The Collapse of Our Society........ (loans, debt, borrow, purchase)
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Not in the next few years however. As I have said... World reserve currency and US military.
All empires eventually fall as new empires rise. The Romans were an empire for a long time. The UK empire ruled the world for over 100 years. We have been the empire for another 100. As the sun sets on us and rises on China, they will take up the torch for awhile and eventually it will go on to some other nation state.
Does that mean we will suffer great doom and gloom? Not necessarily. Most former empires such as the UK go on to have normal happy lives. In fact they are better off not having to spend all their time and resources running the rest of the planet.
I think things are pretty sucky out there. Still, having said that I don't see a huge economic collapse coming. I mean, just look at the great depression to see just how bad it can get, and then try to just get thru it.
Times are going to be tough and they are going to be tough for a while. Especially for generation Y and X because they have never really known anything but good times until the big R hit a few years ago. We had 30 years of phenomenal growth and virtually full employment before that. The problem is that you cannot build economic growth that is sustainable on bubbles and rampant speculation which is what we did. True economic growth is built on productivity and not gambling on houses and dot com stocks. And for that matter blackjack tables since that is largely the economy here. Eventually the economy will find equilibrium and things will start to get better slowly but steadly IF IF IF the government will stay out of it and allow it to work the excesses off. The government has thrown everything it can at the economic wall (stimulus, 0% interest rates, QE 1, QE 2, housing tax credits, cash for clunkers, tax cuts) and nothing sticks. Maybe they ought to just let it work itself out. Then we will be on a sustainable path to better times ahead for more Americans.
I read the first link and really...people have been assaulting one another, men have been raping women, and people have been committing random acts of violence against one another since the beginning.
I agree we are headed down a road of unfathomable hard times for many of us...but showing how someone has punched their boss isn't the evidence of that.
Times are going to be tough and they are going to be tough for a while. Especially for generation Y and X because they have never really known anything but good times until the big R hit a few years ago. We had 30 years of phenomenal growth and virtually full employment before that. The problem is that you cannot build economic growth that is sustainable on bubbles and rampant speculation which is what we did. True economic growth is built on productivity and not gambling on houses and dot com stocks. And for that matter blackjack tables since that is largely the economy here. Eventually the economy will find equilibrium and things will start to get better slowly but steadly IF IF IF the government will stay out of it and allow it to work the excesses off. The government has thrown everything it can at the economic wall (stimulus, 0% interest rates, QE 1, QE 2, housing tax credits, cash for clunkers, tax cuts) and nothing sticks. Maybe they ought to just let it work itself out. Then we will be on a sustainable path to better times ahead for more Americans.
Well - as a genX'r who is quite gainfully employed and for whom the recession hasn't had an effect, I'll comment on your statement above.
There was a recession in the early '80s. I was young, but I remember it. There was of COURSE!! gas rationing, etc.. in the 1970s along with some high inflation (that was late '70's and I rememember my parents waiting in line to fill up on certain days). There was a mini-recession in 2000 which led to G.Bush's economic stimulus 1 -- when the dot.com bubble burst... I know because my husband had just graduated college, and was unable to find any suitable career work at all - leading him to retail and forever altering his career/salary path.
So - actually - while the past 30 years have been relatively decent, salaries have been relatively stagnant (when put up against inflation) for most of that time. Now - the period from the '50's to the '80's -- that was your major growth - in salaries and standard of living.
And - GenX's that were paying attention saw plenty of hardship during those times, and most of us weren't stupid enough to think that being an adult and supporting ourselves would be easy.
GenY - I am not a member of, so I cannot comment on how their dealing with things. But GenX (at least this member of it) is doing fine - thanks.
I don't see how the rogue criminality of a few individuals signals the collective downfall of our entire society. If societal breakdown comes anytime soon the direct culprit will be our addiction to crude oil and lack of any alternative. Everything in our society depends almost exclusively on crude oil, and the twilight of its world dominance in eminent.
Well - as a genX'r who is quite gainfully employed and for whom the recession hasn't had an effect, I'll comment on your statement above.
There was a recession in the early '80s. I was young, but I remember it. There was of COURSE!! gas rationing, etc.. in the 1970s along with some high inflation (that was late '70's and I rememember my parents waiting in line to fill up on certain days). There was a mini-recession in 2000 which led to G.Bush's economic stimulus 1 -- when the dot.com bubble burst... I know because my husband had just graduated college, and was unable to find any suitable career work at all - leading him to retail and forever altering his career/salary path.
So - actually - while the past 30 years have been relatively decent, salaries have been relatively stagnant (when put up against inflation) for most of that time. Now - the period from the '50's to the '80's -- that was your major growth - in salaries and standard of living.
And - GenX's that were paying attention saw plenty of hardship during those times, and most of us weren't stupid enough to think that being an adult and supporting ourselves would be easy.
GenY - I am not a member of, so I cannot comment on how their dealing with things. But GenX (at least this member of it) is doing fine - thanks.
