First. Good article.

And once again resource constraints are ignored. Weak.

Dear Professor,We have’nt taken into account the repurcussions of not cleaning up the system with appropriate regulatory measures . This may once again lead to another bubble in making with a lot of liquidity. Banks like GS returning to profitability will lead to another wave of bonus chasing deals in the Financial world , which could create another equity bubble . In countries like India this is laready in happening.

There will never be a real correction in world equities & commodities markets as long as central bankers insist upon following a program of propping up “confidence” with a flood of money. Sooner or later the loses will have to realized just as Colonial, Guaranty & Corus and several other mid sized regional banks will soon teach us. With PE out of the loop in favor of the TBTF institutions becoming even bigger then the concepts of profitability, realized loses or transparency are lost causes. And with those lost causes goes any hope of a sustainable economic recovery.Professor, it all remains a great ponzi scheme as well you know. It is too bad your loyalty to those that insist upon this course of action is greater than your loyalty to a functioning economy.

the USA has a “functioning (real) economy” -but it functions on the government printing $$$$$the Obama Administration (at the top) is partnering with the (top) management of our major corporations …printing $$$$$ and stooping the corporations…it’s like pouring cement into a foundation that keepscrackingmany American consumers are scared and fear is keeping them from buying … Dr. Roubini is correct on fundamentalshowever, the US Govt is manipulating the stock market up..and MUST CONTINUE TO PREVENT A COLLAPSE

You’re out of your mind delusional, a person like you should never be allowed to think. It was the governments lack of regulation that caused this mess, it was corporations and their CEO’s greed that sold out the U.S. by paying the government off and deregulating everything. Yet you are a complete moron who sees things through your broken Rush Limbaugh color glasses.For 30 years the republicans have controlled the government and succeeded in deregulating markets and rolling back all kinds of taxes on the wealthy yet today like Marx predicted precisely the capitalists greed has resulted in severe inequality thereby collapsing the system and yet you sit there like a moron trying to blame the Left. I can’t believe how many morons like you are out there, robotic followers of the demagogues Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity- you’re like a disease, you plague our society with stupidity.

Here’s the underlying problem: Bernanke and the Government are throwing literally $250 billion a quarter down the toilet simply trying to prevent an all-on deflationary collapse.Unfortunately that “prevention” only works so long as the $250 billion a quarter can continue to be spent – more than $1 trillion a year in annual deficit that must be continually added by borrowing from the Chinese and Japanese EACH AND EVERY QUARTER or THE SYSTEM WILL GO RIGHT BACK INTO COLLAPSE.How long can this continue?Not all that much longer – and if the direction does not change before our rope runs out we face a future far worse than we did last fall had we done nothing.Mr. President: Bill Black, myself and a significant number of others have been pounding the table on these issues for more than two years.There are solutions but they involve pissing off people with power and money – and people who are your advisors. People who have continually gotten it wrong and yet have been rewarded for being wrong and hurting the American people, the Treasury and indeed The Federal Reserve.We must, like it or not, face the music for our profligate spending and loose credit issuance and force the truth into the open.We have avoided nothing and in fact have made the circumstances we face worse as our nation’s financial position has been severely damaged through these “bailouts and handouts.”Time is running out.http://market-ticker.denninger.net/

The merchant bankers will periodically change tack while making money with the change in the wind. The price of energy and commodities is too high for the functioning productive economy. The parisitical merchant bankers don’t want to kill the host. They will change tack to lower commodity prices and lower energy costs. Every time they change tack they make a lot of money. We are all commodities in the game of Commerce.The problem is that they have run this software withdigital money and have created too much of it with derivatives and it has gone out of control. Even theycan’t control the Digital Money Frankenstein they have created. This is a game of Runaway Piracy on the High Seas. The Maritime Masters forgot they have to protect the capacity of the Debt Slaves to create product for their periodic piracy. You cannot live on the high seas without Land Peons making real things for your make believe Ponzi. They are killing the Goose that lays their golden eggs.

Hi MM CABut if we keep playing with the monopoly money and withdrawls are under control; no one will figure out it was phony money. Reminds me of Madoff.

Yes, correct.For any expansion to be sustainable, the growth in resource consumption cannot exceed the growth in resource production. And since Earth’s resources are finite, and it has a finite mass and receives solar radiation at a constant rate, human civilization cannot sustain an indefinite, exponential growth. This includes the growth of population as well as the growth in the use of resources.We are approaching the end of the Oil Age but the huge majority are still in denail. We have run out of new easy to access oil = energy which is the foundation for an expanding economy. As it takes more energy to extract offshore oil & tar sands the surplus of available energy will diminish. Fatih Berol spelt it out as clearly as he was allowed to last week – we are facing a catastrophic energy crunch.Fish are 95% gone, soil is eroded, water aquifers are depleted, CO2 is increasing, ocean dead zones are increasing. Meanwhile all the Ponzi scheme promoters are telling you the next boom is happening so buy shares while you can still afford them! All we need is a Black Swan in say derivatives to bring the whole financial system crashing down.

We have a self-serving political class that benefits from business donations so there is little chance of realistic changes until the sheeple wake up and take action. Unfortunately most of the sheeple are more interested in celebrities and TV whilst the revolving door of highly paid jobs continues to reward the same people who got us into the mess in the first place.Prohibit donations except from registered voters. Break up these too big to fail organisations.

I am confused. How can another bubble be created when they are based upon expanding debts and in the current economic climate individuals and businesses are still trying to deleverage because they can’t afford the previous debt binge?Is the illusion that some how rising equity values can be re-leveraged and that new capital can be used to pay off past debts and fuel new spending. Isn’t that a lot like a perpetual motion engine that needs no outside source of energy yet can propel you down the road?IMO housing is the key indicator in this mess. Until foreclosures taper way off to less than their historic mean I do not see how the current down turn can end. Housing was the bank for many million Americans and foreclosures are still incredibly high and increasing. Loan modification has been a sick joke. Housing is not just falling because it was waaaaaaay over priced but also because jobs are still disappearing. Housing was over priced compared to incomes in 2000 and just got insanely worse until the peak in 2007.For housing to stop sliding in value and then reverse so that new leverage can be added will take IMO not only an increase in employment but an increase in wages and incomes of the average American. We are already at historic low interest rates.TPTB think this is all about confidence. It isn’t. It is about insolvency. Not having enough income to pay all the bills. Sure Americans are anxious about health care costs and future increases in taxes. Any sane person should be.And Congress just acts like things are just slightly bad and will soon get better. The Professor also alludes to us being near a bottom. Yet from my perspective, I do not see anything even resembling a bottom.

totally agree-there’s been too much hedging doublespeak for my tastes lately!

