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Phoenix
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http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=2...amp;sid=aBuMcg50xGVg&refer=worldwideI don't know how much everyone keeps up on the news, especially financial news. Personally the financial world bores me to death. It's alien to me and I have no love of the concept of money as a whole. I understand what it's used for and why people want it, but the workings of the financial world usually do not concern me. I consider the current state of affairs an exception because of the potential ramifications of what is going on, specifically where it concerns my observation of world affairs in relation to prophecy. That being said, all religious concerns aside, the pattern I am seeing is a disturbing one.
The US economy is collapsing. Anyone who denies this is living in denial. The dollar is worthless, stocks are losing their value, and this is after the collapse of several major finance companies, and the US government, which played a large role in creating the very problem it's trying to fix, just passed a bill that will in effect ruin the country's economy the rest of the way. It's not just a problem for Americans though. After rising higher and higher, the price of oil is now dropping like a stone. This causes problems for oil producers but also investors who have tied money up in oil futures. They learned all the wrong lessons from the housing market bubble it seems, though that should not be a surprise considering they learned the same lessons from the Dot Com failures, the Savings and Loan crash, Enron and Tyco, etc. Greed is fairly constant and predictable after all, and greedy people tend to be blind so long as the wealth keeps rolling in. Besides American investors losing their proverbial shirts, many foreign investors had money tied up in the US housing market with these sub-prime loans that were held by the now failed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. A global economy means a global problem. Markets crash in one place and the ripple effect is felt world-wide.
In addition to the economic collapse going on right now, if the damage is hardest in the United States, then the United States will be sidelined from its "superpower" status. I know that may please many people who dislike America being a powerful nation, but consider who may fill that power vacuum, and think about whether or not it's really an improvement. When I read articles where financial analysts are comparing the current situation with the stock crash that led to the Great Depression, I'm reminded of the history around the Great Depression and where it led. Germany suffered from hyperinflation following World War 1. Hitler and the Nazi Party rose to power on an ultra-nationalist platform. Hitler was the "answer" the suffering Germans were looking for. Mussolini won total control of Italy by the power of his personality. What followed was the worst war humans have ever fought against each other. America played a large role in ending that war. With America torn apart by its own economic turmoil, it may embolden very dangerous and evil regimes that have been kept in check by fear of American military and economic might.
It is not my intent to sound alarmist, but I cannot help but to notice history replaying itself here. Naivety and forgetfulness are generational traits for humans. History teaches that humans forget what history teaches. If it has happened before, it can happen again. So as I watch the money men panic, as I watch the financial world lose almost a third of its value in less than a year - in a matter of weeks in fact - I have to wonder where this is all going to go. Will things turn around and improve? Will it get so bad that the world cries out for a "savior", only this time it will be a Hitler on a global scale? The bible speaks of the Antichrist rising to power on a platform of peace and security, and that he introduces a new economic system where no one can buy or sell without his "mark". Could this be right around the corner? Whatever happens, I believe difficult times are ahead for everyone. I know some might like to gloat over the rich losing their wealth, but the sad truth is when the rich suffer losses the poor suffer even worse. Desperate people take desperate action. It took the assassination of only one man to spark the first world war. Conditions look very tense the world over right now, and the worse things get financially the more dangerous they'll become in other ways.
I wish I had something more useful than just my observations. I wish I could help, or offer some solution or advice for how to deal with this, but I cannot. I'm just a bird. All I know is that the people who are dealing with this are saying it's very, very bad. I think people should listen to them. Hopefully some of you will heed what I say and make preparations in case things do go awry. I always try to hope for the best for everyone, but I think the dream of one happy global society is rapidly turning into a nightmare, and one by one people need to wake up from it, and the sooner the better.
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  I fly into the night, on wings of fire burning bright...
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scalliano
Elite
Posts: 1095
Yup, that's me
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I agree. You can't deny that the US economy is in freefall, or that it's having a knock-on effect everywhere else in the world. Today the British government OK'ed a ?500bn bail-out for the banks and cut interest rates by 0.5%. We've already seen 2 banks being bought out by the taxpayers here, and no one has any confidence in the economic system as it stands. This problem will not go away easily, quickly or quietly, and there will be many further casualties along the way. The cost of oil has begun to drop, but the cost of fuel remains sky-high. In the short term, we're in for one shit winter. In the long term, who knows?
You mentioned the rise of Hitler after the effective collapse of the Weimar Republic. The current global meltdown could even see the rise of a black President.
And by "black", I don't mean Barack Obama. In fact, I'm not even talking about skin pigment ...
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PSN ID: scalliano
The Arena knows no gender, colour or creed, only skill.
