didn't take LA seriously at all. i don't get the lambskin joke? Maybe I should have taken some comedic writing courses too eh?
Laurence J. Kotlikoff We are Bankrupt
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didn't take LA seriously at all. i don't get the lambskin joke? Maybe I should have taken some comedic writing courses too eh?
ya, common sense
too many board games perhaps...real world: Country B is where it is cause its also got the best weapons, surveillance and strike force infrastructure by far (using its ideas to maintain / increase the advantage)... its not so much for Country A to CHOOSE what it wants to do / produce, but what it CAN do, to somehow stay in the race... cause Country B is only outsourcing the production of these 'vital consumer goods' for the most part... cause its advantageous to do so... capice??
as for G8 + China & India, there are all Hydroblunt country B type countries, some might say B+ or B-, doesn't matter so much... funnily enough they all seem to favour a fiat currency system... they must all be crazy!!! or perhaps they now know that the best use of Marx is as toilet paper??
So the fact that they favor a fiat currency substantiates its credibility? All fiat currencies eventually fail due to a number of possible factors. They are great for expansion of industry and trade, but once the system becomes overly complex (much like current global financial dynamics) the fiat system becomes its own worst enemy as the currency destabilizes. This doesn't need to be proven, it's fact. It has never failed to NOT happen.
G*, China + India aren't crazy, they're just getting in where they fit in. My personal opinion is that the conditions and events that we see and experience here on earth are merely an extension of our human nature. Every animal has a "nature", or way of being. This is ours, it's only much more complex and layered than that of a reptile or simpler mammal. Industry, expansion, ambitiousness, power, etc. All of these human-centric phenomena are facilitated by a fiat currency because THAT is the currency system that allows for a measured and inflationary expansion of an economy. The problem is we never learn how to keep it under control and let it get out of hand (it's in our nature!).
The coming global recession can find its roots in our easy money, over-liquid policies that created the housing bubble, equity bubble (PE's still relatively overvalued based on cyclically adjusted PE ratios - courtesy Roubini), and bond bubble.
Bubbles are bad - they are evidence of mismanagement of the fiat currency system. We don't know how to "work" the thing properly. Case in point: Do you think anyone knows what's going to happen when the massive credit-derivative market hits a snag? Everyone talks about a potential dollar crash, but what about a debt crisis when defaults go up and all of these interconnected cross-linked CDO's start exploding? The market is massive beyond our comprehension - we don't have any idea what we are doing there. The big banks don't even have all of their trades DOCUMENTED! It's going to be both fun and scary to watch. If it happens before I die...
I suspect the USA is "too big to fail." I look at a map of the world and imagine what the world would be like if the USA disappears. I think there would be big changes. China has no big buyer for their products, India has no big buyer for their services, and Europe is the sole economic and military leader. How long Europe can keep their military dominance? My prediction is not long, Europe is a small component of a very big world.
The USA is not Argentina. Argentina could be allowed to collapse. The USA maybe too big to allow to collapse. I think that also means if the collapse comes, it's going to be a big one.
The USA is not Argentina. Argentina could be allowed to collapse. The USA maybe too big to allow to collapse. I think that also means if the collapse comes, it's going to be a big one.
This is exactly why the coming US recession will lead to a global slowdown soonafter. The Us is the consumer for the world. We spend more money than we have buying goods from other countries, and they finance our debt spending by buying up all of our treasuries and/or corp debt and holding them in their reserves. the more we "spend-print", the more treasuries they hold. the more we "spend-print", the more we devalue our currency. This devaluation really hurts those nice guys who love to hold our dollars/treasuries. This cant go on forever, the deficit cannot go to 100 Trillion.
No one knows what's going to happen when it unravels. Back to gold? Euro? Establish a one world currency and "reset" the fiat system? Who knows...
Only thing is for certain is that unless USA CONTRACTS spending severely, deficit will continue to grow and eventually collapse either when foreign buyers start to dump the falling dollar (as Bank of Italy is already beginning to do, and they're saying it publicly!) or we can't make interest payments on our debt simply b/c we just have WAY too much debt and have overspent to the point where we can't even finance our debt with more debt b/c we have too much debt.
Debt has to be repaid at some point. Unless you are the USA? =(
I question about the "disappearing dollar" scenario. The dollar only disappears if other nations do not print lots of their currency. I think lots of countries are on a currency printing binge. The exchange rates against the US Dollar remain little changed. Every government benefits. Citizens lose, unless they are speculators and can hedge against inflation.