Us Faces One Of Biggest Budget Crunches In World – Imf

[scepticus]

Wars happen because it's the easiest way for a central bank to justify robbing everybody.

please put this hypothesis in terms of the first punic war.

There ar eno priovate debts, btw. Almost all people have who have debts have debts to the banking system, which is an entirely state backed enterprise. There is also no private money.

wrong. all private endevaours are state backed whether it be a bank, intel, a market stall or a household balance sheet, because the state is in the end just the rules we all agree to play by. The agreement here is a result of people not taking up arms against one another to redefine the rules.

Bankers get caught out, set the wolrd on fire to avoid capture. Classic bankster behaviour.

once again, first punic war please.

I think it's not all that material - as the mechanism for funding an overseas war without extra taxes (devaluation) is on it's way out. If they could possibly have us all in dome foreign field getting killed (and thus cancelling debts left right and centre) we'd be there already. Civil war, now theres an idea.

its all hierachical. a civil war is only defined as such according to (sub) collecively agreed boundaries. to even distinguish between international and civil war, you have to admit social boundaries, which you deny exist. As usual you contradict yourself.

Well, as far as I can tell Hitler just latched onto the (justified) hatred of what international bamksters (mostly jews) had done to the german people in the name of their insane religion of book balancing.

if so, then why did the same hatred not manifest in the nations that ultimately defeated hitler?

We've just had the collectivism though, which is where your thesis completely collapses even if we accept all the previous. We've just had a major attempt to turn the UK into east germany circa 1960 and it's been roundly rejected at election time, except by those who are getting paid for doing it.

one election is just a minor tweak.

what we have had, if we look at the grand historical up and down of public and private debt, is the apogee of the individualist part of the cycle. And you are one of the many avatars produced by the peak of that cycle.

I don't claim to be an advocate of the coming collectivist epoch, merely an observer of events and of human nature.

[South Lorne]

what you fail to mention is growth. Up until recently this system has worked due to increasing populations and increasing access to natural resources which has enabled growth, and by that allowed debt liabilities to be met.

We are nearing the end of the worlds growth phase, as evinced by diminishing access to high quality energy, mineral, and biomass resources around the globe. The end result is a bust of truely epic proportions. Whether 'this is it' or it will come in a couple more decades is unknown as yet, but its coming and its not too far off at all....

Time for me to go buy some more tinfoil and beans....

....mmm...better start to learn how to create fire by rubbing two sticks together.....back to basics.....

[interestrateripoff]

what you fail to mention is growth. Up until recently this system has worked due to increasing populations and increasing access to natural resources which has enabled growth, and by that allowed debt liabilities to be met.

We are nearing the end of the worlds growth phase, as evinced by diminishing access to high quality energy, mineral, and biomass resources around the globe. The end result is a bust of truely epic proportions. Whether 'this is it' or it will come in a couple more decades is unknown as yet, but its coming and its not too far off at all....

Time for me to go buy some more tinfoil and beans....

I think this growth phase was intended to last a couple of hundred years, it's just that certain groups get very greedy and blew the economy in just a few decades to line there own pockets.

Now the fact we have limited resources is being fully exposed and paying off the debt is going to be very difficult.

"While economic textbooks claim that people and corporations are competing for markets and resources, I claim that in reality they are competing for money - using markets and resources to do so. Greed and fear of scarcity are being continuously created and amplified as a direct result of the kind of money we are using. For example, we can produce more than enough food to feed everybody, and there is definitely not enough work for everybody in the world, but there is clearly not enough money to pay for it all. In fact, the job of central banks is to create and maintain that currency scarcity. Money is created when banks lend it into existence When a bank provides you with a $100,000 mortgage, it creates only the principal, which you spend and which then circulates in the economy. The bank expects you to pay back $200,000 over the next 20 years, but it doesn't create the second $100,000 - the interest. Instead, the bank sends you out into the tough world to battle against everybody else to bring back the second $100,000."- Bernard Lietaer, Former Central Banker

[alexw]

credit is not money. money wont decrease unless the BoE cash it in.

this is a credit boom. the credit cant be paid off in time, hence, they call it a liquidity crisis.

the problem is insolvency really, as they issued way too much credit in the shadow banking system...course, nobody thought this would affect the real World.

what they forgot was that credit, entirely imaginary, features large in the real World.

