william
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I don’t think people get yet. Don’t increase any funds into pensions you don’t control. Do your best to manage everything. Figure a system out.
The government’s plan with pensions doesn’t exist. They laugh and say there is no solution which is true. The politician has one plan to try to get elected for four years – they have no long term planning.
Since a majority of the demographic will be retiring they will pull down the markets as they sell investments out of necessity. This was already done with a demographic of savers – Japan. The value of their money dropped the more they tried to live out a retirement. We do not have their luxury – namely a large nest egg. Nor can the government, if they wanted to, print money to solve the problem – this was an alarming study.
You see money in a retired persons hands moves differently than the working class. When all you purchase is necessities and sometimes less money really deadheads. There are different values to how money is spent based on its redistribution. Some chains move money quickly and others move its slowly. Statistically retirees direct their spending into the slow moving chains.
I would expect our decline to mirror Japan’s except ours should be a little deeper.
Its not giantly complicated. Its just that the US is following the way of Britain. Lets note how civilizations of the past had long long reigns. Egypt, China, even Rome. But today powers are bigger and fade out faster mainly due to the speed they use up resources. If you are a power and spare capacity will be effected you think twice before acting. More and more there are less and less options till things come to a stall.
Its notable flawed thinking in some of allied practices where China and Russia have won. They have nuclear weapons with a longer shelf life and practices that use less resources. Actual concepts like oil in the ground being a storage of wealth and pumping it out a cost which is so foreign to us.
Now back to the money issue. So we produce lots and lots of debt with little backing and no productivity. We do so by the threat of war. The US will go to war with any nation that does not accept their dollar as the international currency of trade. When this fails, which it will, inflation must kick in. You can’t pump trillions of dollars into the economy produce nothing and not create a tonne of inflation unless you have a trick.
What is the trick – the international currency of trade. Since the world trades in these funds few realize the affects of the enormous dumping of funds. Without this trick the US would be no different than Zimbabwe in its ability to print/create debt/create fraud (when commodity prices are ‘manipulated’ for the good of the people).
Since China announced 6 years ago that the Pacific Trade Pac would not accept the US as the international currency of trade in 10 years time few took notice. Since this trade pac includes primarily Asia, Russia, and India and most of the worlds resource countries as its secondaries it would effectively shut down the US being the currency of trade.
This would cause the devaluing of US dollars as they would start coming back home and flood the market. Inflation would be devastating. Some talk of a plan of the US to, at this point, have a bank holiday, shut down the money system and reissue a new currency only to American citizens.
Now a new problem would seize power. Even if successful it would be at a cost – deflation. The only way to create stability is to not take on debt in this system. The restrained money supply would have to be exaggerated to convince the world of the US’s credibility. Really that is what all the drama around the world is about – the US is losing credibility as a global manufacturer and innovator.
You will find the US has already placed battle ships and weapons in range and pointed at China for the very purpose of threatening it. If you remember Iraq and remember the threats you might remember the threat to only accept Euros in trade for oil. This was what was really meant when Bush talked about our enemies would hold resources captive and become powerful by refusing trade with countries that didn’t accept their beliefs. So yet another invasion to force countries to trade when they don’t want to. Capitalism is failing so Imperialism is being used to force compliance. This will work as long as resources last.
Eric:
A fun and little less serious documentary ‘how beer saved the world’ would agree with the premise that mankind became civilized in order to increase consumption of addictive substances. If we are going to really consider food survival aqua culture should be looked into because of its sustainability.
I find it doubtful anyone will be able to completely grow their own food without including meat. Actually when trying to obtain the calorie intake it seems we are actually taking in a high percentage of fat well above any food group. If anyone has accomplished anything close to growing enough food to satisfy their own consumption needs I would be interested.
Should also note that being completely self sufficient will by definition be leading to being less civilized.
I am one of those peak oil nuts and believe the whole thing links back to oil. Collin Campbell quoted a large banker after the banker realized oil wells will slow down in production : “My God we have a lot of bad debt … we are insolvent”. They had believed expansion tomorrow would pay for debts of today because relatively free oil coming out of the ground. Their whole analysis and method of doing business had been going on for more than 50 years.
So what to do. How about a ponzi scheme. How about a housing market that emulates the oil market. Hand out loans to everyone based on future valuation kind of like what had been done with oil. That could restart the economy without any ill effects.
Well I guess that went kind of wrong but its ok we have something else we can try. Lets try really low interest rates. That could restart the economy without any ill effects.
I am not sure if we will have deflation or if another scheme will be tried but any analysis brings me to one conclusion every time. First the schemes will not work. Second the schemes increase tension and cause greater instability. Third when attempting to not pay the cost of invalid thinking with stupid schemes the price paid is higher.
