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Posted on 05/22/2012 9:59:08 AM PDT by Scotsman
Well, it seems as though we've screwed the pooch.
It's a safe bet that about 99% of the American public do not realize that what is about to happen will forever change the way they live and how they interact with the higher functions of society. In other words, how they will acquire and use any product or service that they can not provide immediately for themselves and their family.
Most people have heard of Black Holes - a favorite mega-disaster staple in SiFi movies and stories. Not so many are aware of the term, "Event Horizon". The event horizon of a black hole can be thought of as an invisible sphere with the black hole at the center of it.
Sounds very harmless, but it is the physical universe's version of the "KEEP OUT! Violaters will be Shot!" sign. The problem with the event horizon that makes it so dangerous is that very simply, once one crossed the event horizon of a Black Hole, there is no return. Even light cannot escape the gravitational pull of the Black Hole. Everything that crosses it is destined and doomed to fall into it - there is NO comming back, once the Event Horizon has been crossed.
Over the last several decades, predominantly over the last three, the entire world financial system has been building up debt to pay for goods and services that government delivered but could not completely pay for out of revenues received coincident with the excess spending. In the United States alone that overspending versus revenue received totals about 15.5 Trillion dollars and growing by about a Trillion dollars a year, give or take a few hundred billion or so.
Have your eyes glazed over yet? Probably. The numbers are so large as to be simply incomprehensible to 99% of the American, and the World population.
In 2008, hindsight being 20/20 and all that, the last good opportunity to save the current system went horribly wrong. As a direct consequence of the actions taken in late Summer of 2008 and on into 2009, not only was the system not saved, it was further damaged by the insuing distruction of Contract Law in several areas - General Motors and the all-encompassing "Foreclosuregate" are just two examples of the wholesale violations of contract law, including frauds perpetrated upon the Courts by most of the banking system.
And that is just in this country.
Other countries are already having their sovergnity challenged and infringed upon by others - Greece is just the most glaring example for now.
There is now only one way to end this. It will not be 'solved' or 'fixed' by any more stick saves from central banks. Each round of Quantative Easing has had less and less positive effect and the net result has been real inflation in excess of the 'official' number, whatever that may be, that each one of us experiences every time we spend money, anywhere.
Bad debt of all sorts is being forced up the capital chain, with the central banks taking more of it in every day. In Spain, Bankia has found itself the bagholder of hundreds of billions of euros worth of bad mortgages and will have to be bailed out by the Spanish central bank or an entity of the European Union, or worse, the International Monetary Fund. Our Federal Reserve has the same type of bad dept piling up on it's balance sheet, to the tune of about three trillion dollars and growing daily.
Governments throughout the world are feverishly working on 'continuity of government' plans - how do we keep society polite and maintain effective control of a functioning government WHEN the capital markets lock up completely and bank runs go out of control. Greece, Italy and Spain are experiencing this as we speak.
Every paragraph above could be expanded into pages of detail and analysis, and it will all enevitably lead to massive debt repudiation and the destruction (bankruptcy strictly enforced) of ALL the major money-center banks - the one's with the greatest exposure to uncollectable debt of any sort. Here in the United States that means that the five largest financial institutions, Goldman Sachs, J P Morgan Chase, Bank of America and a couple of others will not survive, in any form we recognize today.
This will happen throughout the World Financial System, and the only hope is that governments will be able to maintain societal stability and not decend into some form or variation of anarchy.
How far down the capital chain the debt repudiation goes will depend upon politicians and bankers, and how tumultous their individual societies become. Moral Hazard will be discussed regarding the wiping out of government debt worldwide and the countries that attempt to repudiate their debt without also eliminating the private debt of it's citizens will have a much more dificult time with their native populations.
When will all this take place?
Well, therein lies the problem for individuals attempting to get ahead of this. Maybe this will help you out, a little:
The problem with event horizons is that one never knows for sure that they have crossed one, until they already have.
This otherwise normal day in May, because the greatest experts, the smartest guys in the room, can not or will not declare it - this day in May ...
