Posted on 08/10/2012 3:04:47 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Richard Duncan, formerly of the World Bank and chief economist at Blackhorse Asset Mgmt., says America's $16 trillion federal debt has escalated into a "death spiral, "as he told CNBC.
And it could result in a depression so severe that he doesn't "think our civilization could survive it."
And Duncan is not alone in warning that the U.S. economy may go into a "death spiral."
Since the recession, noted economists including Laurence Kotlikoff, a former member of President Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers, have come to similar conclusions.
Kotlikoff estimates the true fiscal gap is $211 trillion when unfunded entitlements like Social Security and Medicare are included.
However, while the debt crisis numbers are well known to most Americans, the economy hasn't suffered a major correction for almost 4 years.
So the questions remain: Is the threat of collapse for real? And if so, when?
A team of scientists, economists, and geopolitical analysts believes they have proof that the threat is indeed real - and the danger imminent.
One member of this team, Chris Martenson, a pathologist and former VP of a Fortune 300 company, explains their findings:
"We found an identical pattern in our debt, total credit market, and money supply that guarantees they're going to fail. This pattern is nearly the same as in any pyramid scheme, one that escalates exponentially fast before it collapses. Governments around the globe are chiefly responsible.
"And what's really disturbing about these findings is that the pattern isn't limited to our economy. We found the same catastrophic pattern in our energy, food, and water systems as well."
According to Martenson: "These systems could all implode at the same time. Food, water, energy, money. Everything."
(Excerpt) Read more at moneymorning.com ...
It seems that some people in America needed to raise some money: and they did this by selling something they owned rather than by getting the Government to bail them out.
I wonder if that spirit of rugged independence will catch on?
Probably not. Apparently at least one FReeper denies the right of Americans to freely dispose of their own property:- likening their basic freedom of association to prostitution.
The big problem is half the population is eating pie without making pie, and lots of the pie is make believe imaginary pie to begin with , ie financial fraud, equity and rel estate bubble, deficit spending by government and individuals.
Russia had an established black market and people who were used to working around a corrupt government. We don't have such systems outside the ghetto and drug dealers. In a total US collapse, illegal drugs will still be traded as usual, but access to legal drugs - access to food and clothing - those things will collapse with the dollar. I'm with you that we'll 'figure it out' but it could be months - even a few years - and many deaths later...
Oh heavens.
Right now you’re just mashing the keyboard: assembling a set of words on a scrabble-board and hoping we’ll mistake it for a coherent argument.
Seriously: it’s a beautiful day. Go and have a walk. I’m going to.
>>That’s a pretty fascinating story actually.
What was Cecil Rhode’s relationship to Anglogold Ashanti?
http://www.google.com/#hl=en&sclient=psy-ab&q=Cecil+Rhodes+Apartheid
Now that’s fascinating.
NO SALE.
Sadly, as true today as it was 12 years ago.
A polite summary would do much better. An enthusiastic "hey, let me tell you about..." is fun. But no, you have to be snide.
“I admire him, I frankly confess it; and when his time comes I shall buy a piece of the rope for a keepsake."
--Following the Equator.
--Mark Twaine, regarding Cecil Rhodes
Rehypothecation needs to be added to the list. If more people knew about how often this is used, and how worthless CDOs are because of it, there would be a lot more people jumping out of buildings. I got really sick when I learned of it not so very long ago, and probably from another FReeper. I learn an awful lot here that I wish I still didn’t know.
I think any thinking person who looks at what is going on all over the world with governments becoming more and more centralized and societies becoming more and more immoral, spending beyond their ability to ever repay, realizes that a collapse is coming and there is nothing that can stop it. You can only fake reality for so long. I don’t know how much longer this country can go on with a government and a system so corrupt but I don’t think it will be much longer.
Economics is actually a pretty reliable social science. It’s government interference with natural economic cycles that instills the inherent unpredictability we suffer from today. As the article states, it’s governments around the world that are the problem. They all want power, they all want to stay in power, and they all want to use that power. This is why our Founders sought Limited Government. Sadly, nobody in the world has that today.
The producers stop producing and stand back to watch. I think it is hard to fix a flat tire while the car is moving.
I had noted that this morning on an FB post.
The founders of our nation had never in their wildest dreams imagined their government controlling the US economy or any economy.
>>A polite summary would do much better.
AAA Rated CDO’s - ( Collateralized Debt Obligations ) were manufactured via the Subprime Securitization process. Significant portions of the underlying loans were tied to LIBOR instead of the American FED’s Prime.
Subsequently, round about 2007+, it was discovered that significant numbers of those AAA CDOs were not really AAA worthy - and were rapidly downgraded to Junk status, precipitating the banking crisis of 2008. Hence the term “A$$Paper” in reference to to associated Asset Backed Securities.
In the mind of most reasonable folks, the amoral deception by which those overrated securities were manufactured and sold constitutes fraud.
Enter Tarp, QE1, QE2.. and the bailout of the perpetrators at the expense of everyone whose wealth is dependent upon the value of dollar.
Etc Etc.
Click the Links. Nothing there to bite you except the Truth.
“7) How do you incentivize people to make more pie? “
Two things keep Economics from being a science: Psychology and manipulation. Neither can be determined beforehand as neither is known. No one can predict how the pack will behave. To some degree it can be but not entirely. And, no one knows the amount of illegal manipulation that is going on behind the scenes and there is lots of it.
Economics is relegated to simple historical study. Economists are historians. They have a lousy record of predicting any future economic activity.
>>Rehypothecation needs to be added to the list.
Yep.
Got Derivatives?
http://www.google.com/#hl=en&sclient=psy-ab&q=Derivative+fraud
Read Romans 1:18++
Actions and Consequences.
Pay special attention to when the proliferation of homosexuality and other perversions enter the mix as a CONSEQUENCE.
“Therefore, God gave them over...”
We’ve built a self-worshiping Tower of Babel, and its cornerstone has turned to mud in the rain.
They asked a man who had lost everything how it happened. Two ways, he said. Gradually, and then suddenly.
Then we have this in the headlines today:
U.S. banks told to make plans for preventing collapse
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/10/us-banks-recoveryplans-idUSBRE87905N20120810
Coincidence? I think not.
Ah, now that something sensible to discuss. I can see a context.
Without spending lots of time recalling minute details, my take was that due to gov’t-compelled sure-loss loans (to wit mortgages unlikely to be repaid), banks had to invent a new process for insuring such high-risk loans; plethora of acronyms for misunderstood terms aside, upshot is that everyone involved was confident the lenders-insurance system was a solid AAA worthy construct.
Until everyone realized everyone was, in effect, insuring themselves with nothing. AAA -> junk status overnight.
Not so much fraud as doing government’s will under duress, and concocting some way to make it work, which it can’t and doesn’t. Subsequent repair of “progressive” damage is very, very expensive; at some point the rate of quantitative easing will be unable - at _any_ rate - to keep up with demands for payback. A run on dollars will ensue; hyperinflation occurs when there is simply not enough value in the system to satisfy current obligations.
Casting blame doesn’t help at this point. There just isn’t enough value in the system to satisfy obligations as they occur. Result: crash; those whose wealth depends on the value of the dollar won’t have any.
“I fell out of the airplane without a parachute. Falling wasn’t so bad. What hurt was the sudden stop at the end.”
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