It may be that we experience inflation and deflation within the same year because of my second point. The government may temporarily be able to inflate the money supply to create inflation.
I am a little alarmed by Nicole’s misguided statement “shift to make women feel drudgery is their duty again, and to deprive us explicitly”
When I look back at the difficulties of what was being done and who did how much work it is clear – drudgery and being deprived was not a gender thing. 100 years ago both sides worked tirelessly for little gain and died young. If you were poor, which was everyone, things clearly would not be pretty. Individualism was not an option for anyone, you worked with the community or die.
After slowly reading the article and some comments I am more and more believing people are not being overly optimistic but incredibly unprepared.
History has already written the books and we don’t get to alter it that much. Yes people will live under the standards we hope for with modern societies but its a little worse than that. People need to bend their minds around the idea that without heat and with less food society will move towards 3rd world standards. Expect a larger gap between the upper class and poverty class and a nearly non existent middle class. Most shocking to me is the currant absence of the death toll this will take.
Many will die if the numbers are correct in this article. The only solution that has had any success historically for mankind is to form protective societies. In a world of the kind of scarcity that will eliminate masses expect capitalism and the greed system to fail significantly.
It seems that a point is being missed. Oil is still a fundamental to why deleveraging has been happening. Listen to Collin Campbell.
First banks lent out more than they had on deposit. They accepted people placing less than 5% down. Why?
At first you might say its not possible for them to be insolvent to take on greater and greater risk but it is. The feeling was this: Debts today will be paid through growth in the future. Even Warren Buffet is saying don’t worry about the size of the problem today we can grow the economy to fit the debt. It is all false.
But why are they saying this? Simply oil represents a seemingly unlimited supply of work energy literally replacing humans in the factory. Each gallon can produce 100s of man hours of work. Each barrel pulled out of the ground was producing for the economy an increase in labour.
Now in the late 90’s some bankers suddenly realized the dreaded peak oil possibility. Realizing they were incorrect in their assessments they were horrified “we’ve got a lot of bad debt on our hands”. What will we do? The answer became clear no one bank should be the leader of bad debt or the lagging tail of less debt both would be less profitable.
Unknown to everyone was the consideration of how this peak oil would show itself. As the increase of removal of oil decreased in 2004 a perception became clear among the banking industry. A perception of a long decline.
It doesn’t really matter if oil has peaked or if there is some alternative. What matters is internationally bankers have a vision of a long decline. That is what has caused the crash. That is what has caused recession. That is why bailouts will not work.
What will it take to change things? My guess is they are right in their thinking – oil appears to have slowed in its removal from the ground. So, if that is the case, the math needs to change. Create a resource based economy, admit capitalism has failed, remove capitalism as the driver of the economy and lets move on in a new renaissance of ideals of the way things should be.
To say the emperor has no clothes would be an understatement. The debt only describes consumer habits of spending unearned dollars.
At a certain point countries that matter will no longer accept the US dollar as the currency of trade. A few years back China put forth in its long term plan that it would in 10 years stop accepting US dollars in trade. They made the announcement to prepare nations.
China has stated about a month ago it will no longer strive to increase world trade but encourage economic trade within its borders. I don’t believe most get the implications but it is simply this: those mortgages and debts we have are held by the Chinese only in the short term and will not be held much longer.
Good luck and get out of debt. Credit is the new boring and Cash is the new sexy.
I find a mixed message within autoearth. One article deflation and devalue. Next comments about collapse and inflating prices.
I can see the scenario for either.
Someone should do an article on what the shortages will look like. For instants a shortage of oil will be a curious thing. Industry will stop short of production at a loss. Refineries have a different problem. Once processed oil has a shelf life. Like an assembly line consumption must continue. When less consumers are able to purchase and surpluses arise problems start. Oil tankers must still make deliveries, drivers need their pay cheques too. Even the refinery must keep production at a minimum level for a consistent product. Barring that the refinery will shut down. Restarting takes a long time once the whole process has completely shut down.
Here is my prediction.
First prices will fluctuate strongly (mostly downward) to control volume. Consumption must be maintained at a certain level despite the economy. Second should prices be a little on the low side we should expect shortages. This has happened in Toronto, prices didn’t skyrocket pumps went dry. Unlike the 70’s we don’t seem to be in a competitive market and prices didn’t follow supply.
Once this happens and it can be seen to be occurring well into the future then we have the problem. The problem is policy makers. Once they get involved it is anybodies guess.
I have seen local disasters and can tell you first hand when flood waters move in and the community as a whole are threatened its a complete game changer. The military moves in and takes control of everything. Farms with dikes get taken over and removed to reinforce the larger community. Likewise any pumps are removed and put to use for the greater good of the community. Interesting how quickly socialism is embraced and any capitalist venture is then called price gouging. For what ever reason there was little complaint.