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Sucutrule
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The dollar is worthless
As far as I always knew, the dollar was always worthless. Now, if you think this is the end of the world, you're on same boat I am. What I mean is that aside from economic nutcracker thats going on right now, a war is aparently coming. Russia has been making some strange moves (some treaties with China I heard of), aside from political tension between China and USA which has roots on Taiwan (according to a contract, a gun trading from the USA had to gradually stop until it was completly cut off. It hasn't stopped and China now is demanding it being stopped). That subprime drama over there, may be the global catalyst for the Game Over screen for the world as we know it. There have been wars which arise from small things like that China - USA treaty violation. For example [Historian Mode activated]: - The War of the Pacific: A war which started in 1879 and ended in 1884. The war was, at first, between Chile and Bolivia, rooting from a violation of a treaty that said that the bolivian goverment would not change the taxes charged to chilean saltpeter companies in bolivian territory. However, the bolivian congress was taking too long to approve said treaty. So, in the end, a tax raise of 10 cents per saltpeter bag triggered an almost inmidiate ocupation of said territories, triggering a war between Chile and Bolivia (in which Peru joined later, because of secret defence treaty signed with Bolivia). That (although exaggerated) example may be used to this case, however, the diferent circumstances cause it to obviously not a complete schematic of the future, but a remainder that the midnight clock may hit 12:00 sometime in the near future. Well, I've gotta calm down now, this topic is pretty nerve smashing. But be sure that if a war actually breaks out, I'll be playing Overseer - Supermoves in the background. |
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How I am supposed to type will all this cheese laying around?
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Lopson
Elite
Posts: 1133
Still Going In Circles
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You live in a capitalist world, and yet you have no faith in the system? Shame on you, I say! For you see, the greatest advantage of capitalism over communism is that it can easily regenerate itself. Yes, we all know that it might take a decade or so, but mark my words: things might improve.
The problem here lies with human nature: if humans lack a certain basic resource, like salt or oil, they will most certainly fight for them. If humans can grow out of these instinct-based habits and rationalize the situation, then we'll manage to walk out of this peacefully. But, who am I kidding? We're talking about asking the ignorant and stupidified masses to actually think, something they cannot even fathom to imagine, let alone do.
Which leads us to the next problem: what next? A new world war? A new world order? Either way, the true holders of power will still be around (think of the Patriots, from the Metal Gear Solid series), and who knows, things might improve... or they might not improve. But I guess Mankind understood its own destructive power after WWII, so a new WW seems somewhat unlikely.
It all depends on the regeneration of the economic system. Let's hope it does, otherwise, we might be in for some rough times.
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Tabun
Pixel Procrastinator
Team Member
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Blind trust in Capitalism requires faith in good old Smith's invisible hand. Capitalism is a logical extension to basic survival strategies of the organism: economics as efficient interaction with environment and opponents, costs and benefits weighed to maximum effect. It works, because everything in it that doesn't join in, gets crushed, swamped and left behind. Anything inside is shaped to fit the system, or wormed out as self-evidently unworthy.
All that is fine, because this does mean that the whole system can 'regenerate itself' (ie. create room for the growth and strength by eradicating wounded and weak elements). The only problem with this is that there's no reason to assume that you play a meaningful role in all of this: it's fair to say now, even, that you and I are mere pawns in the titantic economic battles of multinational corporations. That this striving for power after power generally reasserts itself after crises is true enough, but only reassuring if you care for the machine, and not for its average cog. In other words: ungrounded faith in the survival of meaningful individualism makes the capitalist struggle look like a tool that men use, while a reconsideration may well point to a reversal of roles.
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« Last Edit: 2008-10-12, 14:53 by Tabun »
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| Tabun |
?Morituri Nolumus Mori? |
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Phoenix
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If it were fighting over basic resources, I could understand this. Shortage of physical resources is not the problem. The problem is potential to acquire these resources. Take the price of any good. Who determines what it is? A basic economics lecture will state that the price is determined by supply and demand. That's fine in theory, but someone has to make a decision as to what number to hang on the sign for whatever is being bought. This leads to an examination of two cycles, as this comparison is often used in the description of basic economic principles.
Let's look first at the "circle of life" if I may borrow a term, and this will be vastly simplified for my purposes of illustration.
Plants: Grow from the soil. Eaten by: Animals.
Animals: Eat plants. Die and become: Soil.
So you see a circular cycle there. Let's compare this to the economic cycle.
Industry: Produces goods. Goods are purchased by: Consumers.
Consumers: Purchase goods. Consumers are paid by: Industry.