The last big recession we had was in the early 80s but it came after a period of really bad economic stuff including the gas lines, odd/even max 10 gallon rationing and prices of $3.55 a gallon 35 years ago. We had a decade of stagflation and interest rates that would make your skin crawl. Inflation was in double digits many years. It took a very painful recession to correct all that and ring rampant inflation out of the economy. I think unemployment rates topped even those of today for awhile. I am Generation Lost (too old to be X but too young to be Baby Boom). But once we got through that, we have had only minor recessions before this recession. A person born after 1980 would have really never experienced truly hard times until now. Those born between 1980 and 1990 would have been children during the last big recession. They have had to learn recession survival the hard way. That generation got used to the idea that they picked their job and their job did not pick them. They got used to the idea of multiple offers rolling in from posting a resume on Monster. They got used to the idea of a 4000 sq foot home in the distant suburbs, a big SUV or BMW to get them there. I remember their song in the 80s that said "The future is so bright I gotta wear shades". Now they are singing "Boulevard of broken dreams" for the most part. They have had to learn hard times the hard way. Those of us who came before already did.
Last edited by Vegas Joe; 06-10-2011 at 07:02 PM..
I don't see how the rogue criminality of a few individuals signals the collective downfall of our entire society. If societal breakdown comes anytime soon the direct culprit will be our addiction to crude oil and lack of any alternative. Everything in our society depends almost exclusively on crude oil, and the twilight of its world dominance in eminent.
We all had a hand in this train wreck. Those people just gave us what we wanted which are cheap mortgages, big cars, big houses and cheap gas. Let's be honest here, there is nobody here that was unhappy when the value of their house or condo was going berserk and increasing at 20% or more each year. I saw it first hand where we live. We had investors send us mail and even come by and knock trying to buy the place. You could buy a house here and sell it for $10,000 more the next month!
Now, during all that insanity, let's say President Bush came on TV and said something like "I see this as coming to a bad end and to stop it I am asking the Fed to rein in cheap mortgages and the Congress to establish basic lending standards that will require buyers to put a minimum of 10% down". You know what would have happened. People would have went absolutely ape crap. And him and his whole party would have been bounced out of office for it. Even though it would have been the right thing to do and saved the country a whole lot of pain.
Suppose today President Obama said "while cheap gas and huge SUVs are nice, they are going to wreck the future of the country so today I am raising standards on all vehicles to a minimum of 25mpg and I am asking Congress to institute a floor tax per gallon of $4 per gallon to take effect in January of 2013". People would have a fit! The fit would hit the shan! And he would lose by 49 states next year. Even though he would have saved the country some really big pain in the next few years.
This is our pain. We caused it and we have to deal with it. Recessions make economies go back to equilibrium.
We all had a hand in this train wreck. Those people just gave us what we wanted which are cheap mortgages, big cars, big houses and cheap gas. Let's be honest here, there is nobody here that was unhappy when the value of their house or condo was going berserk and increasing at 20% or more each year. I saw it first hand where we live. We had investors send us mail and even come by and knock trying to buy the place. You could buy a house here and sell it for $10,000 more the next month!
Now, during all that insanity, let's say President Bush came on TV and said something like "I see this as coming to a bad end and to stop it I am asking the Fed to rein in cheap mortgages and the Congress to establish basic lending standards that will require buyers to put a minimum of 10% down". You know what would have happened. People would have went absolutely ape crap. And him and his whole party would have been bounced out of office for it. Even though it would have been the right thing to do and saved the country a whole lot of pain.
Suppose today President Obama said "while cheap gas and huge SUVs are nice, they are going to wreck the future of the country so today I am raising standards on all vehicles to a minimum of 25mpg and I am asking Congress to institute a floor tax per gallon of $4 per gallon to take effect in January of 2013". People would have a fit! The fit would hit the shan! And he would lose by 49 states next year. Even though he would have saved the country some really big pain in the next few years.
This is our pain. We caused it and we have to deal with it. Recessions make economies go back to equilibrium.
i am calling you out on that. millions of americans work hard, save money, and did not/do not live beyond their means. it's not their fault that some international banking cartel decided to degrade their money, or that crooked presidents and a crooked congress decided to appropriate their money for myriad bailouts and pseudo-stimulus programs.
people previously had to put 10 percent down before or more on mortgages and they didn't go "ape crap". they just saved until they could buy something, and it gave them a foreseeable goal to reach.
if president obama said what you just said, i would say that he is lying. the demand for gasoline is not up, (we are in a recession) EXCEPT for the artificial demand created by all these wars. what he should say is let's stop the wars, keep our money in america, and get busy putting our country back together again. it must be better to buy expensive gasoline in a foreign country and help that country economically, i guess. for just one figure as an example, we spent 20 billion a year air conditioning tents in iraq and afghanistan.
of course, that isn't going to happen because war is profitable for those in charge of them, and who cares what happens tomorrow?
Last edited by floridasandy; 06-11-2011 at 06:49 PM..
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