Economist Richard Duncan: Civilization May Not Survive 'Death Spiral'

Atlanta Journal Constitution ^ | August 10, 2012 | Terry Weiss, Money Morning

[OldEarlGray]

I found it interesting that Comrade Chairman signed off on the continuation of the Stuxnet program that was initiated under W - leading to the destruction of those Iranian centrifuges.

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&sugexp=les%3Bcaqth&gs_nf=1&cp=13&gs_id=7&xhr=t&q=Obama+Stuxnet

What do you suppose his motivation for doing that was? Just buying time? Trying not to reveal his hand too soon?

It’s also interesting that he seems to be reading from the same play book that the Wabbit Fisherman was reading from back in 1978 — when the ZBig (Obama’s mentor and Jimmy Carter’s National Security Adviser) policy funded and instigated the Islamic Revolution of ‘79.

And here we are again - backing the Muslim Brotherhood against the Russian backed regime in Syria.

Same ol’.

[ctdonath2]

His point, a valid one, is that we have no idea what the he11 you’re talking about.

[GOPJ]

Ummm, the auto industry's NOT doing great. Most large corporations are turning AGAINST Obama... Obama’s big solution is to borrow more... like a family hooked on credit cards. It won't work in the long run... it's starting NOT to work in the short run.

[OldEarlGray]

[another group that made some pretty solid cash was the whores...]

Considering the fact that this gaping hole is...

 

 

South Africa: Anglogold Seeks 100
Percent of Cripple Creek
15 January 2008
Charlotte Mathews

GLOBAL gold producer AngloGold Ashanti was offering to buy Golden Cycle Corporation, its co-shareholder in the Cripple Creek & Victor Gold Mining Company in the US, for $149m in shares, the companies said yesterday.

 

The transaction would increase AngloGold's ownership to 100% of Cripple Creek, its only US operation, from 67% previously, although it had a 100% interest in the mine's production until the initial loan it made to the joint venture was repaid. At the end of September the outstanding value of the loan was $336m.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200801150052.html

 

...the largest gold mine in Colorado and, as of January 2008, was no longer owned by Americans - that's evidently still the case.

 

 

 

[listenhillary]

“I think the only thing to do is to cancel all debts”

This will be as much of a train wreck as riding the train over the cliff. Much of the world and Americans are holders of that debt.

Resetting spending to 2.0 trillion which is about the current tax take the federal government gets and freezing the spending at that level indefinitely would allow us to grow out of the debt. 1.6 trillion dollars cut in one year?

Pretty much all federal social programs go away. The only social program left are payments to our military service men and women for disability. All federal pensions are cut to what we can afford to pay. Any and all government pensions are immediately converted to a 401K type retirement plan.

Federal government take of GDP needs to be at 15% max with 7.5% of that 15% going to pay down our debts.

We’re still talking complete and utter chaos. What do you do with 100 million people that get payments or some sort of welfare from the government? 30 to 40 million have no concept of life without money from the government putting food in their bellies?

This is crazy strong medicine that few Americans have the stomach for.

[uncbob]

I didn't need these economists to tell me this

Anybody with foresight can see it coming

[uncbob]

Riots will result in the deaths of tens of millions and those that survive are going to wish they didn't

Does anybody really think the world can go on at this pace without imploding

[GOPJ]

Conservatives who think progressives are misinformed idealists will forever be blind-sided by the malice of the left...

Wise words...

[DuncanWaring]

Don’t forget - cancelling all debts also cancels all assets.

[OldEarlGray]

Oh.

You don't know what Fraud is?

 

fraud/frôd/

Noun:

Wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain. A person or thing intended to deceive others, typically by unjustifiably claiming or being credited with accomplishments or qualities.

 

You don't know what LIBOR is?

 

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/europes-largest-insurer-allianz-not-amused-central-banks-are-involved-liborgate

 

You don't what CDOs are?

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&sclient=psy-ab&q=CDO+fraud

You don't know what a NyLon is?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NYLON

You don't know what a Quisling is?

 

quis·ling/ˈkwizliNG/

Noun:

A traitor who collaborates with an enemy force occupying their country.

Or how all of the above manufactured what's colloquially known as "A$$Paper" in a systemically corrupted global financial infrastructure?

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&sclient=psy-ab&q="ass+Paper"+subprime+site:www.zerohedge.com

 

Well there.  Fixed that for ya.

[agere_contra]

That's a pretty fascinating story actually.

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.

[Kozak]

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.

[GOPJ]

Knowing it will stop, most people will find a way to be elsewhere when/where it does. Those who don’t, well, sink or swim. The Soviet Union collapsed when it couldn’t issue paychecks. We’re approaching that point. Funny, Russia and its satellites still exist and are doing pretty well. We will too; maybe a different demographic arrangement, but on the whole “we” will manage.

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...

[agere_contra]

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.