So lets see disaster strikes and we work together as a society. People help strangers. Survival of the whole quickly takes precedence over capitalism.
I keep getting that its crazy talk to say that capitalism will succeed and we will not work together socially. Any attempt at a resource based society will fail, American will never stand for it.
News flash. In this disaster it took no media, no government regulation, in fact no efforts by anyone to direct, people just knew what was right.
Maybe we do stand a chance. Maybe we are prepared to base our lives on sustainability.
I couldn’t understand how consumer prices would deflate past what they are. Consider the t shirt you can purchase the big discount stores on sale in a package for a price that works out to $1. Shipped from China. Duties paid. Store cost paid. Lets figure your cost, no matter how fast you can sew, is 1 hour of labour. How will it become lower?
The answer: We didn’t pay the cost, we made use of slaves. Using the military to invade and influence countries we force others to build products below the material cost. The fact is the $1 t shirt doesn’t pay for the cost of shipping, duty, and store costs. Our ability to act as terrorist to 3rd world countries does.
Case in point is Guatemala where the US government as a point of national security invaded to force lower prices of bananas. The capital city was bombed because the country had free elections and had become democratic. This seems good but the people wanted wages that would allow them to come out poverty. This would mean higher food prices for Americans. American planners saw the possible domino effect of countries trying to get fair wages crippling America. The developed world depends on depressed food prices. So the army bomb, invaded and installed a ruthless dictator – and we got low low food prices. Good for everyone!! Recently with the advent of the information act the US military admitted to this.
So how can prices on basic items go lower? They can’t. We are losing our ability to invade countries to force a lower price. Historically invasions allow the pillaging and therefore instant resources are obtained but over year 2 and beyond there is a diminishing return. Many cases, in less than 5 years, the costs outweigh the benefits.
Currently there is an intent to invade and control all of the middle east – this will not succeed. When this fails many 3rd world countries will seek out independence and refuse to make lower price class goods. What would be the point you are selling the below the cost of material and labor.
BUT there is a way prices of something will deflate. Banks have figured something new out. Recall mortgage debts on mortgages more than 50% paid for. They have received more money than the initial debt but not the interest. The mortgage holder is now in bankruptcy. The bank then purchases back the property in auction for pennies on the dollar thus deflating assets in the markets.
Changing this to a economic algebra game lets see what has just happened. Suppose there are 1000 penny assets in the market and my bank owns 10 pennies and mortgages of 100 penny assets. Now lets call in the asset debts and possibly make 2 pennies. The books state we have 12 pennies in assets but the bank knows something different. They went from 10/1000 of market value to 12/902 of the market ($0.01 to $0.013). As the others do this they only increase in value.
proof this is happening this is an analyst I follow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtNlLyy8JXU&feature=g-all-u
So I will make a prediction myself. We will experience inflation/deflation a re-evaluation. Basic consumer goods will rise significantly in price while housing and luxury goods will drop. Because of governments involvement in creating money while manufacturing output dwindles we will experience classic stagflation. It is simple cause and effect and the fact we have not for years been adding value beyond our consumption.
The inflationary position makes sense in this way – money is being printed, credit is being offered to the masses to be used as money, there is still talk of remove the US as the world currency of trade. If printing money and easy credit both increase the supply of money we should eventually see some inflation. If the EU and China stop using US dollars for trade and those dollars come home to rest the US has hyperinflation.
Although the Ponzi could collapse suddenly it might fizzle slowly. Lets say I know you owe me a sum to great to pay and I owe someone something to great for me to pay. Anyone calling in a debt only sets in motion their demise.
I believe we are in for decades of steady recline and need to adjust to that situation. What will be profitable in the future? Bankruptcy and supplying the military.
I like the deflationary position. I keep my job, make the same pay, and pay much less for consumer goods. I also like the idea of the difficulty in removing our (Canada’s) resources. Keep them in the ground and let the others use up their low hanging fruit. Maybe this deflation future will be good for Canada because once things are all over we still have resources to sell at a higher pricing.
So I am not sure you are addressing what I have seen most as the reason for hyperinflation. Several nations have indicated they intend to refuse trade in American currency adjusting who is the world currency of trade.
China has not been vague about this, they have been very direct. We will not trade in US dollars and have a 10 transition period. As a planned economy and not democratically elected. This is not a threat but a statement intended for preparation. After this they enacted the Pacific Trade Pac, placing a special trade agreement between China, Russia, and India primary with others in the peripheral. There is no intent in the future to trade with anything less than a pegged currency of this group. Indicated was the fact trade of manufactured goods will not be a point of interest for China in this period.