Thank you for your clarity of thought. I agree. “It’s good to be the King (aka wall street).” Retirees, savers, middle class Americans, are all in a world of hurt. They will continue to be exploited by the financial ruling class as their sourse of wealth. Perhaps, one day, there will be a revolt. Untill then, apathy, obseity, and mindless TV plagues the U.S. population in inaction. Know is the time for all good men to come to the aid of humanity. Cheers to free speach!

Good to have you back on the home front, Dr. Roubini. Yours is a sober voice giving a semblance of reason and understanding to the financial wreck that besets us. You have been terribly missed.I personally can attest to the first of your four factors that could create a long-term drag on growth, i.e., that “households need to deleverage and save more, which will constrain consumption for years.” I have begun “deleveraging” in earnest, vowing never again, although it is now a serious matter of have to and not necessarily of choice.And thanks for warning of the minefields that could set off a double-dip recession:First, that the exit strategy from monetary and fiscal easing could be botched; and second, that “oil, energy and food prices may be rising faster than economic fundamentals warrant”– delivering a one-two knockout punch of $100-barrel-oil to a global economy just “barely rising from its knees.”

The whole thing about confidence is like a bad joke.

Hades, Predict a “W” “W” RecessionThen no matter what happens, you’re never wrong…LOL

“Yesterday, The Observer in London, printed this open letter from Black Swan author Nassim Nicolas Tableb that he wrote to Conservative Leader David Cameron urging him NOT to follow in the path of the United States.” Nathan MartinCameron dare not copy Obama’s disastrous economic policiesShould he come to power, the Conservative leader must avoid the calamitous mistakes of the American presidentThe Guardian ^ | 8/16/09 | Nassim Nicholas TalebDear David (if I may),You and your party may be the only hope we have for a resilient society insulated from negative Black Swans and in which everyone has the opportunity to benefit from positive Black Swans. For I despair of the Obama administration’s ability to fix this financial crisis and prevent future ones. I am appalled by the dangers it has been creating and its takeover by the same economic establishment responsible for this crisis.What is a Black Swan? It is a low-probability, high-impact event that, because of its rarity and the instability of the environment, cannot be scientifically evaluated in terms of risk and return. Although Black Swans are rarely predicted, they are retrospectively seen as having been anticipated, which makes us overestimate our abilities to see them coming. Black Swans can emerge as a result of our intellectual arrogance and our ignorance of our limitations. Some elements of the future are simply beyond our grasp.Much of history has been dominated by Black Swans, both positive and negative. These deviations are the main reason economic theories and forecasts do not work, since the exceptional and unforeseen high-impact event plays a large role in economic life.We live in an increasingly complex system and complexity causes Black Swans. How? The more interdependent we become, the harder it is to trace the cause of an event and the tougher to forecast accurately, meaning the traditional tools of economics will fail us. And since the spread of the internet, rumours go round the world in minutes. Consider the run on Icelandic banks. It took place at BlackBerry speed. So the economic variables, such as sales, commodity prices, unemployment or GDP growth, are subject to ever more extreme variations. The over-efficiency of the systems means things run smoothly, but are subject to rare but violent blow-ups.David, you must counter this complexity by lowering indebtedness. We have known since Babylonian times that debt is treacherous and allows no room for mistakes: felix qui nihil debet goes the Roman proverb (“happy is he who owes nothing”). The combination of debt levels swollen from two decades of over-confidence with modern finance’s complex derivatives has been disastrous.Be careful, too, of the so-called science of economics. Economists have been no better in their predictions than cab drivers. We have an “expert” problem, in which the expert provides you with misplaced confidence, but no information. Because we think, correctly, that the dermatologist, the baker, the chemist are true experts (they know more about their respective subjects than the rest of us), we swallow the canard that the economists at the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the Bank of England and the US Federal Reserve are also experts, without checking their record. This reliance on faux experts is, for the most part, what got us here. Now it is continuing with the build-up of government deficit and an increased reliance on flimsy forecasts by the Obama administration.This problem with experts was particularly acute when it came to the “risk models” on which bankers built those positions that turned sour. So it is that you are coming under pressure to provide more regulation. Alas, the need for more regulation is a myth. I have been fighting risk models both as a Wall Street trader and as a professor and my worst nightmares were the results of regulators. It was they who promoted the reliance on ratings by credit agencies. The “value-at-risk” models regulators promoted made us take more risks.If we are to have regulators, we need them to operate along conservative lines and conserve the rich knowledge and understanding of risk transmitted through generations of practice, of trial and error. We replaced the heuristics of the elders with arrogant (and incompetent) beliefs, breaking, in the name of science, the chain of knowledge. Old, conservative bankers and traders have been replaced by keen young mathematical analysts, yet anyone who listened to a grandmother who survived the Depression would have been warned against debt and been better prepared than Ben Bernanke and Alan Greenspan, respectively chairman and former chairman of America’s Federal Reserve.The solution is obvious: build an economy that increases the role of well-tested traditions. Ban financial derivatives that require advanced mathematics rather than trial and error. Look at mother nature. There is a complex system built around sound principles that has insured both evolution and survival. It does not let anything get too big to fail. It breaks things early. I don’t understand why people who stand against tampering with nature accept tampering with the economy that would have organically grown too. Work on building a “robust” society, capable of withstanding errors, in which the role of finance (hence debt) would be minimal. We want a society in which people can make mistakes without risk of total collapse. Silicon Valley offers a good example, where people have the chance to fail fast (and repeatedly).The best blueprint is the very opposite of the Obama administration’s economic policies (its foreign policy is commendable). It has been administering pain-killers without addressing the cause of disease. Obama is strengthening those who do the wrong thing. Take the “cash for clunkers” programme. It is a handout to those who bought the wrong – uneconomic – car. He is penalising people who did not make a mistake. The same applies to other “rescues”. By raising taxes after the crisis, the administration is hampering evolution. Those who do well in difficult times end up paying more tax and those who lost money in the crisis pay less. The rich who got us here are being rescued by regular Joes and being subsidised by the tax system.Obama is giving the large institutions that failed us, like the IMF and the World Bank, even more powers. He is increasingly dependent on the visionary expert who failed us and does not understand the properties of complex systems and stifling long traditions of wisdom in understanding risk. Just consider the players: Larry Summers, director of the National Economic Council (who, among other things, made both Harvard University and the banking system more fragile), Bernanke (who increased reliance on the error-prone “models”) and Tim Geithner, secretary of the US Treasury (who failed to understand that property prices can take extreme deviations).I am particularly depressed because, having been disappointed by George W Bush, I had high hopes for Obama. David, spare us from such hubris.Yours, NassimNassim Nicholas Taleb, author of The Black Swan, is a professor of risk engineering at New York University.http://economicedge.blogspot.com/

“Obama is strengthening those who do the wrong thing. Take the “cash for clunkers” programme. It is a handout to those who bought the wrong – uneconomic – car. He is penalising people who did not make a mistake.”

