There you go again with the ad hominem attacks. It's getting you nowhere, and only makes yourself look pompous. Time to tidy up this amorphous debate that has become a string of simplistic generalizations, and attacks on the other's intellectual and psychological capacity.
Have you ever thought to ask me how I define "doom?" It seems to me that you think all doomers think of giant asteroid events or mad max scenarios. Maybe it's more nuanced than that?
But I think I see where you're coming from. This blurb tells me a lot:
I'm sure many ridiculed Marshal Foch at the treaty of Versailles when he stated âThis is not peace; it is an armistice for 20 years.â
My point is, that civilization, power, and global resource allocation ebbs and flows thru-out time, and affects different parts of the world differently. That conflict will always persist, and that mankind's greed generally resurfaces with a vengeance after the lessons of past generations slowly dissipate, only to be rediscovered yet again - the hard way.
Ours are interesting times.
The events of the past twenty years have been both wondrous and/or potentially tragic.
With GATT and the subsequent formation of the WTO, four billion people willing to work for a fraction of our wages have entered the global work force. The Soviet Union collapsed. Resource wars continue. The global map I learned in the late 1970s has been redrawn drastically. We adopted a new form of currency merely 38 years ago when we closed the gold window - the jury may still be out on that one. The internet has fundamentally changed how we communicate globally and how we exchange money - in mere miliseconds. Weapons can knock out a country in hours. Resources getting depleted with the increased participation of the former "third world" into the global economy...
GM and Chrysler bankrupt. Ford against the ropes. Banking system collapsed but for effectively 20 some trillion in government backstops. Massive deleveraging of the consumer. National debt doubling within Presidential terms - first with Bush, and now it seems, with Obama. Western governments, already bloated with massive deficits, will be taking on the entitlements of your generation. Global wage arbitrage taking away jobs, forever? or at least chiseling down salaries.
Those that spout a recovery is shortly at hand neglect one thing. A recovery implies a return to a prior date. There is no returning to a prior date when in that recent past the monetary system grew thru reckless lending, spending, securitization, and corporate/banking malfeasance or miscalculation of risk. That system is in its deathroes.
Will mankind still progress? Sure. But can the average American rely on a constant supply of cheap fuel and easy access to credit to maintain a lifestyle of growing 401Ks, dreams of retirement trips to Hawaii, and the continuation of the excessive consumption of "stuff" while the rest of the world's buying power is growing?
I'm not so sure about that. The US economy, and society to a large degree attained a high level of complexity these past few decades. Much of that based on a overly expansive monetary system and cheap energy. We will enter a period of decomplexification. It will likely be gradual, with times of acceleration. That's my "doom" view. No Meteors, no re-emergence of cave dwelling societies, no lights out forever. But the democratization of credit and college educations and millions of people typing on keyboards for ridiculous salaries because a monetary debt based asset inflating system grew beyond revenue/income sustainability is over.
Prior to the Fall of 2008, State, Municipal, Federal, corporate, and individual budget projections relied on a certain price for oil and a certain price and availability of money and ever increasing revenues and incomes.
That's over for the indeterminate future. And thus, those budgets need to be revamped. The Federal Government can take up the slack and create a mirage of maintained prosperity for only so long. So yes... 3rd grade math is relevant and it is being ignored. Only because politically, the truth is too difficult to reveal and accept. And that's a good thing to a degree. We don't want massive panics accelerating this period of decomplexification. But at the same time, popular ignorance allows the elites to get away with looting. Catch 22.
Have you ever thought to ask me how I define "doom?" It seems to me that you think all doomers think of giant asteroid events or mad max scenarios. Maybe it's more nuanced than that?
But I think I see where you're coming from. This blurb tells me a lot:
Yes civilization has continued for 10,000 years when one takes a macro view. But ask the opinions of the victims of the Khmer Rouge, Auschwitz survivors, Stalin's victims, the losing tribe in Rwanda, Byzantium post Palaiologus, the Argentinians during their debt crisis, the Soviets post USSR, and what happened to the people that built those pyramids at Giza, or the former occupants of Easter Island.
I'm sure many ridiculed Marshal Foch at the treaty of Versailles when he stated âThis is not peace; it is an armistice for 20 years.â
My point is, that civilization, power, and global resource allocation ebbs and flows thru-out time, and affects different parts of the world differently. That conflict will always persist, and that mankind's greed generally resurfaces with a vengeance after the lessons of past generations slowly dissipate, only to be rediscovered yet again - the hard way.
Ours are interesting times.
The events of the past twenty years have been both wondrous and/or potentially tragic.
With GATT and the subsequent formation of the WTO, four billion people willing to work for a fraction of our wages have entered the global work force. The Soviet Union collapsed. Resource wars continue. The global map I learned in the late 1970s has been redrawn drastically. We adopted a new form of currency merely 38 years ago when we closed the gold window - the jury may still be out on that one. The internet has fundamentally changed how we communicate globally and how we exchange money - in mere miliseconds. Weapons can knock out a country in hours. Resources getting depleted with the increased participation of the former "third world" into the global economy...
GM and Chrysler bankrupt. Ford against the ropes. Banking system collapsed but for effectively 20 some trillion in government backstops. Massive deleveraging of the consumer. National debt doubling within Presidential terms - first with Bush, and now it seems, with Obama. Western governments, already bloated with massive deficits, will be taking on the entitlements of your generation. Global wage arbitrage taking away jobs, forever? or at least chiseling down salaries.
Those that spout a recovery is shortly at hand neglect one thing. A recovery implies a return to a prior date. There is no returning to a prior date when in that recent past the monetary system grew thru reckless lending, spending, securitization, and corporate/banking malfeasance or miscalculation of risk. That system is in its deathroes.
Will mankind still progress? Sure. But can the average American rely on a constant supply of cheap fuel and easy access to credit to maintain a lifestyle of growing 401Ks, dreams of retirement trips to Hawaii, and the continuation of the excessive consumption of "stuff" while the rest of the world's buying power is growing?
I'm not so sure about that. The US economy, and society to a large degree attained a high level of complexity these past few decades. Much of that based on a overly expansive monetary system and cheap energy. We will enter a period of decomplexification. It will likely be gradual, with times of acceleration. That's my "doom" view. No Meteors, no re-emergence of cave dwelling societies, no lights out forever. But the democratization of credit and college educations and millions of people typing on keyboards for ridiculous salaries because a monetary debt based asset inflating system grew beyond revenue/income sustainability is over.
Prior to the Fall of 2008, State, Municipal, Federal, corporate, and individual budget projections relied on a certain price for oil and a certain price and availability of money and ever increasing revenues and incomes.
That's over for the indeterminate future. And thus, those budgets need to be revamped. The Federal Government can take up the slack and create a mirage of maintained prosperity for only so long. So yes... 3rd grade math is relevant and it is being ignored. Only because politically, the truth is too difficult to reveal and accept. And that's a good thing to a degree. We don't want massive panics accelerating this period of decomplexification. But at the same time, popular ignorance allows the elites to get away with looting. Catch 22.