Knowing communist countries long term plan carefully. Knowing communist countries care through a plan relentlessly despite harm caused to people to reach a goal. Knowing the trade pac carefully takes care of the needs of the core and doesn’t need the US.
Knowing the American currency will not be the pegged international trade dollar, knowing all the current trade dollars will then be dumped back into the American economy, knowing this is not just the sentiments of the Pacific Trade Pac but also has been spoken of by the EU and also OPEC. Knowing this threat would this cause hyperinflation?
Not possible? Why should any country accept worthless currency in trade? Why shouldn’t the economies of real physical production, containing most of the world’s population, be the new pegged world currency?
Why should a minority half way across the world be the trade currency?
When the US is not the world trade currency do you expect hyper inflation?
Clearly from articles posted many are not getting what seems obvious to me.
My background was in investing where I made good returns for a few years because I had methods of forecasting that were unusual. One part was to follow a companies supply and waste and apply it against a stocks returns to confirm posted earnings. Another was to track misleading statements to see if they were increasing or decreasing.
I pulled out of the markets 10 years ago due to highly deceptive accounting practices and a world wide trend of shortages.
Capitalism only works if there are surpluses. By its own definition it is the redistribution of wealth. If there is no surplus capitalism will not work. This is always the case. Don’t believe it then look at any third world economy. No 3rd world economy benefits from capitalism if there is no real surplus and in fact all the worst cases of dire position are only capitalist 3rd world economies.
What this article proves along with others likewise printed is that we have consumed the grand surplus. We will continue to receive less of the pie because there is less in total. What I mean is never before in even recent history has so much land been put to agricultural use there is no significant amount of useful land yet to be cultivated. Mines have mined out all significant finds and vanes are much smaller today. Fishing industries around the world have fished the stock to its limits. Oil is pulled out of the ground at an ever slower pace. In each and every place consumption is meeting its roadblock of raw material. There is no new find that compares in quality and quantity to what our fathers found.
So this is what is happening – the end of an empire – the end of a concept of capitalism. Its only a problem if one is totally leaning on the idea of capitalism. The idea that we need to consume to feel better. The idea that our neighbours needs don’t matter. The idea that we can consume our way out of a problem.
Its a good thing. The math of the situation is coming home to rest – we consume greatly past our ability to contribute. No one is working hard enough to consume 10 years of natures energy in a few months. Then to believe that your children are deserving of even greater consumption – I will be glad when this evil is over.
maybe just maybe things can crash hard enough to spark ingenuity
Isn’t that how capitalism got moving – a collapsing France with a revolution, a collapsing America and people with backs against the wall grabbed onto something anything to stay afloat – democracy and after a depression capitalism.
Maybe just maybe we can get desperate enough to grab onto something better. Something morally better with greater respect to all nations. Just a dream but its a nice dream.
What I mean by real cost of extraction is what geologists talk of. Suppose oil is being extracted. On day one you simply drill down and it flowed out pressurized. Eventually pressures went down and you had to use energy to pump oil. Today are largest oil field in the world is being pressurized with water to compensate for pumping as well – returning over a third water in the oil. In the beginning it cost less than one barrel of oil to extract 10. But today we are closer to 4 or 5. Independent of fixing dollars to some value, if the actual energy used to extract energy permanently rises, the cost inflates.
I read the kitco article and I am not sure about your point. Silver is in short supply and mining companies aren’t being invested in. Here is my take on this: Look at old silver mines and you will find generous vanes but new mines aren’t so generous. Old mines had simple extraction but todays mines are more costly. My belief is if you are doing a rare materials play stay out of exploration because the planet has been mapped and any good vanes that existed a hundred years ago are long gone.
Will an energy cost inflation relate to dollar inflation? I just don’t know. The politicians are awesome media spinners and possibly can keep confusion going on longer.
What surprises me is the general drive of the population to believe in some grand superpower in control that suppresses the world for fun and profit. A close look at the über-rich although powerful show there are some key flawed beliefs about them. über-rich does not equate to smart. über-rich wouldn’t follow flawed beliefs. über-rich never collapse.
So lets see what these Bilderberg über-rich are up to. How? A few rules to track people who are deceptive. 1) Used by the court system its called the law of first utterance: deceptive people tell more truth initially and continually back track to support what they want you to think. 2) The nature of people is to resist change keep doing the same thing. 3) There is a set of formulas used by these groups to predict behaviour which has made them super successful.
So when the agenda for a Bilderberg meeting was leaked and I knew who was speaking I then googled them. What is important is what each individual said 6 months prior. That will tell you why they were chosen. Following the week prior to them speaking will tell you how they polished their concept. Not perfect but when you track all of them you get the agenda. Depleted resources and overpopulation seem to be the only topic they speak of.
