$5000 GOLD?

[Ralph Greene]

Other countries around the world either didn't have their economies decline as much as ours, or are further along in their recovery than we are. As they recover ahead of us (Canada, Australia, etc), their central banks are taking back some of their stimulus activity, or in fact slightly firming their monetary policy in order to rein in their recovery a tad, and make them extend their recovery longer without causing as much inflation. By doing this, their currency attracts investors, many using dollars. This investment in (usually) their government bonds causes their currency to strengthen against our currency, causing our dollar to fall in value against some foreign currencies (but not all). Our dollar falling in value causes imports to be more expensive in this country, helping our US industry, and causes our exports to be cheaper in world markets, again helping US industry and putting Americans to work. So....to a point, and as long as foreign countries have confidence we have the ability to fix our economy, a weak dollar policy is to our advantage. I would think some of you folks crying the loudest about keeping US production in the US would welcome a weak US dollar....again only to a point.

 

When our economy begins to firm up, and our fed begins to tighten our monetary policy, remove stimulus, and slightly raise interest rates to prolong our recovery and to slow inflationary pressurers, then foreign investment will flow to our government bonds and currency, making the dollar stronger against world curriences. And then.....after a few years, some folks will be howling about how our strong dollar hurts US exports, etc, puts Americans out of work, etc, the EU will be at parity or less, a dollar buys 1.20 Canadian again, and the cycle will continue. It's just world economics at work.

Edited October 29, 2009 by Ralph Greene

[Trimdingman]

You just don't give up.

 

The dollar can only "collapse" relative to the value of other currencies. CAPICE?

So, if you are not importing anything, the "collapse" is meaningless. Food does not have to be imported.

 

 

And why would it be down for a month? "Look how easily it went down a few years ago" — look how easily it got back on-line.

 

 

No, we are that different from Russia (the USSR, you may recall, no longer exists) when it comes to financials. As I posted above, the economies are different, the demographics are different, and the futures are different.

 

Hint: compare life-spans.

 

 

Again, I ask: Why? With whom? Liechtenstein? Switzerland? Namibia? France? Iran?

 

Please refrain from tin-foil hat extremism and give us a concise, reasoned statement on just who the US will be going to war with.

Oil has to be imported. If the world dumps the dollar, and it hyperinflates so that oil is a million dollars a barrel, that would mean something.

 

If civilization breaks down, who is going to keep the grid running? If there is no electricity for a month, we are doomed.

 

The USSR was Communist. We are almost there now with all of the socialist government programs and entitlements. The money will not be there for the baby boomer retirement pensions. All money in circulation is fiat, printed like Monopoly money, backed by nothing. If you think that taxation can produce more revenue, that stone has been bled dry. Look at how all hell broke loose last year when the market collapsed. The problem was papered over with fiat money. Nothing changed. The White House said that without the stimulus, it would have been a catastrophy. Nothing has been prevented, just temporarily postponed. The economy is like a soggy oak log that needs to be re-kindled. The stimulus is like a pile of papers lit on fire next to it. Once the flames consume the paper, the soggy log will still be sitting there.

[Trimdingman]

We are at war already. This war could easily be widened. North Korea is an ally of China. A little more push into the Middle East could get Russia's goat. The enemy is at the gates of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. It wouldn't take much to set off an all-out war, complete with mushroom clouds. If the alternative is a complete breakdown of civilization, like a Dark Ages II, I wouldn't be surprised to see it.

[suv_guy_19]

Trim, we're always at the brink. Thankfully, we rarely cross the line.

[Trimdingman]

Interest rates have been cut to virtually zero. This was done to prevent millions of people and businesses from bankruptcy. They really are bankrupt, just on life-support. Interest rates have to be set according to the risk of the loan not being re-paid, plus the rate of inflation, plus a modest profit to the lender. Now, interest rates are being artificially set to influence the economy. Now even this last desperate measure has reached its limit. We now have to face the music, and it's not a cheery tune.

[Trimdingman]

Trim, we're always at the brink. Thankfully, we rarely cross the line.

 

 

What I am saying is that if what the White House said would happen last year actually happens, a World War may be the only way for America to come out of this. We have no shortage of enemies to choose from.

[Edstock]

Oil has to be imported. If the world dumps the dollar, and it hyperinflates so that oil is a million dollars a barrel, that would mean something.

Only to you and your tin-foil hat. The US imports most of its oil from Canada and Mexico. The Canuck Loonie and the Mexican peso are intimately tied to the value of the US dollar, and with US heavily invested in Alberta, the oil will keep flowing.