It’s infuriating. People who were irresponsible in their car choice are given $4,500, while someone like me gets $0. Not only that, the cars that can be bought under this clunker of a program can get relatively low gas mileage. So essentially what this administration has done was equalize a poor choice with a good one AND hand the auto companies a subsidy for producing inefficient vehicles. I could stick a fork in my eye or not vote for Obama in the next election. I think I will not vote for Obama.

The plan is to outsource the consumer to China.

Why Was Goldman Invited to the AIG Bailout Party? | August 17, 2009 | by Matt TaibbiDuring the week of the A.I.G. bailout alone, Mr. Paulson and Mr. Blankfein spoke two dozen times, the calendars show, far more frequently than Mr. Paulson did with other Wall Street executives.“On Sept. 17, the day Mr. Paulson secured his waivers, he and Mr. Blankfein spoke five times. Two of the calls occurred before Mr. Paulson’s waivers were granted.”via During Crisis, Paulson’s Calls to Goldman Posed Ethics Test – NYTimes.comI spoke with someone who was in the Fed offices the whole weekend prior to the AIG bailout, a government official, and he poses an interesting question. Aside from the Fed, the Treasury, and the New York State Department of Insurance, the main players involved in the AIG bailout that weekend were AIG (obviously), JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs. There were swarms of bankers from the latter three banks there that weekend, poring over AIG’s books, trying to figure out if AIG could be rescued without government help.Now, we know why AIG was there, obviously. Morgan Stanley was there representing the Treasury (it had been hired to advise the Treasury on the bailouts by Paulson during the Fannie/Freddie mess, with the rumor being that it was the only bank willing to give up market positions that would have left it too conflicted to do the work). JP Morgan we know was there because AIG had hired them weeks before to come in and try to clean up its messes. Only Goldman Sachs did not have an official role at these proceedings.So why was Goldman there? And why was Paulson calling Goldman two dozen times that week? This is one of the other problems with Gasparino’s account (“of course” Blankfein was there that weekend, he says, not telling us why this is so obvious). I’m not sure I’ve ever seen an official explanation for why Goldman was there that weekend; the ostensible explanation that most people seem to accept is that Goldman naturally was there because it was such a large counterparty to AIG.But I suspect we’re going to find that Paulson was not on the phone two dozen times with executives from Deutsche Bank or Societe Generale or Barclays or Calyon, all of whom were significant counterparties to AIG as well. Goldman was not even AIG’s largest counterparty in the sec-lending wing of its business (Deutsche Bank was, and would eventually receive $7 billion via the bailout as a result), and yet as far as I know there were no Deutsche reps there that weekend at all. So what made Goldman special?This is a good question, I think.This article originally appeared on True/Slant and is reprinted with permissionhttp://www.lewrockwell.com/taibbi/taibbi12.1.html

“the government controls everything there. is that what you want for the U.S.?”The perfect Freudian slip or revelation into the failed conclusions conservatives hold on to – does it really have to be all or nothing? Behind every conservative ideologue is a black and white mentality not only are they entrenched in their black and white views they insist their counter are just as entrenched in an opposite purest mindset. On the contrary most liberals love capitalism we just believe saving it requires fairness for workers aka a balance. A free for all eventually undermines democracy and economic fairness- ya ever play monopoly? We just want to keep the game going and prevent one guy from winning all the pieces and since we can’t count on charity progressive taxes are the only way to do it, we believe reserve capital doesn’t create wealth only working humans do where as some how you believe saved wealth has more value than human beings well it’s preposterous. Not to say conservatives don’t have valid arguments but their radical beliefs are destroying the system.

Don’t forget – we taxpayers are heavily subsidising FOREIGN automakers with this boondoggle.Feel better now?Forget about Obama vs Who? Just vote against ALL incumbents. I always thought such an idea was foolishness, but more and more am convinced it may be the only way out, short of armed revolution.Independent Contractor

Indeed. Radical default is the new watchword among those that extended credit to the household sector as more and more folks max out their credit lines then default and refuse to engage since most consumer loans, including mortgages are non-recourse.Today Capital One was the first credit card company that released their July numbers. Terrible for them. From Zero Hedge: Their net annualized charge-off rate increased to 9.83% in July from 9.73% in June. The 30 days + delinquency rate also went up to 4.83% from 4.77%. However, the worst deterioration was in Auto Finance Metrics, the annualized charge off rate increasing by over a third percent to 4.26% from 3.89%, and the 30 Days + delinquency rate moved north of 9 to 9.22% from 8.89%.Also from today was fresh lending data from the Federal Reserves July Loan Officers Survey.In the July survey, domestic banks indicated that they continued to tighten standards and terms over the past three months on all major types of loans to businesses and households, although the net percentages of banks that tightened declined compared with the April survey. Demand for loans continued to weaken across all major categories except for prime residential mortgages. The fractions of domestic banks reporting additional weakening in demand in this survey were slightly lower than those in the April survey for C&I loans and home equity lines of credit, approximately the same for commercial real estate (CRE) and nontraditional residential mortgages, and slightly higher for consumer loans.As noted at Zero Hedge: “Too bad small and medium businesses aren’t CCC-rated, 6x levered, recent LBOs: they would have no problem obtaining 7% financing.”Given all of these data points and more I cannot but continue to sustain my original comment and concur with your sentiment that sooner or later many households will bite the bullet and default en mass.

You say: ‘I did not think it would happen.’ Do you think there is anything that will not happen, when you know that it is possible to happen, when you see that it has already happened … ? – Seneca

No, it means now that the American consumer has been totally squeezed of all $ it is time to move on to greener pastures.We are being rounded up and sent to the showers.

“Wage cuts and mandatory furloughs for the first time since the 1930s, as well as layoffs are obviously deflationary as they depress purchasing power. In addition, the excess of supply over demand has clear implications for deflation.Nevertheless, the vast majority still maintain that inflation is inevitable in the long run. All the money being pumped out by the Fed and the Treasury deficits is sure to stimulate too much demand in relation to supply, they believe. But before money can promote excess demand, it’s got to get into circulation, and scared lenders and creditworthy borrowers are unlikely to convert massive bank reserves into money until rapid economic growth resumes. And that, we believe, is unlikely for many years. Furthermore, if economic growth and loans mushroom, contrary to our forecast, major central bankers, with their congenital fear of inflation, will no doubt withdraw much of that liquidity.”Opportunity for those who appreciate Gary Shilling and his “INSIGHT”, to read some of his latest without a subscription.http://www.fxstreet.com/fundamental/analysis-reports/outside-the-box2/2009-08-11.htmlhlowe

I’ve mentioned this before…. People in the US have/had places to store their stuff. We are unique in that in the world. Our big houses filled with stuff and our big streets allowing big RVs and SUVs and our big garages filled with all the sports stuff we bought on time….No one else in the world has our ability to consume as the have no place to put it.

