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No optimism mode, and no pessimism mode in my crystal ball. Just a wait and see mode.
"Just wait and see" mode is a gay way of saying "Hindsight" mode.
If I'm on the flight deck of an airplane in a 30-degree dive, airspeed approaching redline, and the altimeter unwinding rapidly through 2000 ft, I can either "wait and see" or I can try to do something about it. Odds are that I'll fare better if I don't just sit there waiting to be the first one to the scene of the crash.
Understanding the dark perils swirling around us in this economic crash is not just a mere curiosity...it is a survival skill.
And I agree with Bideshi in that the instruments on the economy's flight deck point to something more ominous than a bounced landing on the same old runway. The words "smoking hole" come to mind.
But I am keeping a positive attitude...I'm fairly positive that this is going to end badly.
Start at the end, read the conclusion, then go back and read whole article. It will lose some non-quantitatively inclined people in the analysis, but I think the conclusions are sound.
The bullet:
"There is no doubt in our minds that this is The Big One -- a depression is all but certain unless the US develops and executes a post WWII scale stimulus plan starting in 2009, but the structure of that stimulus is critical to avoid turning the US into a sclerotic economy dominated by large corporations and big government. In any case, we forecast 10 million jobs lost by the end of next year."
"Just wait and see" mode is a gay way of saying "Hindsight" mode.
It is also a way of saying that we always get our just desserts.
On the one hand, there are those who take massive action ( as Tony Robbins and other action gurus like to say ) who make their situation worse. On the other hand, there are those who who take a more contemplative, hands off approach and come out smelling like a rose. Different strokes for different folks. Not everyone approaches life from a the-sky-is-falling, panic induced, survivalist mode. If that's what's makes you feel alive...then go for it, keep preaching it too, and do evertying to make it a self fulfilling prophecy and show the world what a great prophet you are. Move over Nostradamus, the great seer Bob has spoken.
It is also a way of saying that we always get our just desserts.
I'd guess Ang Mozilo is chuckling himself to sleep with a quarter-billion dollar portfolio stashed in a foreign bank. Just desserts, indeed. No, life doesn't work out that way; some of the wealthiest are crooks from the toes up, and one can hardly argue that just desserts came to the hundreds of thousands of great young kids who lost everything at a young age in our wars over the last two centuries.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CosmicWizard
On the one hand, there are those who take massive action ( as Tony Robbins and other action gurus like to say ) who make their situation worse. On the other hand, there are those who who take a more contemplative, hands off approach and come out smelling like a rose. Different strokes for different folks. Not everyone approaches life from a the-sky-is-falling, panic induced, survivalist mode.
I advocate people get and stay out of debt and save like mad to get through what looks to be forty days and forty nights of economic rain...I'd guess that probably seems massive and/or extreme for many in this country, given the way we've been conducting our financial lives.
Problem is, lots of people need dynamite under their chair to see what's happening.
There's a great 30-min condensed version of the movie I.O.U.S.A. available on the web now...highly recommended viewing for those still comfortable with "waiting to see" where we're headed financially. Here's the link: I.O.U.S.A.
The one thing we DON'T need right now is our government throwing money down the same black hole that got us here--namely subsidizing and bailing out the industries that have no future: automobiles, McMansion building, real estate Ponzi schemes, suburban sprawl. Unfortunately, if the first rattlings of the Obama administration ring true, that is at least somewhat what we may get. Our folly of the last couple of decades has run the good US economic ship the Titanic II into the icebergs, and ripped a 200' gash down the side 15' below the water line. The ship is going to sink, and throwing another trillion dollars on the decks is not going to stop it--another trillion dollars will just go down with the ship.
What is needed is to start--right now--investing in the infrastructure and industries that will start to rebuild us out of this mess, and quit wasting precious resources on crap that has no future. Regardless, the ride is going to very rough--probably for at least a generation. It took us decades to get this thing this screwed up--it will take another decade, or two, or three to straighten it out. That is, if we can quit making the same mistakes.
As for Colorado, I hear wishful thinking that somehow things like good snow at the ski areas will make things all better again. Oh, please! It could snow 20' on every ski area of the state, but if nobody has any money to go there, what the hell difference is it going to make?
What is needed is to start--right now--investing in the infrastructure and industries that will start to rebuild us out of this mess, and quit wasting precious resources on crap that has no future.
Big impact all across the looted plains when GM goes to ValHalla. Maybe all those Colorado Chebby dealerships can sell Vespa scooters and Yugos to all the would-be ski-bums looking for work as waiters in restaurants without customers.
Circuit City, who announced closure of 20% of their stores just last week, declared bankruptcy today.
Marc Faber, who I consider to be one of the best bond traders in the world, noted that the Baltic Dry Index (overwater shipping index) is down 90%, and dropped even further even after the Chinese announced a half-trillion dollar stimulus package of their own. He wonders aloud if the markets will recover..."in our lifetime."
Absolutely so. For years I've been hopeful that someone wakes up and starts a national railroad building program similar in style to the interstate highway system, like the 90/10 Federal match for funds. I'll spare you the train-hugger details on its features, but the point it we'd be spending money on OURSELVES, building something that lasts for centuries, puts TONS of people to work doing something constructive (instead of sending everyone a check to go buy more Chinese schlock), and support our industrial base (millions of tons of steel, concrete, and all the trades work that goes with it). It would also make a big dent in imported oil, replace air travel for many trips, get trucks off the highway, would be powered by OUR electricity that we make HERE with our own nuke plants, gas, wind or solar (a parallel set of infrastructure programs all its own).
One thing that most people fail to recognize is that energy policy and transport policy are joined at the hip. Worse, this nation has NEVER had a defined policy for either topic; is it any wonder that we're in such a fix now.
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