Replies

You forgot the 15-plus years of military dictatorship. I'd rather not go through that, thank you very much.

Yeah, in the case of Chile...

But the Reagan and Thatcher revolution were on the heels of left-wing perpetrated economic disasters.

The perfect storm we are about to hit is inevitable - it wouldn't matter if it were Thatcher AND Reagan in the Whitehouse. It's already upon us.

There are a number of reasons why this will be a depression - I am even giving second thought to Kondratieff's theories... while his exact explanation may be wrong, and it was never empirically proven over the very long run - we never had the huge credit markets that we have today, that combined with fiat currencies all over the world make this entirely plausible.

Anyone who has studied fractal mathematics would see that in fact, human economic activity when charted and exhibit fractal behavior - that is basically the premise behind the Kondratieff theory of supercycles, etc. Human economic activity DOES behave like a fractal when charted, and there are two things in particular that could combine to make this depression worse than the last one if the correct remedies are not administered.

Credit Markets. Credit markets are highly developed and actual capital backing up much of the world's credit is at record lows. The markets were not this developed during the 1st Great Depression. Consumer Credit: Everybody did not have a credit card, home mortgage, etc. Business Credit was not so prevalent, the proclaimed Capital to Assets Ratio of banks was better than today. (Basel II defines the best practices for today [8% or so], but Basel II was launched as a kind of subterfuge to loosen up the already too loose rules of Basel I and give bankers more wiggle room. Once asset values collapse, the banks are screwed.
Fiat Currencies around the world. The entire world is awash in Fiat Currencies - so basically it's as if the kids have found the matches and are playing with them on the haystack.

The denoument will be somewhat complex, as Credit Markets dry up they will exacerbate the meltdown. Nobody really counts this - we count the money supply M0, M1, M2, M3, M4 - but "L" is not only issued by banks, and it will dry up thereby doubling the contraction of money. Hyperinflation of the currency will need to occur just to keep the amount of 'money' out there. But even that will be insufficient to cover the drop in "velocity" (V) that also occurs, so more money should be printed. But that is only treading water... if you want things to grow...

Eventually, you will not need a wallet for your money, but rather, a wheelbarrow.

Obama's 'solutions' are not going to do anything but exacerbate the situation.
Allende's dramatic failure of a Marxist experiment melted down when the world was a relatively stable place, well run economies in Asia were growing by leaps and bounds.
Obama does not have such a luxury.

It will go very bad, very quickly. He will get his Socialism through stealth - he will not need to nationalize industries, but via the multiple bailouts and the left shrieking that the businessmen do not know how to run the companies, so Socialize them... etc. - we will see the government take large share of the economy. They will mismanage every last bit of it.

In two years, things will look very bad indeed.

In the end, the government will need to use more coercion and threats to force the populace to comply - as is always the case in Socialism. Doctors may be threatened at some point... food producers and distributors...

We are heading for a perfect storm.
Obama will fling wide all the hatches and raise the sails.
The lifeboats will be cast overboard empty.
Hang on...