Our Economic Future: From Best to Worst Case (Doug Casey)

Seeking Alpha ^ | 6-9-2011 | Doug Casey

[blam]

Our Economic Future: From Best to Worst Case (Doug Casey)

by: Doug Casey
June 9, 2011

There is a great deal of uncertainty among investors about what the future of the U.S. economy may look like – so I decided to take a stab at what’s likely to happen over the next 20 years. That's enough time for a child to grow up and mature, and it's long enough for major trends to develop and make themselves felt.

I’ll confine myself to areas that are, as the benighted Rumsfeld might have observed, “known unknowns.” I don’t want to deal with possibilities of the deus ex machina sort. So we’ll rule out natural events like a super-volcano eruption, an asteroid strike, a new ice age, global warming, and the like. Although all these things absolutely will occur sometime in the future, the timing is very uncertain – at least from the perspective of one human lifespan. It’s pointless dealing with geological time and astronomical probability here. And, more important, there’s absolutely nothing we can do about such things.

So let’s limit ourselves to the possibilities presented by human action. They're plenty weird and scary, and unpredictable enough.

The Market For Prognostication

People are all ears for predictions, whether from psychics or from “experts,” despite the repeated experience that they’re almost always worthless, often misleading and more than rarely the exact opposite of what happens.

Most often, the predictors go afoul by underrating human ingenuity or extrapolating current trends too far. Let me give you a rundown of the state of things during the last century, at 20-year intervals. If you didn’t know it’s what actually happened, you'd find it hard to believe.

(snip)

[blam]

Good Read IMO.

[GonzoGOP]

What? Nuclear missiles obsolete? Of course. They’re expensive, clunky, and the enemy can tell exactly where they came from. A plane, or a boat, or a truck – or a FedEx package – is a much neater delivery system. And there will be plenty of nuclear devices to deliver. If they’re within the grasp of tiny countries like Israel and North Korea, they’re within the grasp of anyone.

In fact, the centerpieces of today’s military are well on their way to the scrapheap or to museum displays. There may well be a few aircraft carriers, nuclear missiles, B-2 bombers, F-22 fighters, and the like around in 20 years. But they’ll be oddities reserved for special purposes, like typewriters. Laser, electronic and robotic weapons will have replaced those using gunpowder, and they’ll be readily available to anyone (an accelerant in the collapse of the nation-state). The military's reliance on centralization and on computer power will prove an Achilles heel; a gang of teenage hackers (not only the best kind, but the most common kind) can devastate a military for pure sport.

This guy watches too many sci fi movies. You can't hack a computer that is not on an open network. And most weapons have backups in case the computers get hacked. So hackers can be a problem, but only until the millitary decieds they are a threat. And then the basement dwellers discover the difference between playing SOCOM on PS3 and in real life.

Oh and what is the advantage of a nuclear missile, it can destroy anyplace in the world in 30 minutes or your money back. As for knowing where they came from, here is a hint, it came from a Trident submarine. Now try to find and kill one of those with your Fed Ex truck bomb hacker boy.

[Sherman Logan]

Lots of inaccurate or at least incomplete history here.

Or is it more relevant just to look at recent history, starting at the beginning of the 19th century, when the West conquered and colonized every single Muslim country?

The West never conquered or colonized Turkey, Afghanistan or Persia (Iran). Although arguably it tried and failed in each case. Saudi Arabia was also never colonized, or Yemen.

Technically most of the Arab countries were mandates, not colonies, but that's just a quibble. Egypt was also in theory never a colony, but de facto was.

[Sherman Logan]

North Yemen, that is. The Brits controlled the south part, what they called Aden.

[GonzoGOP]

Conquest of wealth or territory will be pointless; ... This lack of an economic return will obviate one reason for a military.

Apparently this guy doesn't understand that the main wealth of nations is in oil, not gold and slaves. And armies have shown again and again that they can grab oil lands. And that Navies can deny the ability to transport oil from where it is produced to where it is used. The old Roman saying that "Gold will not always get you good soldiers, but good soldiers can always get you gold" is just as operable today as it was back then.

And even if you don't want to take someone else's stuff you still need a military to keep someone else from taking yours. Especially if instead of some anti-military ivory tower academic that other country has a good old fashioned Machiavellian as a leader.

[ngat]

Have ever read the book entitled “Under the Red Sea Sun”?

[Sherman Logan]

Nope. I assume it’s a good read?

[familyop]

"Best Case - Facts Get Faced
"The government solves most of its overhanging financial problems with a seriously devalued – but not hyperinflated – dollar."

That's what the Government and Fed will probably continue trying to do after the current, unsuccessful attempt to push oil prices down and the dollar up. But IMO, we'll more likely still see more ugly events after that, because the threshold of wrong direction was passed some time ago.

[familyop]

On what the author wrote about war,...

Iran Placing Medium-Range Missiles in Venezuela; Can Reach the U.S.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2640111/posts

‘Die Welt’: Iran building rocket bases in Venezuela
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2721122/posts

Iran’s Nukes: Apocalypse Soon?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2731973/posts

[familyop]

...sorry...formatting correction.

"Best Case - Facts Get Faced
The government solves most of its overhanging financial problems with a seriously devalued – but not hyperinflated – dollar."

That's what the Government and Fed will probably continue trying to do after the current, unsuccessful attempt to push oil prices down and the dollar up. But IMO, we'll more likely still see more ugly events after that, because the threshold of wrong direction was passed some time ago.