Almost every square inch of Michigan receives WJR radio station broadcasts which is unheard of, the power and reach of this radio station is beyond words. From sunrise to sundown all they do is broadcast ultra conservative politics, they’re listener base is huge as it’s really the only talk radio station people listen to on they’re way to work during work and on their way home from work. WJR is literally brainwashing the entire state and there is no political alternative on radio.I suspect this is happening all across the country, this i believe is the single biggest threat to our great nation as these radio hosts are really corporate fascists, our country is in great danger Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Mark Levine are brain washing the country with Hitler like demagoguery and we as a nation are in big trouble, they are successfully pitting the middle class and even the poor against poor, the masses are falling for the deception, this is being way underestimated!

I like Nassim’s insistence on going back to the old wise ways. His only flaw seems to accept the concept of evolution……a johnny-come-lately idea from the 19th century used primarily to shore up the non-thinks who need the theory of evolution to rationalize rejecting God (and His Creation).Fortunately, science seems to be catching up with the evidence that “evolution” can’t exist. Now that some scientists have deigned to look at the evidence for Intelligent Design, western culture has a chance to get back in touch with the source of this universe’s wisdom.

Well, duh,,,,,,why duh yuh think Goldman was there mister smarty pants?

I listen everyday in astonishment, remember it’s the only thing available – one side one message – scary!

Thanks for the laugh…

ObamaCare is the same deal -> penalizing people who did not make a mistake

I suspect that the intention was to import a Chinese totalitarian, corporate model to the US.A two-class system, absent the democratic principles that separated the US from third-world countries, appeared to have been the objective.I think that the ‘smartest guys in the room’ might have turned out to be absolute idiots.

Inspiration comes from perspiration. If you see God when you perspire, then good on you.

Gee, after reading this, I feel like I should go suck on the business end of my shotgun. You know, the Greeks used up nearly all of their trees (a renewable resource no less, which is but one example showing that Greek civilisation was highly over-rated) in their never ending quest for energy, and somehow the world went on.I doubt we are as near the end of oil production as you suggest, but there will come a day when it is no longer practical to use oil, and we will move on to something else, much like we stopped using whale oil to light our houses less than two centuries ago.The bigger limitation to our ability to consume resources is not as much their finity as it is a lack of CAPEX investment and curbs on sources for the green cause, both of which have taken huge sources of supply out of production.And of course humanity cannot exponentially expand indefinitely, but I was not aware that we were expanding exponentially now. Fact Check, please?

What Universe do YOU come from???

I’m in favor of scrapping elections and the tax-system and simply apportioning Congressional seats by selling lottery tickets. If you win, you get one term in office and you get paid $1m per year. And the proceeds from the lottery become the revenue of the government, so if you want to spend your fortune to buy a seat, all you are then spending is your own money.

You clearly don’t listen, otherwise you would feel far more empowered and not feel victimized by the concept of opposing views actually being allowed to be aired.

You may add – and I agree on both counts

A total meltdown in the economy would stop it. Most posters here don’t seriously consider that. Everyone has their own bitch and their own “solution.” However, a complete crash………where everything breaks…….is the most likely possibility.

Deflation Theory Is Lemon We Have All Been Sold: Matthew LynnDeflation may be bad for particular interest groups, which happen to be very powerful. It is bad for chief executives. It is easier to keep your profits rising in a mildly inflationary environment. You can just jack up your prices a bit, and you can often cut workers’ wages by stealth by holding wages steady.The banking industry, which has come to rely on inflation to make highly leveraged loans sustainable, also dislikes deflation. Likewise, it is bad for governments, which use inflation to reduce the value of their debts.On the other hand, deflation is good news for savers, who get richer just by hanging on to their cash. And it is beneficial for consumers, who get cheaper prices. It is usually good for workers as well, as they can generally hold the value of their wages, even while prices fall.http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=a_IZywsbozWgNot that workers and savers count that much in economic policy. First priority is to profit from their money, last priority is to let them profit from their money. Evidently in a stealth way, like the inflation way.

blindman, if i post the link you asked for it will screw up the width of this page – because i don’t know how to “wrap” a link to shorten it.so do this: go to google books search. paste or type in: No Contest: The Case Against Competition – by Alfie Kohn – 340 pagesi think that will get you to the 4-chapter preview you can read free online. if not, try typing into google: Alfie Kohn No Contest read 4 chapters online(and please lemme know if you found this post? i’ll check back later.)

That won’t stop it … the politicos will simply double down on their bad bets.

http://www3.selu.edu/turtlecove/lessonsonthelake/chapter9/images/7_4_graph_lg.jpg

I estimate that the “flood of money” will come as-debt reduction to forestall “radical default”-Dr. Roubini recommended cutting everyone’smortgage (which the Government now is doing)…logically, the Government will cut everyone’scar/credit car loans- Government cash grants (like Brazil)to buy a home-radical acts of Government intervention are beginning toscare Americans – because it’s playing with firethis “flood of money” will lead to very large inflationwithin three years (in time for the next Presidentialelection)…and probably (in my opinion) hyperinflation

Exactly! We must continually ask who most benefits from the policies of our leaders: the middleclass or the elite?Is deflation really so terrible? We have seen the adverse effects of inflation many times. Perhaps the real fear behind deflation is that it would make it much more difficult for the mega corps to continue infinite growth and crowd out their smaller competitors while creating greater income disparity between workers and execs!

Yves,It seems the dike is leaking in Canada’s model health care system. This socialized medicine is just another wet dream of the Bamelot’s of the world – as if it were a right! Please, spare me from all this vote buying, dooo-gooding crap. Soon ration care will become the norm. It’s the only thing that makes sense since it is the only thing any society can afford. We have become too civilized – have lost touch with the dark side of the Force by trying to prolong life at all costs. I guess we will all get re-educated if Swine Flu returns with a vengeance.Thousands of surgeries may be cut in Metro Vancouver

a Vancouver Coastal Health Authority document shows it is considering chopping more than 6,000 surgeries in an effort to make up for a dramatic budgetary shortfall that could reach $200 million.

WHO Withholding Tamiflu Resistant Pandemic H1N1 Locations

The MMWR describe patients who were H1N1 infected in June. The patients were treated with Tamiflu and detectable resistance developed quickly. However, treatment was increased and resistance was not confirmed until August, after one patient developed a Tamiflu resistant recurrence and the other patient continues to be hospitalized in spite of treatment with Tamiflu, Relenza, and ribavirin. The ability of Tamiflu resistant pandemic H1N1 to persistence in such aggressively treated patients increases concerns that the recent worldwide rise in patient deaths and hospitalizations is linked in part to such resistance.