I picked a über-rich and followed his words, the first words he would use describing a new event. The verb fear was used repeatedly especially when as what direction he say the economy going, His common phrase: “I fear that …” Because I believe this individual lead this group and seems to be a spokes person for the group internally, I believe this is the reason for them to act. It is the common driving force of action among the über-rich.
What formulas do they follow? Demographics the following of similar aged group and similar culture and what their habits are. Governments and über-rich follow this and chart or graph it.
Like it or lump it government around the world didn’t need to talk to have the same agenda they just need to use the same tools. Suppose resources are depleted. As an elected government I must try to hide this fact as long as possible to prevent collapse of the economy. Depleted resources doesn’t mean we are even low on resources but that we are just past over half use of stored resources. The second half use more resources to extract than the first and cost of extraction exponentially goes higher until the cost nears the benefit at which point no investor will risk extraction. Governments around the world know through history how sizes of populations act and what thresholds they can approach.
Since no geologist would argue with the concept that resources are costing more to extract and when extracted resources are not of the same quality of the past we can conclude one thing: As long as the real cost of obtaining cheap energy/resources goes higher, which will occur in the event of peak resources until exhausted, we have real inflation. The über-rich have to prevent this from being realized otherwise we have a collapse. This is the co-ordinated efforts of the über-rich Bilderberg and governments around the world.
A while back an angry person wrote me telling me I was tripping the system. Generally, although the anger turned me off, curiosity of what this meant pushed me on to find meaning to what he/she was saying. Through many comments back and forth I got a gist of what tripping the capitalist system actually means.
There are those who believe the markets and the whole capitalist system is only just psychology. Nothing has meaning. If people are happy and stay happy markets are up, and if not markets are down. The dirty 30’s was only the fact that people in general were depressed.
Obviously this understates the markets greatly. In fact everything will come to some sort of real value in the end independent of all the investors happiness or sadness. If you are invested in a carriage building in the 1900’s all the happiness in the world will not change the fact you are going to lose everything invested in carriages.
But I find this delusion so great and so strong that it should not be underestimated. What are people thinking will carry Europe through? What will remove our debts and make everything good? Why are resources limitless and growth endless? Positive thinking – yes positive thinking can do all these things and more!!
We must restate the demise of our system more positively so as not to trip the capitalist system. Of course from this perspective those who speak negatively are the cause of the problem and who need fixing.
I sense a pattern.
The system can’t support a demand. More people are going to try to retire than any time in history of the current social system. The math doesn’t add up – simply put production will not supply demand with mass reductions to the work force. More people will be retired than the work force can support.
Politicians who need a short term result search for a quick fix. One quick fix is media – keep the talk positive. Another is laws, change the laws to allow fuzzy accounting. Change when you declare losses (losses can be deferred more than a year) and change the terms of return (allow more than a year to try to achieve interest returns that aren’t there).
Now this will allow calm during the storm. The people in charge are still in a panic they need those returns. In order to achieve a return one must drop legitimate blue chip for high risk returns.
At this point eager people race to offer their scheme of high risk for investment. Its all a ponzi scheme and the government is in on it. With less labour in the market and higher costs only one possibility is possible the current value of money will decrease one way or another.
Rolling blackouts sound harmless but that is not the case.
They greatly effect food quality. When refrigeration is inconsistent meat spoilage can be unnoticed till after consumption. Beyond the immediate problem the rolling blackouts encourage the population to store much less food for when a crisis does happen.
Rolling black outs would considerably hamper all services in North America and make travel difficult. Further because so much commerce is done with plastic most consumers would not be able to make purchases. For the consumers left your purchases would exclude all major chains as they require electricity to swipe your products, adjust inventory, and open the till.
Further, for North Americans, rolling blackouts would start the end of the fast society. Fast foods purchased at the store mostly require freezing and cooling.
There has been a paradigm shift where the rules are new. Growth and profit are only the increased waste and misuse of resources. Anyone promoting the idea of hoarding most of the resources to benefit a select few (the allied countries) is promoting the most bloody war. This is exactly what the American Dream is about.
If we cannot walk away from capitalism and these dreams, we need to embrace the most bloody war. Anyone who has done the math knows that to keep up these types of dreams many in the rest of the world must be killed.
I started to see the debt light about 5 years ago. Once assets around the world are connecting to debt and there are no assets not connected to debt you run into a repayment problem. It becomes physically impossible to repay the interest on the debt without the use of fraud. We have surpassed the worlds assets in debt and now live in a Ponzi scheme to pay it back. We have no choice but to obtain new debt, lie about making returns, and use the new debt to pay out returns to old debtors.