[OldEarlGray]

>>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.

[Excellence]

Conservatives who think progressives are misinformed idealists will forever be blind-sided by the malice of the left—by the cynicism of those who pride themselves on principle, by the viciousness of those who champion sensitivity, by the intolerance of those who call themselves liberal, and by the ruthless disregard for the well-being of the downtrodden by those who preen themselves as social saints.

Sadly, as true today as it was 12 years ago.

[ctdonath2]

Given your persistent insulting tone, I'm not inclined to follow links.

A polite summary would do much better. An enthusiastic "hey, let me tell you about..." is fun. But no, you have to be snide.

[OldEarlGray]

Oh and --

“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

UP YOURS AND THE GOLDBUGGERING INGOT YOU RHODES IN ON

[Excellence]

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.

[albionin]

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.

[Teacher317]

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.

[listenhillary]

The producers stop producing and stand back to watch. I think it is hard to fix a flat tire while the car is moving.

[listenhillary]

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.

[OldEarlGray]

>>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.

[CodeToad]

“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.

[OldEarlGray]

>>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.

[ichabod1]

They asked a man who had lost everything how it happened. Two ways, he said. Gradually, and then suddenly.

[bbernard]

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.

[ctdonath2]

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.

[ctdonath2]

“I fell out of the airplane without a parachute. Falling wasn’t so bad. What hurt was the sudden stop at the end.”

[ichabod1]

Why should I believe that? I’ve been being told all my life that free trade is good for me, and my standard of living has been declining for the same amount of time. Free trade is not free if it’s not fair, and the FACT is that we do business with other countries that pay their workers a slave wage with no questions asked. We can’t compete with chinese slave labor, nor should we. We should not be trading with them period. But they and plenty of other countries are perfectly willing to protect THEIR markets against OUR goods, whether openly with the tariffs, or under the table by making agreements and then failing to honor them.

Oh, and let us not forget that if we get uppity and expect a living wage they just bring in a few million illegal migrants to replace us.

All the things you mentioned are problems, big ones, but if we don’t do something about trade, the 1% are going to continue to drink our milkshake until there’s nothing left but a giant sucking sound.

[OldEarlGray]

>>banks had to invent a new process for insuring such high-risk loans

The Sub-prime leader for some time was Ameriquest/Argent Mortgage.

They were not a bank.  They had no depositors.

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/subprime-14214-beach-mortgage.html

They existed only for the origination and securitization of subprime loans.

"Oops"  

That would be W with his Ambassador to the Netherlands - Roland Arnall, the "Godfather of Subprime"

 

 

>>Not so much fraud as doing government’s will under duress,

 

Baloney.

 

Argent Mortgage falsified  FICO scores for thousands of loan applications.  

I know that for a fact.

 

Other entities manipulated LIBOR, to which a significant portion of Argent's originations were tied. Not surprising, given that their primary warehouse lender was Deutchesbank.

 

Did the gooberment force them to do that?  Nope.

 

"The Merchant uses dishonest scales - he loves to defraud"

 

[ctdonath2]

Did the gooberment force them to do that? Nope.

The gooberment forced a no-win scenario on banks, which were thus happy to outsource their problems to someone who would accept responsibility. Concentrating no-win issues is ripe for abuse, both malicious and fearful.

OK, we know this and have been over it. Government demanded unrealistic requirements, "crony capitalists" abused it, stuff broke. Blame is both due and pointless. Some reason you're berating fellow FReepers with the subject?

[albionin]

“The producers stop producing and stand back to watch. I think it is hard to fix a flat tire while the car is moving.”

Yes and the looters surely have left themselves vulnerable. The producers don’t realize what power the looters have placed in their hands. When the top 10% pay 70% of the revenue to run the government, or at least the part that is not borrowed from future generations, then they have the looters by the balls but the looters know they would never stop producing. The producers just keep working a little harder and a little harder and keep the system going but every system has a breaking point.

[Freedom_Is_Not_Free]

I also no longer live in the USA. I live in California.

[agere_contra]

Well I’m back.

I see you’ve been busy: piling up teh crazy.

Random links, random pictures. A scatter-shot of irrelevant factoids like dots in a coloring book you expect others to join up for you.

But not a single coherent argument to advance your thesis that people who buy and sell without the intervention of Government are whores and traitors.

You really should have gone for that walk.

I’m off to watch the Olympics now. Feel free to spam the thread with noise.

[Road Glide]

“Economist Richard Duncan: Civilization May Not Survive ‘Death Spiral’”

“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.”