In this case, include services with goods, but you get the idea. The only hard rule in the economic cycle is that all businesses must profit or they cease to exist. In order to profit, a business must take in more money than it pays out. But where do they get their money? From consumers. Where do consumers get their money? From the businesses they work for. This means the business must charge more money for its goods than it pays the consumers that purchase them. There's a problem here, and a very big one. If consumers cannot afford the goods, how can the business profit? It cannot lower prices or it loses money. It could raise the wages for the consumers, but then it would have to raise prices even higher, what is known as inflation. This is the flaw in the economic cycle. What to do then?
If you're a keen observer you may have noted that I left a little part out of the natural cycle. The cycle seems good enough, but there's one thing it has that the economic cycle does not have: An external source of power. It's called the sun. This overcomes entropy and keeps the cycle in motion. Money is simply economic "energy", so let's look at the cycle with this new fact put forth:
Plants: Grow from the soil, using energy provided by the sun. Eaten by: Animals.
Animals: Eat plants. Die and become: Soil.
This is what has kept the cycle of life working since life became life, whether by the hand of God or on its own from a puddle of goo, depending on your preferred world view. But what about the economic cycle? It has no "sun" to keep it going, so what options are there? What must be done to keep the cycle moving? Somehow it must be possible for consumers to purchase goods without inflation occuring. In other words, a condition must be created and maintained where producers can profit while consumers can still spend. How can this be done? Either goods must cost less so consumers can afford them, or consumers must have more money so they can afford them, or both. Let's look at the options.
1) Allow consumers to purchase beyond their means. This is called debt (or credit, same thing really).
2) Reduce the cost of producing goods so that consumers can afford them.
Option 1 is pretty straight forward, option 2 is basically the "cheap labor" option - you pay someone less or nothing at all (in the case of slavery) than the people you are selling to in order to produce your goods. So you have two ways to keep the cycle going: Lending money, and cheap labor. For the short term it works, but there's problems with this as well. Money that is lent out doesn't really exist. You can't take what isn't there, so if someone defaults on a loan, how do you recover it? As well, cheap labor is a finite resource. For producers to profit, they must continue to grow and expand, and there are only so many humans on the earth, and so much geography to take advantage of until the growth of your markets exceeds the population growth and physical capacity of the globe to maintain it.
The natural cycle would end if the sun were to stop supplying energy into it. Just as well, what happens to the economic cycle when you run out of cheap labor, and people can no longer pay their debts? The system must also fail. In fact, it's been failing ever since it began. I've known for decades that a collapse was coming eventually for the simple reason that the economic system, however convoluted and complex it has become, still relies on the same simple principles at its foundation. You can't build a pyramid upside down, but that's exactly how it works, or rather, why it doesn't. In the past this might affect one country, or one region or another, but over the last century the collapse of trade barriers and the internationalizing of business and banking systems ensured that there would be entanglement of all markets. Globalization was the final step before the fall. Computerized instant trading ensured that a collapse in one sector could spread like a virus to every other. It was never a question of if this was going to happen, but when. It's still happening.
So why am I rambling on and on about this? Is this just another "Phoenix is right, I told you so?" No. I'm making this point because if I, who have only a rudimentary understanding of how economic systems function could foresee this coming based on very simplistic logic and observation, then that means I am not the only one. It's absurd to think that there is not at least one person if not a whole cabal that saw this coming long before hand and may have even manipulated markets to control how it collapsed. If a building is going to collapse anyway, do you prefer a controlled demolition or just let it fall on your head when gravity decides it's convenient? If you know it's going to fall, would you not also already have plans in place for what to do afterward? This may sound a bit conspiratorial, but the alternative is that the best minds of your species are complete dullards to let this happen and be caught completely off guard. Somebody has to have something in the works.
So lets say economics fails. Markets collapse, people riot, starve, there's wars... what then? Humans didn't always have economics. Humans didn't always have money. What humans have always had and still have is a desire to control, and basic needs that must be met. The basic needs part is fairly easy to sort out: Food, shelter, water, and warmth. That's the minimum needed to survive. The control aspect is where everyone should be concerned. Historically the concepts of freedom and liberty are rarities. They are desired by many, but rarely granted unless taken by force, and even then usually those who do the taking are quick to impose their will on their former masters. I would suspect that whatever solution to a complete economic meltdown is in the works will have a much more invasive quality than the current systems in place.
Now as for world wars, I would not be so quick to think that mankind has "learned its lesson". World War I was supposed to be the "War to End All Wars", so horrific that nobody would ever want to fight a war on that scale again. How long was it afterward when Hitler started World War 2? Human history is written in warfare. Consider how you mark time in your history books. Is it marked by times of peace, or by dates when wars were fought? Never say it cannot happen again. Do not think that a full scale nuclear war is impossible either, especially when a fanatical regime like Iran is on the verge of possessing nuclear weapons. Russia recently launched a blitzkrieg into a neighboring country. The world sat by and did nothing but watch people die. Make no mistake, Russia is still run by Putin, who I may remind you all used to head the KGB. That makes him one of the most dangerous men alive, and if he thought it would push Russia to the forefront of world power he probably would be willing to annihilate the United States and parts of Europe. After all, the KGB had no problem murdering Russians or anyone else that was perceived as a threat to Soviet supremacy, why should that be any different now?
