Pessimist

'Twas every the case that the Prophet of Doom shall witter on and nay shall be ignored by all and sundry. But what if they are right h'eventually?

I'd also add to buy before the banks collapse (and you lose your cash), or hyperinflation caused by the printing of money kicks in (and your savings become worthless). Look to buy a house in an area that is unlikely to have groups of yobs kicking your door in, and where you can still find work in times of extreme depression.

I enjoy reading Jim Kustler's alarming analysis, he writes well, though does have to find many ways to say the much the same sort thing in his blog. If someone writes well then I'll read long articles (even if I think he has got the Israel/Palestine issues completely wrong). You don't see much intelligent analysis on hpc forum, with a few notable exceptions. He's basically saying that energy issues are at the heart of why our economies have stopped expanding, and that without exponential growth and money creation our fractional reserve banking system is dead. He sees the creation of credit as a dead end path, if it is not used to do something useful and productive with, like make real products that people actually need. He sees the suburban sprawl as a blight on the landscape of the US, and together with a consumerist lifestyle, as being unsustainable. He offers plenty of ideas on how we might create a sustainable economy/lifestyle, but predicts the 'the American way of life is not negotiable' attitude will lead to a 'Long Emergency' which he can flesh out in gruesome detail. Now I'm a full member I will have a go at posting on Dimitri Orlov's view on the collapse of the US empire, and his full comparison of the US with the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Thanks for explaining the links between CDO and CDS so poignantly. Why not write a book called the "Rude Guide to the Credit Crunch"? I was thinking about getting a job polishing turds, but I think the bottom has fallen out of the market.

Well, some men around here seem to slag off women at every opportunity. Maybe something to do with nostalgia for a time when women were really second class citizens, or the fact that they are middle aged, overweight, past it nobodies, conservative in nature and politics, and unable to see the 'bigger picture'. The obvious and blatant sexism on this forum should be stamped down on by the moderators. Biological differences exist, we know that, and male and female are socialised differently, advertising, consumerism targets the differences. Women, the cause of the house price crash though, ridiculous.

Yes, who is going to save our donkeys? Ass - Hoofed mammal of the horse family with a baying call Or do we allow american spelling on this forum? It's the American spellings that should be starred out. Try saying **** (@rse), the British spelling, and it gets starred out!

Who knows, maybe part of his master plan? He saw that drawing the US into one or two costly and un-winnable wars (imperial over-stretch), plus the fragility of the economic system would have the potential to bring it all crashing down. The Soviet Union's involvement in Afghanistan contributed to it's collapse after all.

1929crash edit to remove cluster******_nation/ to leave with "http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/" then link should work.

Thanks for posting! Just one back from me on the behaviour of (predominantly male presumably) brokers: Tricks of the traders: What's the rarest commodity on the stockmarket? Honesty. A former broker exposes the corruption, greed and insider dealing endemic in the City So all of us ordinary punters who buy shares are mugs, as are our pension funds and investment trusts, these guys are ripping us all off. Edited for spelling!

Excellent post. Clearly the Irish Times article, tounge in cheek, or not, grain of truth, or not, was misogynist and sexist. Men can be extremely competitive in some areas of their lives, the areas of their lives that are important to them, women can be competitive in the areas that are important to them. There is a Darwinian imperative here that has helped humans survive for as long as we have. Unfortunately our modern consumerist society has played on the most primitive of feelings to create the monstrous mess we have today. We have failed to educate people to think for themselves. The sheeple are here in hpc too, judging from their posts.

I'd also instigate the extra measures in bold and would consider the others if it were fully explained to me as to how they might work. In terms of overall policy direction after WWII I think we got the balance right between socialism and capitalism. It was only the US failing to loan back some of the money that we'd paid them during the War and failure to cancel our debt that caused this country to lurch from crisis to crisis. That and excessive beaurocracy. Privatisation of BT, British Gas, the railways, water, Local Authorities, electricity etc has been an unmitigated disaster for this country. Public utilities should be brought back into public control. Nationalisation of the banks in it's current form is also heading for disaster. The banks should be allowed to fail and we should look at having a State Bank, along the lines of the suggestion in Money As Debt.

So it looks like it might be a race to the bottom. The collapse of the Eurozone won't be good for us though, in terms of trade. And wild currency fluctuations won't help us either. The only long term winners might be the East. Who will the IMF turn to when it runs out of funds, probably China?