Within the context of our economies credit is money. If it smells like money, tastes like money, and acts like money... it is money.

And yes it can't be paid off.

Only two options exist, grow out of it, or default on it.

And due to diminishing natural resources, particularly hydrocarbons, theres no way we can grow out of it.

[alexw]

...we are talking ratios ...and if we look at the other side of the equation and increase our GDP the percentage drops ...to grow our GDP is easier said than done...but the first move has to be to reduce the annual deficit as the carry over is added to our debt...

To grow we need access to more and more natural resources and land.

Please let me know when you have your spaceship to mars ready so i can claim my share of its resources.

[scepticus]

To grow we need access to more and more natural resources and land.

Please let me know when you have your spaceship to mars ready so i can claim my share of its resources.

that is not the case. it depends on how we define growth. it is perfectly feasible that in future growth is defined along the following vectors:

- life extension and the capabilities of the human body

- growth in the complexity of the digital virtual world

neither of these fundamentally require more land or more energy

[Georgia O'Keeffe]

I think this growth phase was intended to last a couple of hundred years, it's just that certain groups get very greedy and blew the economy in just a few decades to line there own pockets.

Now the fact we have limited resources is being fully exposed and paying off the debt is going to be very difficult.

Theres a reasonable school of thought that the growth phase has lasted a couple of centuries and we have just ended a cycle from the beginning of the industrial revolution in the 1780s. If so this would be a correction of that whole cycle. Im not sure about that but i wouldnt rule it out based purely on the historically unparalleled size of the blow off top thats just happened.

That would be fun it would mean Dow about 500 by my reckoning

Edited May 15, 2010 by Tamara De Lempicka

[Guest spp]

Within the context of our economies credit is money. If it smells like money, tastes like money, and acts like money... it is money.

And yes it can't be paid off.

And due to diminishing natural resources, particularly hydrocarbons, theres no way we can grow out of it.

Exactly...there is no way out!

The idiots will print and print until eventually we go hyper and then comes the deflationary collapse.

This results in the current fiat currencies reaching their true value......0

People who make daft comments like 'Gold is in a bubble' fail to realise it's actually the fiat paper that's in the bubble of all bubbles.

In times like these Gold and Silver become world currencies of wealth preservation.

[Bloo Loo]

Within the context of our economies credit is money. If it smells like money, tastes like money, and acts like money... it is money.

And yes it can't be paid off.

Only two options exist, grow out of it, or default on it.

And due to diminishing natural resources, particularly hydrocarbons, theres no way we can grow out of it.

wrong. you cant spend credit. you need a bank to do it for you.

You can spend money.

[alexw]

that is not the case. it depends on how we define growth. it is perfectly feasible that in future growth is defined along the following vectors:

- life extension and the capabilities of the human body

- growth in the complexity of the digital virtual world

neither of these fundamentally require more land or more energy

economic growth is the provision of new goods and services to meet individuals's needs.

This generally requires more energy and resources. Even the vectors you have described above require them. Longer life spans will mean longer lives in which to consume natural inputs. Increasing complexity of digital virtual worlds will require increasing computing power, increasing computing power requires resources for R&D, for building the new systems, and increasing energy to run them.

[South Lorne]

We've just had a major attempt to turn the UK into east germany circa 1960 and it's been roundly rejected at election time, except by those who are getting paid for doing it.

....Woodley is back from Cuba ....!...

The Department of Transport has warned of more disruption from Sunday because of ash from the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland.