 

If civilization breaks down, who is going to keep the grid running? If there is no electricity for a month, we are doomed.

 

Again, please tell us why civilization will break down.

 

The USSR was Communist. We are almost there now with all of the socialist government programs and entitlements.

 

We are not even close, even "with all of the socialist government programs and entitlements" that you fixate upon. The USSR allowed no private ownership of property and all industry was owned by the state.

 

You should read more, to alleviate your ignorance.

 

The money will not be there for the baby boomer retirement pensions.

 

You're entitled to your opinion. Time will tell.

 

If you think that taxation can produce more revenue, that stone has been bled dry.

 

That's your opinion. Taxation can produce more revenue — for the government. That's why they used to call the Canuck IRS "Revenue Canada".

 

Look at how all hell broke loose last year when the market collapsed. The problem was papered over with fiat money.

 

Nothing "was papered over", except in your mind. What the US and other governments around the world did was to ensure that markets could stay open and function.

 

Nothing changed.

 

All sorts of businesses changed, ownership changed, some were dissolved, some were sold. A new awareness of the necessity of greed-control by regulation has been established.

 

The White House said that without the stimulus, it would have been a catastrophy.

 

If the world-wide financial system had ground to a halt, it certainly would have been a catastrophe.

 

Nothing has been prevented, just temporarily postponed.

 

You really are obtuse. A world-wide financial catastrophe (catastrophy to you) was avoided.

 

We are at war already.

With whom?

 

This war could easily be widened. North Korea is an ally of China.

 

And your point is? You do have a point?

 

A little more push into the Middle East could get Russia's goat.

 

Please define what you mean by "A little more push into the Middle East ". Otherwise this is just a delusion from under your tin-foil hat.

 

The enemy is at the gates of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal.

 

The enemy is not "at the gates of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal", which is kept under close guard of the Pakistani Army.

 

It wouldn't take much to set off an all-out war, complete with mushroom clouds.

 

Again, you are stupidly vague when you want to be, or maybe it's just ignorance on your part.

 

Please define "all-out war". Who would be the participants? What would be the throw weight of the arsenals employed? For example, the Pakistanis have very few warheads, and no way to deliver them much more than about 1,500 miles, so that the most they can do is threaten India, which is a pretty Mickey-Mouse all-out war, compared to the scenarios thought up by the late Herman Kahn, who's seminal book "On Thermonuclear War" you probably never read.

[Ralph Greene]

Would you care to share what these are?

 

The Case Shiller Index is currently showing a strong rebound in housing sales activity (existing homes)....on a nationwide basis. Obviously some regions are ahead of others. This is the main index folowed by investors.

 

The data out yestersay was for new home sales. It's not surprising to me that new home sales are down....not many are being built these days.

Edited October 29, 2009 by Ralph Greene

[NickF1011]

Would you care to share what these are?

 

Stocks are recovering. They usually predate actual GDP performance by several months. Factory orders have leveled off and/or increased. Retail spending has leveled off and/or increased. Durable goods orders are up. Etc, etc.

 

The two big bad numbers that are still going the wrong direction are new home sales and unemployment, which are usually two of the last things to recover during a down economy.

Edited October 29, 2009 by NickF1011

[NickF1011]

And well lookie over there: The GDP increased by 3.5% in the third quarter. :o

[suv_guy_19]

I doubt that type of annualized rate will be sustained, but I'm pretty sure that the worst is over.

[fmccap]

I doubt that type of annualized rate will be sustained, but I'm pretty sure that the worst is over.

I doubt it will either, I seen somewhere that cash for clunkers accounted for 1.7% of that and it's over so.

[suv_guy_19]

That still shows some growth though. There is almost certainly a recovery happening.

[mustang84isu]

We are at war already. This war could easily be widened. North Korea is an ally of China. A little more push into the Middle East could get Russia's goat. The enemy is at the gates of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. It wouldn't take much to set off an all-out war, complete with mushroom clouds. If the alternative is a complete breakdown of civilization, like a Dark Ages II, I wouldn't be surprised to see it.

 

Of course nothing is absolute and there are no guarantees, but the likelihood of any of this happening is extremely slim, especially with the world being more connected today than at any period in its history.

 

You need to stop living life with such a pessimistic outlook on everything...it can't be healthy.

[fmccap]

That still shows some growth though. There is almost certainly a recovery happening.