... we have crossed that Event Horizon and there is no coming back to what was 'normal' or of preventing the ultimate debt repudiation cycle and whatever various sorts of chaos that await us in the very near future.
One last little footnote, or point for further discussion, if you will: Consider the import of this process being set in place before November.
I am gobsmacked by this entire thread for several reasons! Thanks for the post and your obvious acute insight Scotsman.
You were hitting the bullseye years ago, I knew it then, whatever the attackers said to the contrary.
Nully - take a look at ex-Texan’s “Looky Looky” link and the comment it refers to!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
There is a way out for the US: we can produce enough real wealth to offest the debt. How? We have more than enough rught under Federally owned land, in the form of oil and coal. Not only should we not spend a penny on overseas sources of energy, we should be the world’s largest exporter. The US Geological Survey just put out a report detailing the vast amounts of oil shale in the US. In one area known as the Green River formation, there are 3 trillion barrels of oil. About a third is concentrated in relatively small areas of federal land. It’s estimated with oil at $100 a barrel Between 30-60% of that could be recoverd. Assuming the midpoint is correct, that’s $45 trillion in oil. The only thing we need is the political will to push aside the global warming scammers and do it.
I second that amen!
Well put.
Thx thx.
Thanks for the ping!
Nice job!
Neither choice we have in November is going to do anything more than continue the debt/inflation cycle with as many different sorts of QE as can be imagined. And that is the best case scenario.
Events, domestic and foreign, that should have been managed from the Oval Office over the past three and a half years (some longer) weren't, and that is on the shoulders of the current occupant, who apparently doesn't have the good sense to run from a burning building and call the fire department. Those events are now out of control, and while additional QE will be attempted (if there's time), ultimately the next person to hold the office of President will have to deal with the debt repudiation cycle.
Like it or not, there's two reasons I will vote for the left mitten ...
... he is an American and he will have the good sense to leave a burning building, economically speaking.
There are other reasons too, of course.
I just can not think of them right now.
However within the context of my post, mittens has more of the personal characteristics and real-world experience needed now.
For instance, of the two, which one do you want managing the Middle East War, the collapse of the European political/financial system, civil unrest here in our inner cities for certain, and the Washington Correspondent's Dinner?
Sorry for the late reply, Jim. I don't normally post and run - begorrah, I don't normally post ... :)
Best to you and yours from a 20 square mile, easily defensible area of a state that might not be a state in a country that might not be a country, with water and gas wells, thriving game population, agriculture and a self-sufficient, small population base.
The anarchists will run out of fuel in the first few days and none of them are in shape to hike the miles they'd have to, should the ‘smartest guys in the room’ suddenly discover they're not and loose control.
:)
Gerald Celete -- Apocalypse Now. The System is Falling Apart (World Economy, Iran, China, USD)
A Freaking Man Made Designer Flu Is Coming
Very good excuses to use all those those thousands of Looky Looky final salute devices in storage all over the U.S. that I mentioned earlier in # 15
LOL !
All government debt throughout the world is ‘unsecured’ - what is the ‘full faith and credit’ of a sovereign government that can not pay it's debt? What, then, is the debt of that sovereign worth to an investor?
When that happens, the government bonds already issued and held by investors begin to fall in current cash value (what it can be sold for today versus the originally paid issue price) and that government finds itself having to pay interest rates on newly issued 10 year bonds that make your 29.99% credit card look like free money.
Take a look at the Greek, Portugese, Spanish and Italian 10 year bond rates - the higher the interest, the more trouble the country is in.
Conversely, the United States and German 10 year bonds are trading at or near all time record low interest rates. For now.
Further explanation of the reasons for the US 10 year being where it is can be found in a post I made on September 11, 2011 -
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2776797/posts
So far, I've seen nothing since that post to cause me to change anything in it.
The Greeks are not thieves, but their sovereign government is bankrupt.
“Our US debt regime is not dependent on little, kleptocratic debt regimes of southern Europe”, but it is dependent on the world's largest financial institutions, and we are going to loose some, part, or all of them before this is over.
:)
Thank you. :)
Thanks, Laz ... :)
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