Posted on 12/24/2008 2:39:40 PM PST by An Old Man
Not Your Grandfather's Depression - It will be much worse, in many respects.
The chart below, borrowed from Dr. Marc Faber's Market Commentary December 1, 2008, is devastating. The chart shows a stunning loss of $30 trillion stock market wealth around the world. By some estimates, combined losses in commodities, stocks, bonds, real estate are greater than $60 trillion. This is beyond rescue.
Collapses of this magnitude do not recover until after elongated periods of basing and repair – eye-catching, sharp, short-term bounces, yes; runs back to new highs, no.
It is virtually impossible to overstate the dire consequences resulting from the severity of the declines recently experienced in almost all asset classes—from both a technical and fundamental viewpoint. From a fundamental perspective US consumers had come to rely on borrowing against growing asset prices to sustain their lifestyles. Most of today's globally-interconnected economy was based upon growth in the US consumption. This game has ended badly. Asset dependency will eventually be replaced by living off of income and savings, but not after we escape from this disastrous period. As unemployment rises income generation will become increasingly difficult, and we cannot begin to save until our mountainous debt is paid off. For most of us, this is the equivalent of the world being turned upside down on our heads.
(Excerpt) Read more at marketoracle.co.uk ...
Exactly, this is NOT like 2004, get real. Much worse
Silver? Ever hear of Dr. Jarecki?
And yet, you are not naked.
Hmmmm......
< / comparative advantage>
The manufacturing base is measured in the percentage of the GDP, relative population has no meaning in that figure.
You should look harder. Lots of clothes (which aren’t actually manufacturing but what the heck) are still made here. And power tools, and coffee makers, and cars and everything else under the sun. Because of relative costs we tend to gravitate towards the higher quality/ cost section of manufacturing, but it’s still there.
We’ll never export as much as we import because we consume more than we make, and quite frankly we consume more than we CAN make. Import imbalance has nothing to do with whether or not we manufacture. People have been saying for over 30 years that we need trade balance or our standard of living will decline, the funny part is our standard of living has skyrocketed during that time, and in fact most of the times in the last century we’ve had positive trade balance our standard of living DID decline.
The facts are quite simple:
we manufacture a lot
our standard of living is climbing by any and all reasonable measurements
the doom and gloomers have been 100% wrong with all those lines you parrot for decades
Kinda does!
Don’t you remember the endless threads here after 9/11 debating whether the Dow was going to 2,500 or 3,500. We weren’t even going to have salt to put on our grubs.
We have just seen a huge and rapid intergenerational distribution of wealth, from baby-boomer holders of stocks and real-estate to ... everyone else. The question is, what will they do with it?
And they were right.
I simply will not salt my grubs.
I likes you cuz you not stoopidz. :)
” We can’t export wedding planners, personal trainers, and so on”
Great point!
Yes, buy I have not been involved with the metals markets since the mid 70's.
Lately I have been thinking of acquiring some of these.
I had the interesting experience of conducting a meeting for Henry Jarecki in the early nineties. He was one of those super-brains who was always three steps ahead. He came into the meeting room with a glass of hot water and a sliced lemon. He squeezed the lemon into the glass and sipped regularly. When the water was gone the meeting was over.
He was a German educated MD (Psychiatrist} who married into the Moccatta Metals dynasty and changed careers.
His sons Eugene and Andrew used daddy's money to create Movie-fone and produce indie films. Andrew married a NYC 'socialite' who is really a bit of a skank....she used his money to start a company that dyes pubic hair.....the good Doctor must love that.
1) Peak Oil
economic slow down solving this problem
2) A pandemic
unlikely
3) A nuclear conflagration.
Depends on Obama’s diplomacy, which puts this scenario on the betting table
“Starvation for multiple millions will become a reality.....”
Historically famines have been employed to coerce populations into doing what they would not do otherwise....this is the purpose of carbon cap and trade...to create synthetic energy famines...
mo: “Historically famines have been employed to coerce populations into doing what they would not do otherwise....this is the purpose of carbon cap and trade...to create synthetic energy famines...”
pyx: “Its like Algore and the global-warming-cooling scam. It goes by many names but, the end result is the same; Own the collectivist boot on the back of the other guy’s head.”
You are both absolutely right.
It reminds me of a Stalin anecdote:
“When Josef Stalin was on his deathbed he called in two likely successors, to test which one of the two had a better knack for ruling the country.
He ordered two birds to be brought in and presented one bird to each of the two candidates.
The first one grabbed the bird, but was so afraid that the bird could free himself from his grip and fly away that he squeezed his hand very hard, and when he opened his palm, the bird was dead.
Seeing the disapproving look on Stalin’s face and being afraid to repeat his rival’s mistake, the second candidate loosened his grip so much that the bird freed himself and flew away.
Stalin looked at both of them scornfully. “Bring me a bird!” he ordered.
They did.
Stalin took the bird by its legs and slowly, one by one, he plucked all the feathers from the bird’s little body.
Then he opened his palm. The bird was laying there naked, shivering, helpless.
Stalin looked at him, smiled gently and said, “You see... and he is even thankful for the human warmth coming out of my palm.”
http://www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/stalin/stalin.html
We will be plucked and be dependent and grateful to the government for our survival — that IS the Objective of Obama and the Democrats, who will be our Overlords. It’s going to be a mass Stockholm Syndrome.
“The only things that would REALLY kill an economy are: 1) Peak Oil, 2) A pandemic, or 3) A nuclear conflagration.”
That, in a nutshell, is the nightmare I’ve been having for a few years.
I was told tonight that GM stock today is the same price it was in 1958.
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