Market Cheers Over Ugly GDP Report

[Trimdingman]

The government had better start toning down the optimism or the market may overheat. :P

 

If you compare the present-day DOW chart with the one around the 1929 crash, they are the same. We are on a false recovery and will fall again. The market is being buoyed up by inflationary forces on borrowed (printed) currency. If you total up the debt plus unfunded liabilities and derivative debt, it comes to hundreds of trillions of dollars. The greenback is really not worth the paper it is printed on. Every time in history when a country's currency was so over-leveraged, it led to hyperinflation.

[Trimdingman]

Of course nothing is absolute and there are no guarantees, but the likelihood of any of this happening is extremely slim, especially with the world being more connected today than at any period in its history.

 

You need to stop living life with such a pessimistic outlook on everything...it can't be healthy.

 

I wouldn't call the odds of something happening that comes directly out of the White House "extremely slim". There are many bubbles that could pop at any time. Commercial real estate is coming up soon. The baby boomer retirement is a real time bomb. Imagine many millions of people who are the top wage earners, consumers and tax-payers will soon be "on the dole". Go ahead and calculate the impact that will have. Google "peak oil". That is another eye-opener. Unemployment has nowhere to go but up, and tax revenues will go down. More money needs to be paid out, and less money will be coming in. Do you think that the problem can be solved by printing money after selling worthless bonds to China? As it stands, there are too many people for this civilization. One way or another, the population has to be reduced. War is preferable to starvation, especially if you are in possession of the ultimate war machine.

 

I am optimistic that I will live to see some pretty interesting times.

[fmccap]

The Case Shiller Index is currently showing a strong rebound in housing sales activity (existing homes)....on a nationwide basis. Obviously some regions are ahead of others. This is the main index folowed by investors.

 

The data out yestersay was for new home sales. It's not surprising to me that new home sales are down....not many are being built these days.

Actually, Case-Shiller Shows That The Housing Crash Has Already Resumed

The sequential increase in prices in August was less than the sequential increase in July. This, Whitney believes, is the start of the seasonal downturn that will take house prices down another 10%-15% by the middle of next year.

[Trimdingman]

The Dow dropped 250 on Friday, and the Futures are down another 239. This could be the beginning. Happy Hallowe'en.

[suv_guy_19]

Oh noes. Head for the hills. The world as we know it is crumbling around us.

[Trimdingman]

Oh noes. Head for the hills. The world as we know it is crumbling around us.

 

It was good while it lasted. I saw a graph yesterday that projected the economy over a five thousand period, going about 2500 years into the future. It was mostly flat with a short blip in the middle. We now have a surplus of oil. Oil productive capacity is slowing down. At the same time, oil requirement is increasing. Soon these lines will intersect. We cannot have insufficient oil. Even a 5% shortfall would be devastating. This is irreversible. Civilization will soon cease to exist.

[Edstock]

It was good while it lasted. I saw a graph yesterday that projected the economy over a five thousand period, going about 2500 years into the future. It was mostly flat with a short blip in the middle. We now have a surplus of oil. Oil productive capacity is slowing down. At the same time, oil requirement is increasing. Soon these lines will intersect. We cannot have insufficient oil. Even a 5% shortfall would be devastating. This is irreversible. Civilization will soon cease to exist.

"going about 2500 years into the future" — what a waste of effort.

 

NOBODY knows what things will be like even 75 years from now, which makes predictions like that completely silly.

 

My father was born in 1908, the year the Model T came to market, and the airplane was 5 years old. Before he died, he got to fly at Mach 2 on the Concorde.

 

"Even a 5% shortfall would be devastating. This is irreversible. "

 

50 years from now, oil will be completely irrelevant. Why? Because we are making solid progress in nano-technology, and in another 50 years we will be able to do just about anything we want to with molecules.

 

Then there's fusion technology. There are several different approaches, and eventually, one of 'em is going to work. Currently, the US Navy is funding one of the smallest efforts, called Polywell Fusion, pioneered by the late Dr. Robert Bussard — and it looks like it's going to work.

 

Then there's DNA. It's been less than 60 years since its discovery. Well, we are starting to get an understanding of how it works. This has led to the development of Proteonomics, which is the science of protein chemistry, which is how the cells in your body operate. Currently, we are at a Wright Brothers technological level with this science, but the way forward is clear.

 

As well, while I won't live to see it, people living 100 years from now will probably have a life expectancy of 200+ years, and may be able to become practically immortal, as we learn to control how DNA does what it does, keeping telomeres from shortening, and removing DNA clutter that occurs as time passes.