Post Office Going the Way of the Dodo…According to a recent CNN article, “Americans have mailed 20 billion fewer items this year than they did last year. Over the past 20 years, some 200,000 mail-collection boxes have been removed from U.S. streets because not enough people were dropping their letters into them. The Government Accountability Office has officially declared the Postal Service to be a high-risk agency.”And, says Nathan’s Economic Edge, we learned this week that Reader’s Digest—“a favorite of my grandmother’s—will be missing a $27 million coupon payment and will be filing a prepackaged chapter 11. Yep, things that have to do with good old fashion paper are definitely in retreat—newspapers, magazines, and the U.S. Postal Service.”And, says Nathan Martin of NEE, “I’ve been reminding people that the government is spending WAY more than they take in, that is hitting home to the Post Office. It seems that they are running into cash flow problems and will be making only partial payments to their retired employee’s health care fund by the end of September.”As for the P.O.’s response to expenses exceeding income, “they first want to cut general mail delivery from 6 days down to 5.” And, says the P.O., without the burden of its retiree health care plan, they would have been closer to profits.Summarizes Nate, “You see, they are having a liquidity crisis. So. Unless they are given more taxpayer money (or, unspoken here, universal healthcare comes to pass), then they are functionally bankrupt and are going to stop paying into their retiree healthcare fund.“In other words, they miss their own forecasts and then short change the retirees to whom they have promised healthcare. A time honored business tradition whereby the rule of law protects the central banker holders of fiat money debt before it protects those who have worked their entire lives.“This is about money and it has to come from someplace. One way or the other, it’s going to come from YOU! Oh, and if you’re counting on your retirement ‘dream’—hold on tight.”http://economicedge.blogspot.com/

No one need ask whose side Paul Krugman is on. Here’s an excerpt from LET THEM INFLATE by Richard Daughty 08/18/09, illustrating further what the Fed has in mind for savers and retirees and the American economy…Mr. [Paul] Krugman is on record has having advised the Bank of Japan to purposely cause inflation, as, “The way to make monetary policy effective is for the central bank to credibly promise to be irresponsible – to make a persuasive case that it will permit inflation to occur, thereby producing the negative real interest rates the economy needs,” although he never actually says where he is going to find guys stupid enough to loan money at negative interest rates, or in what bizarre alternate universe he lives where high inflation in consumer prices, particularly sustained high inflation, is anything other than a total disaster, which is why most of economics is concerned with the problem of preventing inflation while fostering growth!In fact, he thinks that a central bank trying to reflate a collapsing economy should announce a deliberate plan to raise the level of prices (such as the Consumer Price Index) from current low levels to some dramatically higher value (a so-called “price-level gap”) that it would have theoretically reached if a “moderate” and constant amount of inflation in prices had, in fact, occurred! Gaaahhhh!To make it more Theater of the Absurd, he then says to keep creating more inflation in prices! Gaaahhhh! This is insane! This is beyond insane!This would be bad enough coming from just another egghead academic dork from Princeton, but a terrifying quote from Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, shows that he agrees with this with nonsense!In fact, Bernanke said, “A successful effort to eliminate the price-level gap would proceed, roughly, in two stages. During the first stage, the inflation rate would exceed the long-term desired inflation rate, as the price-level gap was eliminated and the effects of previous deflation undone. Call this the reflationary phase of policy. Second, once the price-level target was reached, or nearly so, the objective for policy would become a conventional inflation target or a price-level target that increases over time at the average desired rate of inflation.”This is so dangerously preposterous that one’s hands shake in fear and paranoia at the calamity that awaits a nation that takes such ridiculous advice, and there is nothing to be done except to buy more gold, silver and oil, as the last 4,500 years of history have proven that these are the things that have lasting value, unlike the bitter disappointment and dismay of paper money and “true love.” …http://www.lewrockwell.com/daughty/mogambo23.1.html

@Melvin T Furd III Esq on 2009-08-18 10:40:49I agree. What annoys me most about the situation, though, is that these Babbits and Dittoheads have infected almost every corner of the Internet with incendiary, uninformed corporate propaganda. Their spread of disinformation and manner of twisting reality is alarming to say the least.I’m all for diversity and opposing opinions, but this seems to be something more like neurosis.

I can tell you think it is a real shame that it takes money to put on a radio show. Like most democrats, if they could just get rid of that pesky economic model of the project making a profit, everything would be free.Still a capitalist country. Compete instead of complain!

Actually no. I think that it’s a real shame that distribution of information and the direction of public debate, is controlled by those who have enormous wealth. That should be cause for alarm in any ‘liberty loving’ American.He who controls the message ‘n all, ya know?It’s still a democratic republic, I hope.

What is most important? A fat guy who has some backing for a radio show or an inexperienced democrat who had backing to control the message and became president?

i bet alots of employers will push their employee to public option. sweet, that is means more profit for employers. but tax for hard working middle-class American will go up. what about quality of public option? will it 100% at par in quality for existing people already has healthcare insurance? oh, yeah, YES WE CAN SCREW 95% AMERICAN’S HEALTHCARE INSURANCE.

What is important, is rational public debate and a shift back toward the democratic principles that America was founded on. And like it or not, Obama was democratically elected. Even if Obama accomplishes nothing, after 8 years of G.W. Bush, I still consider that an improvement.

@Guest on 2009-08-18 14:58:04Well that’s a rather lame assertion that I don’t believe does anything to improve our current situation. Like Bush, Obama is a democratically elected representative of the people and as a member of the electorate, it will be my mission to let this administration know what I want from my representatives.Inventing excuses not to be part of the process, is just a waste of time and energy.

it’s like being in the guillotine – you know the blade is there, you just don’t know when it’s coming.

@Guest on 2009-08-18 16:00:21I’m not sure that I’m falling your logic. But, I can assure you that I have no intention of allowing the America that I love continue to discriminate against fellow citizens under, the guise of ‘competition’.You can call it what you like, if it eases your conscience, but it is what it is.And it’s nasty.

I am corporate power and not giving it up. If you want more, do more, don’t tax me more to get what you want.

http://www.garynull.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/GaryNullShow080609e.mp3.hoping all is well..i re post this as the first time it’s posting was delayedbeyond the life of the thread for some reason? lest yeethink i was promoting something that never did or couldexist..