Truly we live in perilous times...
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I fly into the night, on wings of fire burning bright...
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Lopson
Elite
Posts: 1133
Still Going In Circles
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I've hope in our own species, please don't try to crush it like a bug...
Sure, a WW is perfectly possible, and sure, the economy will collapse (it has in the past, why wouldn't it happen again in the future?), but as long as I have faith in a regeneration, and work hard to make it happen, then surely things will improve! Stop talking like fossiles from ancient times and start talking like people who eagerly await their own future!
We've got a problem to solve, and we need to work hard enough to solve it, that's all I need to know right now. What problems the future holds, I care not.
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OmEgA-X
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Sucks for me cuz im still looking for work. The economy going down the commode only makes it harder.  |
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Moshman
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And what's the democrats answer to all this?
Play Robin Hood and take from the rich and give to the poor.
People who sit around on section 8, being a cancer to society is getting the hard working money of overburdened entrepreneurs everywhere. People buy into the lies of our culture and become bleeding heart hypocrites.
Pho, you should check out something called "the Truth Project" it's really good. It answers a lot of things as to why people are stupid now days.
All I got to say to this is I am not worried because the King is on the throne.
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scalliano
Elite
Posts: 1095
Yup, that's me
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Are these the same entrepeneurs who just took a massive slice of taxpayers' money to cover their own reckless actions? Hypocrisy exists in all depatrments.
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PSN ID: scalliano
The Arena knows no gender, colour or creed, only skill.
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Phoenix
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The only people who just took a huge slice of taxpayer money was the Federal Government. it was Congress that voted to dump $700 billion into the lap of the Chairman of the Federal Reserve to basically do whatever he wanted with, a Congress that I might remind everyone is currently a Democrat majority. There's no one party to blame in this, the entire Congress - house and senate, as well as the presidency all went along with this. The people getting this money are not entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs, at least when it comes to the United States, are typically private citizens that decide to start a business from the ground up as opposed to toiling away at an hourly job for a big company. These are your small "mom and pop" stores, independent contractors, plumbers, electricians, etc. A lot of these people put their own private money on the line, risking bankruptcy if things go bad, and work 60 to 80 hour weeks. They bust their asses to make a living, and IF they can be successful enough at it to where they can expand their businesses beyond just themselves, hire additional employees and thus create additional jobs.
Now take this kind of individual and raise taxes on them. What happens? With less money available, they cannot afford to hire people, they cannot afford to buy new equipment, or expand their operations. If you want to create jobs, someone has to have money in order to pay people, and that someone is the employer, whether it's a small business or a mega-corporation. Taking money away from people who earn it and just giving it to people who do absolutely nothing is theft. That's what socialism effectively is. That's what taxes, in essence, are. If someone takes your wallet because they have no money, is that not stealing? Why then is it any different if the government does it as opposed to a street thug? Now if a man asks you for money because he's hungry, and you give him some money, that's different. You've consciously chosen to do something to help the man. Now expand this further. If you have enough money as an entrepreneur owning a business to hire that man so he can work, and thus feed himself, does that not benefit him more and does that not benefit you more as well? Give a man some money and you feed him for a day. Give him a job where he can earn his own and you feed him for a lifetime. Tell me where is government necessary in this process, and how exactly can taxation make it work more effectively when taxation at its very nature is a parasitic action?
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I fly into the night, on wings of fire burning bright...
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Moshman
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An entrepreneur is a business leader and innovator of new ideas and business processes. A new person with new products or services.
The bailout was for well established companies that have been in business for some time.
And let me tell you something else. The bailout was the result of the housing market crashing. Why? A lot of bad mortgages and loans that were never paid back. Why? Because these companies were forced to accept potentially sour customers. People who mop bathrooms for a living wanting to purchase $300K homes. During the application process to get these loans and or money, these sour customers were not asked how much they make. Why? They couldn't. Bad politics and the race card were played and these companies were forced to fold like a deuce before a royal flush to anybody wanting to play ball with $300K loans and mortgages living on only $300.00 a week. As a result of their inability to question their clients' financial limitations, loans could not be paid back in full, or they just skipped town and abandoned it. All because these shoddy lobbyists and government officials saying, "You're asking THEM how much they make? That's discriminatory." And you know what it is, but for the right reasons. Political correctness as of late has been taking itself way too seriously, where it essentially did two things; it killed our economy, and bought the election.
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