Article

2011-11-13 Economy

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2011-11-13 02:34|| || Front Page|| [4 views ] Top

#1 He's right that it's the debt, he's wrong about exports solving anything.

Posted by Bright Pebbles 2011-11-13 07:34|| 2011-11-13 07:34|| Front Page Top

#2 FTA: There are an unknown number of European banks that are effectively insolvent if their holdings of government bonds are marked to marketin other words, valued at their current rock-bottom market prices. The number of US banks that are effectively insolvent if all their holdings were to be 'marked to market' is also unknown - IMO most of the TBTF banks are in that category.
All that bad debt will have to be eaten by someone before economic growth can resume. The oligarchy prefers that the taxpayers eat their debt for them.

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2011-11-13 08:16|| 2011-11-13 08:16|| Front Page Top

#3 Debt is increasing so lets not talk about fixing the problem of existing debt until we can stop generating new debt.

Posted by Mike Ramsey 2011-11-13 09:05|| 2011-11-13 09:05|| Front Page Top

#4 There are 2 options...
1/ Tell creditors they've only got 20% of their deposits.
2/ Inflate 80%.

Posted by Bright Pebbles 2011-11-13 10:17|| 2011-11-13 10:17|| Front Page Top

#5 There is a 3rd option - a massive asteroid with a 24kt gold shell and a creamy nougat center of pure light sweet crude 'unexpectedly' strikes Washington DC as Zero addresses a joint session of Congress.
The remains, being public property, are sold off to retire the national debt and reboot the moribund US economy.
What's not to like?

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2011-11-13 10:37|| 2011-11-13 10:37|| Front Page Top

#6 I much prefer Ferguson's previous Newsweek article: America's 'Oh Sh*t!' Moment
Key point:
Is there anything we can do to prevent such disasters? Social scientist Charles Murray calls for a civic great awakeninga return to the original values of the American republic. Hes got a point. Far more than in Europe, most Americans remain instinctively loyal to the killer applications of Western ascendancy, from competition all the way through to the work ethic. They know the country has the right software. They just cant understand why its running so damn slowly.

What we need to do is to delete the viruses that have crept into our system: the anticompetitive quasi monopolies that blight everything from banking to public education; the politically correct pseudosciences and soft subjects that deflect good students away from hard science; the lobbyists who subvert the rule of law for the sake of the special interests they representto say nothing of our crazily dysfunctional system of health care, our overleveraged personal finances, and our newfound unemployment ethic.

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2011-11-13 10:42|| 2011-11-13 10:42|| Front Page Top

#7 Anguper Hupomosing9418

You think gold will make you rich?

The only think that would happen is that the gold price would halve.

Posted by Bright Pebbles 2011-11-13 14:33|| 2011-11-13 14:33|| Front Page Top

#8 16th Century Spain, BP?

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2011-11-13 14:48|| 2011-11-13 14:48|| Front Page Top

#9 The whole history of that era is of massive inflation (i.e. decrease in the purchasing power of the currency of the time(which was gold)).

Posted by Bright Pebbles 2011-11-13 16:30|| 2011-11-13 16:30|| Front Page Top

#10 Still, american gold made Spain the dominant power of the time.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2011-11-13 16:36|| 2011-11-13 16:36|| Front Page Top

#11 You think gold will make you rich? Nope, I am less likely to get any gold than that gold asteroid is to strike.
But in my sci-fi scenario the US could easily revert to a gold standard & so force our creditors to eat the public debt, cost per troy ounce be damned. If they didn't want to redeem treasury paper in gold, the creditors would still be free to hold on to it.
But more valuable than that, none of the current federal incumbents would ever again hold a public office.

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2011-11-13 20:17|| 2011-11-13 20:17|| Front Page Top

#12 Anguper Hupomosing9418 posted:

They know the country has the right software. They just cant understand why its running so damn slowly.

That's easy! There's a Trojan Horse virus in the White House.

Posted by Old Patriot 2011-11-13 22:16|| 2011-11-13 22:16|| Front Page Top

#13 ...Athens, Rome, Washington ... The shortest route from imperial capital to tourist destination is precisely this death spiral of debt.

Well, we don't have to worry about that. The crime's too bad in Washington for it to become a tourist destination.

Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2011-11-13 22:30|| 2011-11-13 22:30|| Front Page Top

23:22 Betty Scourge of the Brontosaurs6664
23:15 Betty Scourge of the Brontosaurs6664
23:13 CrazyFool
23:10 Procopius2k
23:09 gorb
23:09 JosephMendiola
23:09 Betty Scourge of the Brontosaurs6664
23:06 Betty Scourge of the Brontosaurs6664
22:59 JosephMendiola
22:43 JosephMendiola
22:36 JosephMendiola
22:30 Thing From Snowy Mountain
22:16 Old Patriot
22:12 rjschwarz
21:48 whatadeal
21:45 OldSpook
21:21 RandomJD
21:07 Shose Flolusing6941
20:21 Anguper Hupomosing9418
20:18 JosephMendiola
20:17 Anguper Hupomosing9418
20:11 Pappy
20:09 Anguper Hupomosing9418
20:03 Anguper Hupomosing9418