It’s well known that the US government has manipulated the gold market to protect the dollar. Now it’s in a pickle, as it’s becoming more and more obvious to many people and many governments (read “China”) that buying gold at artificially reduced prices is a much better bet these days than holding dollars or buying newly issued dollar certificates. The lower the price of gold gets, the more attractive it becomes as a long term hedge of the dollar going into the bucket (assuming that the dollar is not already in the bucket).

ummm, not any of the science I know of, maybe followers of Uri Geller…

g, re “true love” “a wild and precious thing” j. prine.and “glorious”.thoughts. paper money is wild but not precious.gold is precious but not wild.true love is both wild and precious, according tojohn prine.and…true love may lead to dismay and disappointment butmore likely tragedy. beauty and tragedy. like papermoney and gold but with paper money the work is doneby the authority of the printing press and it’s wisdom is the determining agent resulting in the quality, or lack, of the paper money.with gold the work is done by the universe itselfand man merely has to discover it’s presence andquality. (sorta like true love)….but true love requires the dedication of the soul overa lifetime and can only be produced by the individual one moment at a time. tragic comedy.??

There has been for some time and will probably always exist, the wolves waiting in the wings, with a certain few complicit in government who scheme for the day they can dismantle the system and hand it over to the private sector. I do not believe that Canadians will accept this. These are tactics to generate discontent and pave the way for big business to become the same merchants of misery as you have in the states. I live in British Columbia and have already contacted my member of the legislative assembly as have most of my friends. Please, if you are satisfied with the state of health care where you live, then by all means that is your prerogative, however, it is not in the best interest of any community here to have big business profit from anyone’s misfortune or ill-health. I gather from previous posts of yours that nothing would please you more than to see a few of us mortals get knocked off, so I conclude that the Tami-flu article pleases you? In the meantime, I wish you continued good health and happiness.

Inflation would destroy the wealthy because they’re the creditors, it will hurt the poor but destroy the wealthy. This economic depression is ultimately a problem of the consumer being overly indebted and a over way over valued dollar/trade deficit, two things inflation would take care of. inflation is inevitable and the solution! Sorry savers.

Well, here’s another one showing we are on top of the population plateau.http://www.unfpa.org/6billion/pages/worldpopgrowth.htmLook at expected population growth for Japan. After society reaches a certain level of advancement the growth rate comes down naturally.http://www9.ocn.ne.jp/~aslan/pfe/jpeak.htmYou need not roll over and die right now.

“The earth’s resources are finite”—–screw that noise. How can you possibly KNOW THAT? Were you out here MEASURING the number of the earth’s fishes? Of course not. No one is measuring, they’re all just PRESUMING based on some ideology. When do intellectuals really take stock of what they actually know an don’ t know?

You got another universe I could come from, dummy?

You know, guest, you’re way over the heads of most all of the bloggers on this site. Do you ever wonder why they even bother to post? Why don’t they just read and learn?

Yup, by golly you’re a pretty smart cookie, JB…….yup, yup, yesiree.

Furd, you want a free lunch. Good luck with that.

DNA Evidence Can Be Fabricated, Scientists ShowAugust 17, 2009–Scientists in Israel have demonstrated that it is possible to fabricate DNA evidence, undermining the credibility of what has been considered the gold standard of proof in criminal casesThe scientists fabricated blood and saliva samples containing DNA from a person other than the donor of the blood and saliva. They also showed that if they had access to a DNA profile in a database, they could construct a sample of DNA to match that profile without obtaining any tissue from that person.“You can just engineer a crime scene,” said Dan Frumkin, lead author of the paper, which has been published online by the journal Forensic Science International: Genetics. “Any biology undergraduate could perform this.”Dr. Frumkin is a founder of Nucleix, a company based in Tel Aviv that has developed a test to distinguish real DNA samples from fake ones that it hopes to sell to forensics laboratories.The planting of fabricated DNA evidence at a crime scene is only one implication of the findings. A potential invasion of personal privacy is another.Using some of the same techniques, it may be possible to scavenge anyone’s DNA from a discarded drinking cup or cigarette butt and turn it into a saliva sample that could be submitted to a genetic testing company that measures ancestry or the risk of getting various diseases. Celebrities might have to fear “genetic paparazzi,” said Gail H. Javitt of the Genetics and Public Policy Center at Johns Hopkins University.Tania Simoncelli, science adviser to the American Civil Liberties Union, said the findings were worrisome.“DNA is a lot easier to plant at a crime scene than fingerprints,” she said. “We’re creating a criminal justice system that is increasingly relying on this technology.” …http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/18/science/18dna.html?_r=2&hp

This from an idiot who believes in a fairy GOD father…

What I am saying is that we have become too civilized – we have lost touch with the dark side of the Force (Nature). The Tami-flu business is just another sign of how propped up we are in an attempt to outwit nature.Having said the above, yes, I am in favor of seeing the human population shrink – it is unsustainable. My point is that either we as humans attain the consciousness necessary to shrink our numbers or eventually Nature will do it for us.It is a moral problem. Our civilization has become an ethics by decree. This tells us that we must take responsibility for all peoples of the earth, and also allow them shelter and free provision in our countries. But there is no sustainability adaptation in this, it is a mere ethics of the intellect, wholly lacking in instinct. The intellectually moralistic aspiration that all suffering must be eradicated, is a form of inflation. It will have dire repercussions on society in the future. It is high time to change our moral outlook. We ought to look closer at the natural morality.Pursuing “problems which are not our own” are exactly what we are doing today, on a megalomaniacal scale. This will rebound and give rise to an evil on an equally grand scale.

…But such Themis (Themis means “law of nature” rather than human ordinance, literally “that which is put in place”) revengefulness in nature brings us to a very serious situation, one of the greatest present-day problems of our world: namely, that created by the great improvement in medicine due to the rational and technical development of the white man’s civilization. This is basically due to the domination of the white races. Pretty soon the world will be hopelessly overpopulated; in a couple of hundred years the situation will be absolutely hopeless, but the United Nations and other organizations continue to improve hygienic conditions in India and other Eastern countries and to help overpopulate the earth. Possibly nature will invent a new virus – and a virus is capable of fantastic mutations – or bring about such a state of irritation that Russia or the United States or some other country will use the atom bomb, because somehow humanity has to be reduced. The Feminine In Fairytales