Well...
If that’s all there is,
If that’s all there is
If that’s all there is, my friend,
Then let’s keep dancing
Let’s break out the booze and have a ball...
If that’s all.... there is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VscVP_Gt_s
(apologies to Peggy Lee)

[listenhillary]

This was published in 2009. It gives a broader understanding of how the banks and investment companies did end runs around the regulators. It is a long read and the author doesn’t always point at the right villain.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2212576/posts?page=85#85

[OldEarlGray]

>>The gooberment forced a no-win scenario on banks,

 

 

That may be the RINO "Fiscaly Conservative" party line -- but the reality is there are smaller regional banks and credit unions who stayed completely out of the Subprime bidness; who never took a dime of TARP money, and who are still doing just fine.

 

Meanwhile, the FreeTraitors, the Merchants who love their Dishonest scales -- were operating under the assumption that the rules were thus:

 

"We didn't truly know the dangers of the market, because it was a dark market," says Brooksley Born, the head of an obscure federal regulatory agency -- the Commodity Futures Trading Commission [CFTC] -- who not only warned of the potential for economic meltdown in the late 1990s, but also tried to convince the country's key economic powerbrokers to take actions that could have helped avert the crisis. "They were totally opposed to it," Born says. "That puzzled me. What was it that was in this market that had to be hidden?"

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/warning/view/

 

 "crony capitalists" abused it

 

But CTDonath2 says there was no fraud.  Uhuh.

 

[OldEarlGray]

"As a 19 then 20 year old boy, my managers and handlers taught me the ins and outs of mortgage fraud, drugs, sex, and money, money, and more money. My friend and manager handed out crystal methamphetamine to loan officers in a bid to keep them up and at work longer hours. At any given moment inside the restrooms - cocaine and meth was being snorted by my estimates more than a third of the staff, and more than half the staff manipulating documents to get loans to fund and more then 75% just completely made falses tatements on 1003s regarding stated income etc to get loans funded. A typical welcome aboard gift was a pair of scissors, tape, and white out, three things a loan officer or financial professional should never need.."

---Fugitive financier arrested at U.S. border

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2184646/posts

Quack, Waddle - FRAUD.

And on the subject of "scissors, tape, and white out," -- tell us CT,  which branch of the evile gooberment forced folks in those "not" fraudulent enterprises to invent the behavior that's now known as ROBOSIGNING, hmmm?

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&sugexp=les%3Bcaqth&gs_nf=1&cp=6&gs_id=2y&xhr=t&q=Robosigning

Is robosigning Fraudulent? Does your NewSpeak Dictionary, 2012 edition, have some other word for Fraud?

Quack Quack Quack.

 

 

 

[ctdonath2]

While perhaps a topic worthy of discussion, your continued tone is quite distasteful. Kindly leave me out of it.

[supercat]

... much of the complex modeling and calculating has little predictive value and obscures the very fundamental issues that matter most.

Economics is fundamentally very simple. I think it can be summed up in a quote (source forgotten): "Any moron can show that 2+2=4. It takes a genius to show that 2+2=5." Much of the "complexity" exists for the purpose of obscuring what is really going on.

The real value of an asset is the probabalistic expected present cash value of everything good that will come from the asset, minus the probabalistic expected present cash value of everything that one will have to spend to achieve that good. The value of an asset may be affected by unexpected events, but is not affected by the prices for which people buy and sell it. If people trade an asset for prices which spiral upwards of $100 each, but the asset can only be expected to generate $25 of real value, a price correction to $25 will not represent a loss of value. Rather, in any transaction above $25 the buyer should be viewed as having given (price - $25) to the seller, and in transactions below $25, the seller should be viewed as having given ($25 - price) to the buyer. If someone buys for $95 and sells for $100, the person loses $70 on the purchase and gains $75 on the sale (at the expense of the buyer who loses $75).

That all sounds complicated, but the key point is this: a lot of people endeavor to make assets appear to be worth more than they are, and to convince people that, should the assets be discovered not be worth what people thought, it was that discovery that made the assets worthless (as opposed to the assets having been worthless all along). If the number of shares outstanding in a company, times the price of those shares, substantially exceeds any realistic expectation of the company's time-adjusted future profits and/or eventual liquidation value, the shares are not worth the market price. Efforts to keep the stock price elevated may benefit those who sell shares at elevated prices, but every extra dollar received by a seller represents a dollar lost by a buyer. The net effect of such efforts is that while one may spend an unlimited amount of money trying to maintain the illusion that the shares are worth more than they actually are, such spending will not generate real value.

[equaviator]

“The breaker became unusable”

Also unreliable

[Almondjoy]

You and i both know that 200T in unfunded is garbage. Either taxes will be raised or payouts of medicare and ss will be reduced or a combo of both. It’s my worry about how much of the US population will be dependent on the government when that has to happen and what their reaction will be when they find out there isnt enough taxes to be raised anymore.

[Almondjoy]

the current yields on treasury’s would disagree with you.

[equaviator]

“It is one reason that I no longer live in the USSA.”

Well then, you’re no help...

[blam]

We Are Doomed. (WAD)
(Bump)

[blam]

We Are Doomed. (WAD)
(Bump)