Some of the UK's busiest airports in south-east England could be affected until Tuesday, when the first strike is due to begin.

Tony Woodley, the joint general secretary of Unite, told the BBC he would "seriously consider" calling it off.

"You would have to be stupid to want to ground planes that are going nowhere anyway," he said.

....full of intellect.....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/10118143.stm

Edited May 15, 2010 by South Lorne

[Bloo Loo]

economic growth is the provision of new goods and services to meet individuals's needs.

snip

look at GDP again...it includes public spending.

people make the mistake of accepting GDP as the be all and end all. Its not...its easily fiddled by governments borrowing more and spending...one needs to look at the private investment part of the equation... as that falls, so should borrowing....but it hasnt, theyve borrowed more to make the figure look good.

thats why comparing historic GDP v debt needs a closer examination.

[Georgia O'Keeffe]

look at GDP again...it includes public spending.

people make the mistake of accepting GDP as the be all and end all. Its not...its easily fiddled by governments borrowing more and spending...one needs to look at the private investment part of the equation... as that falls, so should borrowing....but it hasnt, theyve borrowed more to make the figure look good.

thats why comparing historic GDP v debt needs a closer examination.

or keep the comparison but consider GDP is more likely to fall off a cliff than ever before

Edited May 15, 2010 by Tamara De Lempicka

[Injin]

please put this hypothesis in terms of the first punic war.

Why?

I can do but you'll only come up with something else to dismiss as your job here is not to find the truth, it is simply to excuse theft. In any event, this question has already been asked and I have answered it on the forum.

wrong. all private endevaours are state backed whether it be a bank, intel, a market stall or a household balance sheet, because the state is in the end just the rules we all agree to play by. The agreement here is a result of people not taking up arms against one another to redefine the rules.

nN, private means voluntary. State means forced. I know you'd like to think that voluntary exchange is impossible, but it is possible. in fact it's the only way to make any wealth.

Nobody agrees to what the state wants, they are forced. Get over it and stop excusing it.

I shall briefly outline a statist versus a voluntary interaction for you.

1) Voluntary.

"hey bob, do you fancy coming to the pub?"

"no thanks.

"oh okay, mate have a good one."

2) Statists.

"Hey Bob if you aren't at the pub in the next half hour I'll put you in prison."

"Fuuuuck."

""it's for your own good, you owe me it, it's not me threatening you, it's the collective, me and the landlord voted on it etc etc"

Do you get it yet, Scepticus?

once again, first punic war please.

I might find it later, meh.

its all hierachical. a civil war is only defined as such according to (sub) collecively agreed boundaries. to even distinguish between international and civil war, you have to admit social boundaries, which you deny exist. As usual you contradict yourself.

No, I don't have to admit boundaries at all. All I have to admit is that other people believe there are boundaries and will wave guns aroudn to force compliance with their fantasy. They do. They are wrong, but they do.

Stop wriggling.

if so, then why did the same hatred not manifest in the nations that ultimately defeated hitler?

It did.

one election is just a minor tweak.

what we have had, if we look at the grand historical up and down of public and private debt, is the apogee of the individualist part of the cycle. And you are one of the many avatars produced by the peak of that cycle.

I don't claim to be an advocate of the coming collectivist epoch, merely an observer of events and of human nature.

There is no collectivist exit to the current crisis.

Self preservation means the collectivist route isn't going to triumph.

[indirectapproach]

"Wars happen because it's the easiest way for a central bank to justify robbing everybody."

Oh come on.

That is an incredibly glib and stupid thing to say.

Wars happen for many reasons other than that, if they happen for that one at all.

No one goes to war so that the central bank can rob everybody.

Maybe some people go to war so that they can rob you .... or someone else .... but the "central bank" .... puhleese .... who ever fought for a central bank?

[South Lorne]

"Wars happen because it's the easiest way for a central bank to justify robbing everybody."

Oh come on.

That is an incredibly glib and stupid thing to say.