From Mish:Brace for a Wave of Foreclosures, the Dam is About to BreakA summary of Second Quarter 2009 Negative Equity Data from First American CoreLogic shows that Nearly One-Third Of All Mortgages Are Underwater.• More than 15.2 million U.S. mortgages, or 32.2 percent of all mortgaged properties, were in negative equity position as of June 30, 2009 according to newly released data from First American CoreLogic. As of June 2009, there were an additional 2.5 million mortgaged properties that were approaching negative equity. Negative equity and near negative equity mortgages combined account for nearly 38 percent of all residential properties with a mortgage nationwide.• The aggregate property value for loans in a negative equity position was $3.4 trillion, which represents the total property value at risk of default. In California, the aggregate value of homes that are in negative equity was $969 billion, followed by Florida ($432 billion), New Jersey ($146 billion), Illinois ($146 billion) and Arizona ($140 billion). Los Angeles had over $310 billion in aggregate property value in a negative equity position, followed by New York ($183 billion), Miami ($152 billion), Washington, DC ($149 billion) and Chicago ($134 billion).• The distribution of negative equity is heavily skewed to a small number of states as three states account for roughly half of all mortgage borrowers in a negative equity position. Nevada (66 percent) had the highest percentage with nearly two‐thirds of mortgage borrowers in a negative equity position. In Arizona (51 percent) and Florida (49 percent), half of all mortgage borrowers were in a negative equity position. Michigan (48 percent) and California (42 percent) round out the top five states.There are some interesting tables and graphs in the article that inquiring minds are investigating. Here are some partial alphabetical lists.click on any chart in this post to see a sharper imageNegative Equity ShareProperty Values and Loan-To-Equity RatiosNevada, not shown has a near-negative equity share of 68.9% and a Loan-To-Value ratio of a whopping 115%!It is disingenuous to say there are only a half-dozen or so problem states, when the problem states are where people live. It is wrong to treat Alabama and Alaska the same as California or Florida.Mortgage Facts and Figures – Select StatesCalifornia has $2.4 trillion in mortgages debt. 42.0% of the properties have negative equity.Florida has $923 billion in mortgage debt. 49.4% of the properties have negative equity.Illinois has $447 billion in mortgage debt. 29.4% of the properties have negative equity.Arizona has $298 billion in mortgage debt. 51.0% of the properties have negative equity.Nevada has $149 billion in mortgage debt. 65.6% of the properties have negative equity.Nationwide there is $10.1 trillion in mortgage debt. 32.2% of the properties have negative equity.37.6% of the properties have “near-negative” equity.32-37% Of All Mortgage Holders Are Stuck, Unable To SellTake a look at that first line. California has $2.4 trillion in mortgages debt. 42.0% of the properties have negative equity. Think Wells Fargo (WFC) sitting on its massive share of California pay-option-arms is “Well Capitalized”? If so, think again.Now take a look at that last line again. Nationwide there is $10.1 trillion in mortgage debt. 32.2% of the properties have negative equity, another 5.4% are nearly underwater. Counting real estate commissions of 5% or so, 37.6% are effectively underwater right now.Unless those people bring equity to the table at closing, those mortgage holders are stuck in their houses, unable to sell.And the situation is about to get worse. It will only take a small drop in the Case-Shiller home price index to put a whopping 50% of mortgage holders underwater, stuck in their houses, unable to sell.Foreclosure Wave Is About To HitThe biggest factor in foreclosures and walk-aways is whether or not someone is underwater. If someone with equity always has a chance to sell. The second biggest factor is “skin in the game”. Those who put down 20% are far less likely to abandon their properties than someone who put down 10% or less.In light of the above, and given the preponderance of “liar loans” and low down payments in the problem states, those thinking clearly might be expecting to see a giant wave of foreclosures striking shore right about now. And they would be correct.Mark Hanson discusses the above theory in “The Foreclosure Wave” — Now a Tsunami of Sorts.There’s plenty of commentary in the article worth reading so please take a look. Here are some charts.California ForeclosuresNationwide ForeclosuresCalifornia Pent Up Foreclosure DemandMark notes “Foreclosure supply (yellow) has been artificially held back, which has allowed the low end of the real estate market to perform very well over the past several months. But the reservoir of foreclosures (blue + pink) is getting full and at some point the dam will crack and break.”Six Reasons the Dam Will Break Sooner Rather Than LaterThe number of people underwater in their mortgages is high and rising fast.The reported nationwide unemployment figure is 9.4% with the real unemployment above 16% and rising.Wages are falling.The jobs market will suffer losses for another year.Notices of Default and Trustee Sales are high and rising.Social attitudes towards walking away and bankruptcy have changed.In light of the above, those expecting a rebound in home prices and consumer sales, and/or a sharp V-shaped recovery are in Fantasyland.Mike “Mish” Shedlockcheck the charts out: http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/08/brace-for-wave-of-foreclosures-dam-is.html?ref=patrick.net

OP-ED CONTRIBUTORThe Greenback EffectBy WARREN E. BUFFETTPublished: August 18, 2009IN nature, every action has consequences, a phenomenon called the butterfly effect. These consequences, moreover, are not necessarily proportional. For example, doubling the carbon dioxide we belch into the atmosphere may far more than double the subsequent problems for society. Realizing this, the world properly worries about greenhouse emissions.The butterfly effect reaches into the financial world as well. Here, the United States is spewing a potentially damaging substance into our economy — greenback emissions.To be sure, we’ve been doing this for a reason I resoundingly applaud. Last fall, our financial system stood on the brink of a collapse that threatened a depression. The crisis required our government to display wisdom, courage and decisiveness. Fortunately, the Federal Reserve and key economic officials in both the Bush and Obama administrations responded more than ably to the need.They made mistakes, of course. How could it have been otherwise when supposedly indestructible pillars of our economic structure were tumbling all around them? A meltdown, though, was avoided, with a gusher of federal money playing an essential role in the rescue.The United States economy is now out of the emergency room and appears to be on a slow path to recovery. But enormous dosages of monetary medicine continue to be administered and, before long, we will need to deal with their side effects. For now, most of those effects are invisible and could indeed remain latent for a long time. Still, their threat may be as ominous as that posed by the financial crisis itself.To understand this threat, we need to look at where we stand historically. If we leave aside the war-impacted years of 1942 to 1946, the largest annual deficit the United States has incurred since 1920 was 6 percent of gross domestic product. This fiscal year, though, the deficit will rise to about 13 percent of G.D.P., more than twice the non-wartime record. In dollars, that equates to a staggering $1.8 trillion. Fiscally, we are in uncharted territory.Because of this gigantic deficit, our country’s “net debt” (that is, the amount held publicly) is mushrooming. During this fiscal year, it will increase more than one percentage point per month, climbing to about 56 percent of G.D.P. from 41 percent. Admittedly, other countries, like Japan and Italy, have far higher ratios and no one can know the precise level of net debt to G.D.P. at which the United States will lose its reputation for financial integrity. But a few more years like this one and we will find out.An increase in federal debt can be financed in three ways: borrowing from foreigners, borrowing from our own citizens or, through a roundabout process, printing money. Let’s look at the prospects for each individually — and in combination.The current account deficit — dollars that we force-feed to the rest of the world and that must then be invested — will be $400 billion or so this year. Assume, in a relatively benign scenario, that all of this is directed by the recipients — China leads the list — to purchases of United States debt. Never mind that this all-Treasuries allocation is no sure thing: some countries may decide that purchasing American stocks, real estate or entire companies makes more sense than soaking up dollar-denominated bonds. Rumblings to that effect have recently increased.Then take the second element of the scenario — borrowing from our own citizens. Assume that Americans save $500 billion, far above what they’ve saved recently but perhaps consistent with the changing national mood. Finally, assume that these citizens opt to put all their savings into United States Treasuries (partly through intermediaries like banks).Even with these heroic assumptions, the Treasury will be obliged to find another $900 billion to finance the remainder of the $1.8 trillion of debt it is issuing. Washington’s printing presses will need to work overtime.Slowing them down will require extraordinary political will. With government expenditures now running 185 percent of receipts, truly major changes in both taxes and outlays will be required. A revived economy can’t come close to bridging that sort of gap.Legislators will correctly perceive that either raising taxes or cutting expenditures will threaten their re-election. To avoid this fate, they can opt for high rates of inflation, which never require a recorded vote and cannot be attributed to a specific action that any elected official takes. In fact, John Maynard Keynes long ago laid out a road map for political survival amid an economic disaster of just this sort: “By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens…. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.”I want to emphasize that there is nothing evil or destructive in an increase in debt that is proportional to an increase in income or assets. As the resources of individuals, corporations and countries grow, each can handle more debt. The United States remains by far the most prosperous country on earth, and its debt-carrying capacity will grow in the future just as it has in the past.But it was a wise man who said, “All I want to know is where I’m going to die so I’ll never go there.” We don’t want our country to evolve into the banana-republic economy described by Keynes.Our immediate problem is to get our country back on its feet and flourishing — “whatever it takes” still makes sense. Once recovery is gained, however, Congress must end the rise in the debt-to-G.D.P. ratio and keep our growth in obligations in line with our growth in resources.Unchecked carbon emissions will likely cause icebergs to melt. Unchecked greenback emissions will certainly cause the purchasing power of currency to melt. The dollar’s destiny lies with Congress.