The truth is that capitalism has run its course and is unrepairable and needs to not be returned to. When there is ultimately a severe shortage of resources society needs better planning. Unfortunately this will hamper our freedoms but not choosing will set into play martial law and dictatorship.
I disagree with a growth mentality. No matter how you argue it continuous growth is not possible during a time of depleted resources. In fact once resources start to wane and growth use up more resources we have a name for that CANCER.
If we can maintain our size and consumption we would be something called sustainable. There would be no issues. We are unsustainable and will not grow or even maintain what we have. We will reduce it is just a question of how much.
So I looked up this guy and did some considering and listening. I like some of what he is stating and parts of what he is thinking is true. It should be noted that the statement I found was (paraphrasing) oil will be $200 by 2012, if not it will be because the world is in a recession.
Is it a credit crisis or is it an oil crisis? Really if you look carefully it is much like a chicken and the egg concept. Banks lent out more than should based on plentiful oil. So I am not sure anyone can separate which is the driving force because they seem to work in sync. If things get bad oil drops in price quickly. If oil goes up in price things get bad.
Clearly he is off in thinking capitalism will become ecological minded with carbon credits. I am seeing more clearly what carbon credits are – they are a superficial front to keep going towards destructive development and are currently ultimately failing today.
My interpretation of a Ponzi scheme
1. find something valueless
2. promote it as highly valuable
3. old investors receive new investors money as dividends showing a returnSo I am doubting this is exactly a Ponzi Scheme. I would also like to know who it is that would believe the US will export natural gas.
I found it interesting that fracking is destroying capital. But this fits well with my projection of surpassing peak. As resources peak companies have to over state resources available in the field to maintain stock price. As the well produces less investors demand the “rest” of the field be developed (drilled). Each way I project resource extraction I still come against this problem in order to maintain capital the resource sector must lie about the size of the field. To maintain the lie you need to drill needlessly and use up capital.
One analyst I follow commented that prices of fuel fluctuate to maintain the flow. If one piece of the supply chain has a long break it is likely independent drivers and small operators will leave creating a long break in supply. I would be curious if this also applies to natural gas.
I liked the strength of your argument – growth theology: businesses call profit good when it only depletes resources and may not provide a public good but just increase public consumption. This along with greed and corruption have left us twirling in the wind.
The weakness to your argument is that the dream was ever achieved. I don’t think so we have not achieved the American Dream and media intends not to let us get there.
I was watching a documentary called Affluenza. How we are attempting to purchase our way to happiness yet other countries achieve a happiness amongst there populace. Its got a bit from a Christian organization but there are a lot of countries who stepped out of capitalism and are not heavily invested in Christianity.
https://topdocumentaryfilms.com/affluenza/
So much has been said about America collapsing but I define it a little differently: rising empires rise to cause change and failing empires fail at preventing change. Right now America is trying to prevent change. History will tell if they can figure a way to embrace an exit from consumerism and move on to something more intelligent or consume till its utter demise.
I keep thinking back to when I was a teenager and my father telling me of the dirty thirties. What perplexed me then was how the whole roaring twenties could have happened right before. I kept asking how could credit and debt and money be so available with so few questions. How could humans not see that the lifestyle of the 20’s had a cost?
I guess the question today is did we learn anything?
Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity….
The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us. There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after.Ecclessiastes KJV written approx 935BC
Poetry that describes society.
I am not sure on the amount of savings dumped into this but because I was investing in stocks I watched news papers around the world. The Chinese paper I followed repeated had articles about the physical purchase of gold and silver. Even news casts where the government encourage this type of saving.
How could the Chinese government invest in infrastructure so greatly? Like America they could invest in the military and even going on mini wars that greatly displaces money from the system and from there point of view only has upsides.
love the title – its the right perspective. Its the autoimmune disease stage.
Good so everything is going as planned. Wondering what happens next though.
When it becomes evident that bailouts lose credibility how will the system try next to force people to continue with the system? What is the next stage of fix one does when even reissuing a new currency loses credibility?
Its our waste that describes our overpopulation first. If we are too populated we won’t notice in our food production first but our contamination. If water ways become so polluted with sewage but we as a society choose to pick up that same water and try to treat it hoping to get it clean enough to drink, then we are desperate.
The car brought us out of an area of sickness, disease, and plagues. Really? Yes really. I remember my old high school teacher talking about the good old days. “You think our town was like this back in the day? It was a seth pool of filth. Imagine ever person having one horse or more. Imagine ever street is graveled or more commonly dirty. As the horses move along they drop their waste. In those days streets were low and board walks built higher. Rain traveled to the streets. Literally in a heavy rain you could watch sewage travel by.”