 

So, a graph predicting 1,500 years from now? Yeah, right. 2,500 years? :hysterical:

[xr7g428]

Damn Edstock, what has gotten into you? Two for Two? You are completely on target this time.

 

In the 1850's we were getting short on whales and whale oil. Petroleum pretty well put an end to that problem. In the 1890's our greatest public health issue was horse manure in the cities. Twenty years later the problem was solved, by the automobile. People continue to think that we will use existing technology to solve future problems, not realizing tha thte change in technology is actually occurring much faster than the change in problems.

 

Could you post links to anything you have read on Polywell fusion?

[Edstock]

In the 1890's our greatest public health issue was horse manure in the cities.

The descriptions of NYC in the 1890's, where there were something like 7,000,000 horses in the immdediate area, serving the city, are unbelievable. Apparently, the doodoo was never picked up off the streets, and during the Summer, it was common to have no rain in NYC during July, so the doodoo would dry out and get pounded into dust by the traffic. Then the first rains of August/September turned the dust into . . . well, glad I wasn't around.

 

Google has a very interesting video of a lecture by Dr. Bussard, given shortly before his death, where he talks about the process he developed, why it should work, and why the ITER-Tokamak processes probably won't work. I'm not a physicist, but I know a fair bit, and the Polywell process takes advantage of how matter is, instead of the ITER, "we need a bigger hammer" approach, trying to force fusion.

 

http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=199...sard&hl=en#

 

Then there's a blog-site, IEC Fusion Technology, which has been following the Polywell effort:

 

http://iecfusiontech.blogspot.com/

 

It has links to the EMC2 corporation, which is developing the Polywell "reactor". The good news is that it appears that the Polywell approach is now getting serious attention from people who have been on the ITER band-wagon up til now. Hyman Rickover would be pleased.

 

WILD-ASS GUESS DEP'T:

 

2,500 years from now, people will have a 1,000+ year life expectancy. We will have developed either FTL capability, or "generational ship" capability, and we will be colonizing other planets. With FTL, they could be in other galaxies, with generational ships, we will be out to about 1,500 light-years in our galaxy, maybe more. Why? Because we can, and also to ensure human survival. Our sun is stable, but there are short-lived giants close to us, that if one of 'em goes nova, could sterilize our planet.

Edited October 31, 2009 by Edstock

[Trimdingman]

The descriptions of NYC in the 1890's, where there were something like 7,000,000 horses in the immdediate area, serving the city, are unbelievable. Apparently, the doodoo was never picked up off the streets, and during the Summer, it was common to have no rain in NYC during July, so the doodoo would dry out and get pounded into dust by the traffic. Then the first rains of August/September turned the dust into . . . well, glad I wasn't around.

 

Google has a very interesting video of a lecture by Dr. Bussard, given shortly before his death, where he talks about the process he developed, why it should work, and why the ITER-Tokamak processes probably won't work. I'm not a physicist, but I know a fair bit, and the Polywell process takes advantage of how matter is, instead of the ITER, "we need a bigger hammer" approach, trying to force fusion.

 

http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=199...sard&hl=en#

 

Then there's a blog-site, IEC Fusion Technology, which has been following the Polywell effort:

 

http://iecfusiontech.blogspot.com/

 

It has links to the EMC2 corporation, which is developing the Polywell "reactor". The good news is that it appears that the Polywell approach is now getting serious attention from people who have been on the ITER band-wagon up til now. Hyman Rickover would be pleased.

 

WILD-ASS GUESS DEP'T:

 

2,500 years from now, people will have a 1,000+ year life expectancy. We will have developed either FTL capability, or "generational ship" capability, and we will be colonizing other planets. With FTL, they could be in other galaxies, with generational ships, we will be out to about 1,500 light-years in our galaxy, maybe more. Why? Because we can, and also to ensure human survival. Our sun is stable, but there are short-lived giants close to us, that if one of 'em goes nova, could sterilize our planet.

 

All of that sounds good. Too bad it is going to take more than 10 years to get it off the ground. Right now, oil is our lifes-blood. Oil consumption is increasing by 3% a year. Our ability to produce oil is decreasing by a similar amount. In less than 10 years, everything is going to grind to a halt because we will not be able to produce enough oil to keep it going. We will be too busy scavenging for food to develop any space ships. There will be no TV. In two generations, all of the marvels that we now enjoy will be like fairy tales. The population of the earth will decimate. It will be thousands of years before we get back to where we are now. This is nothing new. It has happened many times in the earth's history, and it will happen many more.