I haven't read the article, please could you post the link, so we can make up our own minds. There might be some truth in it as we all know there are biological differences between men and women that make men more likely to take risks. And it's the attitude to risk that has caused the current economic meltdown.

I'm no great fan of Mrs TB or her husband TB. I can't possibly see how the recession will be good for women as a whole, if anything they will be eased out of the work place, apart from in the lower paid and part time jobs. I can understand the resentment towards equality legislation that allows women to 'play the system' in terms of maternity leave, so cheap child care should be the priority here as you have stated. The cynical push to lower wages and increase profits, I would say are much more obviously due to 'out sourcing' to countries which have no protection for the rights of workers and have very low wages, and the in-sourcing (immigration) of cheap labour from overseas. This is a significant contribution to the destruction of the manufacturing base in Britain and the US, and has caused the protectionist and anti-immigration backlash we are seeing now.

What percentage of the chief executives of the top 100 British companies, say, are women? Are women any less capable of running a big company? I'm sure women can be just as nasty and ruthless as men, but are probably not as well connected. Heard of the 'old boys' network? Does the school or university you went to still count for anything? Does it help to be of a particular religion? Most religions are really sexist, Islam, Judaism, Christianity. With 40 % of women in the global workforce, and despite large numbers of women getting successfully through higher education, what percentage break through the 'glass ceiling'? Or as a woman will positions in middle management probably only be open to you in niche positions such as local government, social services, education etc. Do women who make it to the top in business have to prove themselves better than the men making it to the top? I suspect they do. This is what they tell us. The Times did an interesting article about how women making their way to the top are often given 'poisoned chalice' jobs (by men who would like to see them fail) and so face a 'glass cliff'. Women who break through glass ceiling face a cliffhanger Despite having come a long way, feminism failed to achieve it's objective as set out by the early feminists, and the feminist movement was diverted away from it's original path by such groups as lesbian feminists which had their own agendas, and who's politics were framed in an anti-male way. These feminist extremists were easy to ridicule, (by a male dominated media) and were disowned by most women, and we live in a post feminist culture where the true issues of feminism, still have not been properly addressed, despite sexual equality being laid down in law.

Wasn't looking for it, see it anyway.

So sexism still alive and kicking on hpc. I am not in favour of political correctness gone mad, but see a lot of unnecessary comments around here. Why not put women at the top? Men have had their turn and failed. Thought you might be interested in how women have risen to the top in Iceland following it's economic collapse "and heard how they are determined to reinvent business and society by injecting values of openness, fairness and social responsibility". After the crash, Iceland's women lead the rescue

HAVE YOU NOTICED (whoops sorry for shouting, Caps Lock button stuck), most YouTube vids are cr@p, apart from the one you posted, of course. And a lot of good TV clips have been removed due to 'Copyright Violations'. Funny spoof on competition to find a good youtube vid: YouTube Contest Challenges Users To Make A 'Good' Video

Well thanks for not insulting me this time (should I be thanking you?) OK you've got a good point there, CDS are derivatives, but just one of many, so wrong of me to generalise. Like many here I'm still trying to get my head around these financial instruments. If you can educate me without insulting me that's fine. Having read more of your posts I suspect there are many things we agree on.

Telegraph thinks it's a smoke screen as well. Sir Fred Goodwin is stealing the show from the real culprits

Someone in the independent has read your post (or come to the same conclusion independently). The 1.3 trillion pound bank job

Buffet may have changed his tune and paid a heavy price for it. Sometimes people do the wrong thing despite their own better judgement, or doubt the things they may have said in the past. That doesn't mean what he said originally was wrong, in fact if anything the losses he has made trading in derivatives means he was right to call derivatives time bombs. from: Berkshire Hathaway Reports Worst Year Ever

Retreating tide, with waves, big and small, storms and detritus being washed up on the beach - but always retreating in the long run.

And In the Know: Are America's Rich Falling Behind The Super Rich You could almost call it satire. Oops, seen that one above. We'll call that 2 votes for this one.

Better still, seize all their assets, send them to inner city schools to teach maths. They can wear bright pink jumpsuits as a mark of shame, they should have the letter B painfully tattooed on their foreheads, the bail conditions should include only travelling on public transport or walking and they should be electronically tagged to avoid them leaving the country. What better punishment than forcing them to stay in the UK?