Quote from Martinghoul:
BTW, with all due respect, Misthos, you're a bit too much of a doom-monger, IMHO. I like the most recent paper by the Reinharts a bit more. Obv, there's also the Reinhart and Rogoff book, but the paper is a bit more recent. You can find it here:
http://www.kansascityfed.org/publicat/sympos/2010/2010-08-17-reinhart.pdf
Thanks, I'll read it.
I was called a "doomer" from early 2007. Since then, AIG, Citi, Lehman, Bear, General Motors, Chrysler, countless smaller banks, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and counteless countries have needed extraordinary financial help.
All monetary systems are debt-based. Fiat monetary systems are debt based from their inception. That is, whereas gold created money in the past as well as fractional reserve lending, today, both the private banking system and sovereigns create money thru loans.
I respectfully disagree with the "doomer" term. I don't think it's "doomish" to conclude that mathematically speaking, the system takes on Ponzi characteristics, and the debt growth assumes a geometric progression far larger than the productive economy can handle.
Such systems inevitable reach a "reset" period. The collapse of the sovereign bond market - and it is a collapse if it weren't for Central Bank involvement, and the collapse of such large financial institutions could be reasonably characterized as "doomish" developments, no?
If I'm a "doomer" it's because I believe that nothing has been done to address the issues. We've papered over the issues with the same paper that got us into this mess.
And I'm not saying that gold is the solution. It will be a solution, but not one that is a voluntary solution. It's a natural progression/reversion. Hope that makes sense.