I know there're a lot of folks out there who have quietly suspected that the country's economy is going to Hell in the proverbial handbasket, but haven't been able to see why others aren't so concerned about it. Does it feel like an economic expansion to anyone? Anyone feel like the price of anything is getting cheaper? An interview available in the this
PDF file is a really short explication for why I'm such a strong dollar bear. If you're unfamiliar with the twin blasphemies of Hedonics and Imputed Income, may they be anathema forever and ever amen, then you might want to invest a 1/2 hour in reading the interview.
At least when the collapse comes, maybe Maddie will let me raise chickens like I've always wanted to do.
18 comments:
I lack a feel for how reliable this guy is... but the numbers themselves are no surprise. WSJ this morning remarked upon how the deficit keeps climbing, in spite of tax revenue being practically explosive.
It's also kinda odd to hear the Gold Standard talked about again w/o snickering.
Last I knew, it was only us libertarians who could talk about that one with a straight face...
Well, I don't know how reliable he is, but he's right on the money (pardon the pun) with the economic indicators. Whenever they fiddle w/ the indicators, they create another M3 or other measurement that only those who have to know about actually follow. Been like that for a while.
The damnable thing is: all our ills stem from this. Remember when the minimum wage was $3.25? You get three guesses what this has to do with illegal immigration, and your first 12 guesses don't count. :o)
I know that McDonald's and other fast food have paid somewhere around 7-8 bucks an hour for the past five years minimum. That alone is strong evidence in this man's favor.
I did up a spreadsheet as we try to get out from under debt. The good news is that we can be out from underneath eveything but the mortgage on our own power by December. The bad news is you know what that depends on. The GREAT news is how ridiculously small our actual living expenses, with zero cut in lifestyle, come to be once that's dead and gone. Kill that debt, indeed.
I wish we were in the same boat. My personal (non-mortgage) debt is vast, and, at least in California, we're having a hard time staying off of the credit-card for just normal monthly living. Keep those fingers crossed I can retain my job until the unsecured debt's gone!
The big thing, though, is that if hyperinflation were to hit, homeowners with less than 20-28% equity are very likely to become targets of foreclosure.
The reason I'm so worried is that no-one wants to admit how fake the books are because of the austerity measures and interest rates that'd imply, so instead we're likely to skip gaily off a cliff singing songs of denial to ourselves. Sometimes I suspect that the baby boomers would rather leave a catastrophe for our generation than face hard times for themselves.
(Nothing about the baby boomers personally, but they're the ones in power right now, not us 30-somethings.)
Jim, I don't know a *single person* in our generation who has even a vague doubt that the Boomers, speaking collectively, would much rather let us be completely ruined than face any hardship of their own.
Yeah really.. "Sometimes" ?! The Baby Boomers are arrogant self-absorbed pieces of shit who don't give a damn about anyone but themselves, even to the extent that they'll fuck over their own children.
Blunt or not, you know its true.
I'm not so sure it is that simple. I think there're folks, like Eason's dad (great guy!), for example, and ours too, who'd suck it up not to screw over the next generation. But the ones in power? The marginal incentive for politicians is re-election, not statesmanship.
Jim, I don't think your dad is a boomer...born in 1945 does NOT make him one. He's a warbaby, like my dad, and I bet it's the same with Mr. Eason.
Yep. Dad's not a boomer.
But even among the boomers, it's the '68 revolution we're really talking about, that legitimized, rationalized, and excused all the selfishness. Eason's Dad, Kevin, other guys I know, they were the OPPOSITION to the '68ers.
They lost.
The Boomers who remained anywhere near the levers of power and the organs of the media were precisely the worst possible people one could have chosen to have remaining at the helm.
Ok, but so far as politics go, folks of that general age are controlling the political scene. I don't thinkg plus or minus five years makes *that* much of a difference there -- by "baby boomer" what I really mean to say is those generally around retirement age and maybe a decade younger.
The more important thing, though, is that our fiscal policy is totally out of whack vis-a-vis our actual financial position. The only way we're going to avoid running the economy right off a cliff will get us a prime rate of 12%, bankruptcies, foreclosures, unemployment and a host of related ills. The alternative, however, is hyperinflationary depression and the collapse of Bretton-Woods.
The state of the union is precarious.
It'll be foreclosures and consolidation. I'd actually like to see the gold standard return, but there are lots of folks who don't (and good reasons why they don't.)
Well, I'm all for the death of fractional reserve banking and the boom/bust cycles it creates, but gold isn't exactly the nicest thing to pin an economy on. It's better than trying to do a dual-commodity system like we tried with gold and silver together, which was doomed to fail at the start though. I'd like to see a fiat currency with 100% reserves instead. That way you can't pull money outta the ground.
The whole "Dad isn't a baby boomer" thing is a bunch of crap; he uses being one year off (boomers 'officially' begin in 1946) as a way to try to remove himself from his share of responsibility.
The truth is though, that people like him are complicit in allowing the Baby Boomer filth to propagate their non-reality. People like Dad did nothing to stop this either, so they don't get a free pass.
I'm not sure I'd go there; long nights on cold seas make for a pretty reality-driven life.
In so far as the boomer side-issue goes, I think Russ has it about right. There's a difference in being in the minority (like Uncle Dave, who hates his generation) and being complicit.
The real point though isn't to point fingers. We ran up this mess bankrupting the Soviet Union, and I think that was a worthy thing to do. All I want is for the country to wake up and realize the invoice has arrived.
Funny you should mention my dad and boomers. When I was visiting my uncle and aunts in Minnesota I made a reference about generations and my Uncle Jim got very serious and said "Mike, your dad and me are NOT part of the same generation". And that all caps part happened in truth. My dad was born in 1941, so he wasn't (and he continually is thankful for that fact). But yeah, the 68er's would fuck us over and not skip a beat, all the while pratteling on about how captialism and corporations are the true evils. I had my aunt tell me (almost shouted it really) "Corporations are evil, period." and then, without a hint of irony go on to talk about how she was going to cash in a small part of her 401K retirement package and live in Paris for a month. She even mentioned bringing her old "protest clothes" to join the new revolution.
The boomer mentality is "I got mine, F(*& you". So I say get in their face and call them every chance you get. Harsh their mellow, make them look in the mirror and if you are young enough quote "I don't trust anyone over 30".
I say we have our little "Revolution" and have some turnabout. This is why I read blogs and slam the media every chance I get. You want my respect? Earn it you stinking hippie.
Not that this has anything to do with money, but the mentality is there.
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