit government guarantee of safety.
Selling to whom? Wouldn’t the proceeds be extremely low if there were any to be had at all?
GO, given that the scenario I described is one of deflation, then bank closures, then loss of deposits, would the money printing you suggest occur after that? Do you think there’s another likely scenario in which banks would fail absent deflation? I’m just trying to draw out some more detailed thinking from your perspective. TIA.
What I initially intended to write is that this situation might be quite different from that of the Great Depression–which Schiff notes (p. 78) resulted in the loss of only about 2.5% of all deposits due to bank failures–even though we now have the FDIC. I’m not making the case that we don’t need the FDIC (he made it well enough), but that its existence won’t make this time around any better. On second thought, he would probably say (again, rightly so) that its existence will make this time around worse.
Also, in arguing for the abolishment of the FDIC he writes the following on p. 85: “Consumers in other countries manage to bank without deposit insurance. Are New Zealanders that much smarter than Americans?” You apparently haven’t caught up with your new compatriots yet, Skip. 🙂
skipbreakfast post=5177 wrote: Funny, I thought that deposit insurance was supposed to make ME feel confident, not you the banker.
LOL.
skipbreakfast post=5177 wrote: There have been some great arguments made that deposit insurance lulls us into a false sense of security about our banks’ risk-taking, and therefore deposit insurance should be abolished. It’s a persuasive argument. Except I see the total and utter complacency here in NZ when it comes to banks, and we have not had deposit insurance except for that short window I mentioned.
I’m finishing Peter D. Schiff’s The Real Crash, wherein he makes that case. It’s also full of interesting court decision citations regarding Social Security and other arguably unconstitutional US economic/monetary/tax policies and programs. Interesting stuff. (He does have some blind spots–energy being the main one.)
What I’m thinking at this point wrt the FDIC fund is that it might get tapped out even before the next crash and never be replenished. (Which raises another question: how is it replenished?) So even fewer deposits might ultimately be insured than the limited amount that Nicole has suggested.