In those conditions the peak population the environment can handle is limited – its a matter of time before some plague hits hard. Fortunately even if oil is depleted we will not return to the good old days cause disease will wipe out too many.
I believe our waste is a symptom of our disease. Our disease is we have picked the low hanging fruit of resources at no cost we have unwittingly caused a large problem. Looking at waste systems I have noticed a doubling time of about 20 years. I am only going on what I have seen but it seems in a 20 year period land fills of a few cities without growth have doubled. Are we, per person, consuming twice as much packaging as we did 20 years ago?
We will not continue as a society and increase waste in this fashion. Its a given, it fits under the definition of diminishing return, greater and greater packaging delivers less and less benefit.
We talk about our great democratic capitalist society. If it can’t completely tie the cost of a good sold to its complete life-cycle and even death cycle then society will eventually fail. Its that simple because of globalism each unit of everything is accounted for and we have to make it operate in a sustainable way. Sustainability is not sustainable growth but sustainable decline – and this we can easily accomplish.
Frankly I surprised not more people get this. Bailouts will repeat till capitalism fails so completely it become irrelevant and is not returned to. Although painful, people will die, somehow we have got to press on to something better.
Just watched a documentary: Everything is a Remix What if we take capitalism apart and mix it in with the free thinking open source movement to create a social network that accomplishes everything the State does now for us. What if we create a society without bureaucracy?
Can’t be done? Compare Wikipedia to Encyclopedia Britannica. Although wiki has far greater number of mistakes they are setup without the bureaucracy that would slow them down, and can fix mistakes within minutes.
So yes Spain is one of the first to experience the death of capitalism and will suffer greatly. But we don’t need to shut down in the face of horror we need to invent and reconfigure a new philosophy of economic reduction. How to prosper in decline, how be ok with much lower standards.
I don’t know if I was the first to say this about our decline but I have found many other saying the same thing. Hang on this is going to be the ride of a lifetime all the thrill of an amusement park without the annoyance of safety protocols.
I will try again to reply. Basically this follows predictions of peak oil. There should be no expectations of anything less than endless pain till oil runs out. After the peak comes the long decline.
To shorten it: wealth becomes fleeting, capitalism (redistributing wealth) becomes irrelevant, democracy acts identical to fascism (like the Nazis)
We are going in this direction and need to find another method of finding meaning to coexist or sit back and watch our governments remove citizens rights and commit human rights autocracies. Sit back and relax we are going to get to watch more violence and greater terror than some of hollywoods best.
The viciousness of the US empire is being pitted against the size of China. Further at some point the whole world will realize the US is the world trade currency because they are a dictator to the world. Not a gold standard, not oil dollar, but the threat of violence.
This time its different. The US is going to engage an someone with just as many toys and an interest in proving a point.
The demographics of the US is not good. Populations of older people are not that willing to send their grandkids to war.
see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRf7JariuqI&feature=share
As for a dollar I can see some advantage to pegging the currency solidly against something finite like gold. Much of the time politicians buy votes making promises that are beyond the ability of the economy. The real thing that I can see working is the type of Libertarian Socialism that started the internet, Linux and the open source community.
Since capitalism is the redistribution of wealth, and we are not going to have lots of that in the future, capitalism will become less relative to our needs. If we join into collective associations that freely donate we have a chance.
We have been at the trough for some time now and its been a great party but we might want to move on. If we continue to live in the plastic drive thru instant gratification lives we will find ourselves to be disposable in the future.
We are looking at taking an hour to make food again if we run out of our surplus spending cash. Items might have to last and fashion becomes irrelevant. The next generation is going to look at us strange when they hear about planned obsolescence. The future might not be that bad just different, more cooperative, less conflicted and a little less junk.
So I would like to suggest something different. I have been watching for a solution trying to get my finger on what is needed it seems this might be the answer.
The question is what is the problem? Debt. Debt so big that it out weighs the world assets many times. What caused this debt? A combination of business and government. Business found that by becoming a bank and offering credit it could increase its bottom line profits. Politicians found it was completely possible to buy votes. Once the debt became odious the international accounting practices where changed to cloud the amount and impossibility of paying off the debt.
In searching I have looked at a number of possibilities but the same conclusion becomes apparent we will not maintain the status quo and we will not be returning to past times of plentiful resources. Because we are resource strapped our backs are against the wall. Greece even more so, their resources were stripped so long ago.
So what is the best that Greece can do? What will benefit the greatest numbers and create stability? Careful management of resources and complete transparency of the books.