If you even bothered to put together a podcast that I found moderately interesting or entertaining I would listen to it during my commute or at the gym. And if I and thousands of others like it, you might get picked up for syndication.qAgain, don’t tell me your view doesn’t have a chance to be aired until you actually try (outside of here, that is … if your haven’t noticed, you’ve kicked up quite a discussion without being one of the ‘fat-cats’ you disparage).

Bernanke and Geithner, E.T.A.L. in high and important places, believe it is all about confidence. They have been propping up the markets to bolster confidence or to keep it from collapsing further. They or I really don’t get it. Maybe you can re-ignite the borrowing binge by raising stock prices. which could then be re-leveraged and all that new capital from tons of new debt could further spur on consumer spending which is 70% of our economy…. Maybe genetic engineering can make pigs fly too!Consumer spending and consumer confidence and increasing foreclosures are not cooperating but maybe they will.. GM is hiring back workers to fulfill the Cash for Clunkers bail out subsidy. All the government needs to do is give everyone Cash for Food and Cash for Mortgage Pmts and Cash for Medical subsidies and all will be well.

Historically speaking, unfair is nothing new. It’s generally the sort of thing that happens when rational beings abandon sound reason and responsibility, and instead, put all their faith in an ‘invisible hand’.Reckon we shouldn’t be surprised when that ‘invisible hand’ ends up robbing us blind.

What area of the country do you live in?

Must be AZ, CA or Fla… other 47 states soon to be in same shape… could also be parts of michigan.

I don’t think you understand economics, first off the people I’m talking to are not lazy slackers they are extremely hard working people who have lost their jobs or are in the process of losing their jobs the first wave of foreclosures may have been irresponsible borrowers/speculators, the second wave of foreclosures are the hardest working and most honest people you ever met hanging on for dear life. They all tell the same story where they beg the bank for debt relief and they all get the same response a foreclosure notice. Secondly your naivety regarding economics is clear because you should well know that it is the FEDERAL RESERVE and it’s chartered banks including commercial banks sole responsibility to ensure price stability in the system, that is what they get paid to do, not look the other way or even encourage liar loans for short term profits. The problem is when they encourage liar loans it forces asset and housing prices through the roof forcing honest borrowers to pay triple what a home is really worth. This entire calamity is 100% bankers and politicians fault through their collusion and greed. This economic collapse is just starting from what I’m observing. Yes I live in metro Detroit an area badly hurt by the auto industry but I believe Michigan is just a leading indicator of the impending disaster.

Way to ignore the text accompanying the image:”Population growth is slowing in much of the world, and has already stopped in developed countries and some developing ones. But a global slowdown is not inevitable. When and at what level world population ultimately stabilizes, and whether this is accompanied by increasing well-being or increasing stress, will depend heavily on decisions and action in the next 10 years—particularly on action to ensure gender equity and enable all people to enjoy their rights to reproductive health and choice.”

Oh. I now see there is a New Thread.

I agree that there will be corrections where there are imbalances, and we as a species are sorely out of order. That is not to say that we have to abandon any shred of good faith that we have toward one another and become a “dog eat dog” world. That, in and of itself, it a fallacy as there is far more cooperation in nature than competition. I would rather cooperate with a neigbour than compete with one. As for spiraling health care costs, those could be taken care of overnight if we lived in a prevention focused society, one where health concerns were mitigated before they became a crisis. Unfortunately, in the midst of the most plenty mankind has ever seen, many choose to eat garbage food and indulge in the kind of sloth that would make my cat envious. Personal responsibility for your health should be paramount, especially in a public system. Me thinks the instant gratification babies amongst us are the most likely to be the heaviest users.By the way I take offense at the quote referring to the ills of the world being caused by the white races. It is a specious play, underhandedly poo-poohing the evil white race, while implicitly suggesting their intellectual superiority. All discovery and knowledge is based on human intellect, homo sapiens, a family to which we all belong.Anyway, we will outstrip our environment as have before and are well on our way to now, and be knocked back before long. We are short sighted creatures. Silly, funny, kind, vicious, greedy, giving, monstrous, loving hateful, wicked, caring & myopic. Does this sound like a recipe for success? Relax.

o A policy illiterate electorate has completely lost control of the political processo A negligent government encoraged unsafe lending practices, while refusing to regulate the thieves who run Wall Streeto The go-along-to-get-along, happy Houston Country Club Administration watched total federal liabilities increase from $30tn to $67tn in eight yearso The current legislative genius in command has just discovered the differnce between the insurance component of the federal budget and the fiscal; Medicare + Social Security are actuarily impossibly insolvento Watch dollar assets

Yep. Going to my beach house this week end. How about you?

Hey site owner, I like blogengine.net but why did you chose it? I mean its so neat with the random avatars and draws people in, but what speficially made you want to use it?