With that mindset I would like to propose what I have considered and now reconsidered again as the only direction possible. I consider it obvious that capitalism has failed based solely on the considerable debts it has raised. Likewise the democracy we have has also failed, like one politician put it, we are not your Saviour – we never promised to save you and that has never been our goal (our goal is to get reelected in 4 years).
Suppose Democracy is dead as well as capitalism – what is left?
I propose Libertarian Socialism. Not socialism as proposed within American neither libertarianism like what many try to scare us with.
We need to reconsidered what we are using today. This internet was not created through capitalism but through the ideals of Libertarianism. Check this out carefully. In the last 20 years many forceful creative effects where the brainchild of communities of ideals not the profit motive. Beyond the internet Linux also was developed with the ideals of the internet running the hubs of the whole system. These types of communities can and will be the future of the system.
Hard to imagine this Liberalism. Suppose I have a recipe for bread. Our capitalist profit system locks the consumer from the recipe and copyrights its access and recreation. Libertarian systems unlocks this and exposes the source even allowing changes to be made to it. If leadership likes the changes it allows the core recipe to be changed.
Since we all get high unemployment and collapsing infrastructure to look forward to it seems cooperation might work. Think of it not as some sort of communist system but a social system of working together pooling common resources to needs without the use of cash. Although government will radically change without the inflow of cash we can continue to exist and even thrive if we change fast.
Its worth noting that Japan has not yet brought Fukushima under control. They hope to begin a clean up next year sometime. The size and scope of the fall out exceeds the perimeter so greatly the Island is in many ways divided in half. This is a game changer for this country and may in fact shut it down.
They are definitely FUBARed and internationally we need to consider how to prevent this many reactors from going into meltdown and just how many can be located in one area without posing so great a risk.
To me this is an example of over extended resources to supply the endless growth economy. As demands so greatly outstrips resources the country compromises protocols and safety.
This is not the conclusion but the precursor to the problem of suppling infinite growth without infinite resources. The short sited solution is to continuously compromise the rules so the public doesn’t realize.
When you mentioned Mennonite it caught my eye – because I am Mennonite and grew up in this culture.
When you saying spending our time obsessing about the latest consumer craze we would more simply call this being worldly. Many Mennonites don’t live simply anymore but they understand the language still. Money is power and worship. You can figure out what you really have faith in by looking at your purchases. Do you believe in working on Sunday? If you make purchases on a Sunday you are using your power to make them work.
Further if one buys new what happens to the old. Are you going to fully use the item or are you keeping it away from someone who could? I don’t really live a simple lifestyle yet but I agree with much of it. It is so much more work. It is a slow work in progress for me.
The point of view is pull out of consumerism to gain a freedom. A freedom to feel good of yourself despite not purchasing items. A freedom not to have to value others based on image and purchases. A clear uncluttered view and not running to the noise of this world but in silence accepting and living and even thriving. Clearly every time I have seen this simplicity portrayed I have seen someone in the act of worship.
let the games begin!!!!
now lets see how long they will be shut out before they realize shutting out of credit will hit the profit bottom line
Simply put we are being directed to something scary. Good ideas like democracy are difficult and scary.
Through hardship we change.
We need a system that respects useful resources, possibly ending of currency, and the ending of consumerism. A system that depletes resources so badly starving some to death while increasing wealth to the wealthy.
Capitalism is the redistribution of wealth. What happens when wealth is fleeting? Does planned obsolescence make good use of resources? Although mass production shows greater profit by increasing production, if production numbers surpass need have we not just wasted resources. Is the creation of marketing wants to increase demand not self destructive when it is depleting resources severely? Are we not just taking from poor 3rd world countries but also from our future needs?
This is not just some flowery hippy talk it is the logical progression of consuming past the systems ability to provide.
really I don’t believe people get the gravity of what is going on
Protests will never work, the government is never going to do what is necessary. What is required is a complete revolution.
Not so sure anyone is ready for bloodshed and hopelessness.
I would like to direct readers to this site/blog. This direction means that it is a terrorist act to not take on debt. It is not ok to bully people unless we call them terrorists then it is ok.
https://www.dvorak.org/blog/2012/04/29/fbi-you-might-be-a-terrorist-if-you-pay-for-coffee-with-cash/
This will be a game changer.
spinning out of control the situation is circular reasoning
Feeling stressed and wipe out one grabs the bucket of ice cream and engages until the tummy gives one back the good vibes. After drugging oneself in this method and the high is gone one is left with the same stressed feeling and just a little bit heaver. Of course the cure to this is all to obvious – grab the bucket of ice cream and consume just a little more than the previous time. That should fix everything.
This is incredibly similar to governments who get a great high by creating money. Of course there will be no bad side effects to creating trillions and everything will be just fine (until the high is fading)
Maybe eating oneself to death is a viable option after all.