Wars happen for many reasons other than that, if they happen for that one at all.

No one goes to war so that the central bank can rob everybody.

Maybe some people go to war so that they can rob you .... or someone else .... but the "central bank" .... puhleese .... who ever fought for a central bank?

...true ...it's the other way round ....the BofE was formed by William Paterson to fund the King's War in France....

[Game_Over]

Why?

I can do but you'll only come up with something else to dismiss as your job here is not to find the truth, it is simply to excuse theft. In any event, this question has already been asked and I have answered it on the forum.

nN, private means voluntary. State means forced. I know you'd like to think that voluntary exchange is impossible, but it is possible. in fact it's the only way to make any wealth.

Nobody agrees to what the state wants, they are forced. Get over it and stop excusing it.

I shall briefly outline a statist versus a voluntary interaction for you.

1) Voluntary.

"hey bob, do you fancy coming to the pub?"

"no thanks.

"oh okay, mate have a good one."

2) Statists.

"Hey Bob if you aren't at the pub in the next half hour I'll put you in prison."

"Fuuuuck."

""it's for your own good, you owe me it, it's not me threatening you, it's the collective, me and the landlord voted on it etc etc"

Do you get it yet, Scepticus?

I might find it later, meh.

No, I don't have to admit boundaries at all. All I have to admit is that other people believe there are boundaries and will wave guns aroudn to force compliance with their fantasy. They do. They are wrong, but they do.

Stop wriggling.

It did.

There is no collectivist exit to the current crisis.

Self preservation means the collectivist route isn't going to triumph.

I think this analysis at least is spot on.

The problem for those predicting the end of the Dollar is that the US could default and it would continue to be the World's only true Superpower.

And given the amount of Dollars held by every country in the World the US is just 'too big to fail'

Everyone else is F*cked to varying degrees.

If the UK bites the bullet hard and Germany quits the Euro, then Sterling and the Deutsche Mark might come out the other end in 'reasonable' shape however, IMHO.

[scepticus]

economic growth is the provision of new goods and services to meet individuals's needs.

that is the current definition. prior to the enlightenment, growth was mostly defined in terms of closeness to god. Therefore stuff like the crusades and the building of larger and larger churches defined progess and dfined one nation with regard to another.

we can also arbitraily define economic growth to be the provision of goods and services to meet collective needs. Indeed, I posit that in the coming decades the prevailing sentiment will be towards collective rather than individual needs, which would mark a final closure of the industrial revolution.

in both the individual and collective case, the needs that must be met are a social construct, which can and will vary with social changes, for example, aging. I would also ofer the X-factor phenomenon as an example of a collective need.

This generally requires more energy and resources. Even the vectors you have described above require them. Longer life spans will mean longer lives in which to consume natural inputs. Increasing complexity of digital virtual worlds will require increasing computing power, increasing computing power requires resources for R&D, for building the new systems, and increasing energy to run them.

additional energy resources are only required if one assumes that all existing energy usages are retained. For example, a decrease in foreign holidays and travel in general can pay for a huge increase in digital bandwith, energywise.

further, its is obvious to me that it is cheaper in energy terms to double individual digital bandwidth allocations than it is to double individual travel budgets. Therefore it seems obvious that people will physically travel less and digitally travel more. Indeed, the primary input to double digital bandwidth is intellecuual capital, but to double physical travel bandwidth requires the laying of new roads or equivalent physical infrastructure.

Designing new chipsets and comms protocols mostly burns mental cycles. Building more roads or trains mostly burns oil.

[Game_Over]

"Wars happen because it's the easiest way for a central bank to justify robbing everybody."

Oh come on.

That is an incredibly glib and stupid thing to say.

Wars happen for many reasons other than that, if they happen for that one at all.

No one goes to war so that the central bank can rob everybody.

Maybe some people go to war so that they can rob you .... or someone else .... but the "central bank" .... puhleese .... who ever fought for a central bank?

+1

Taxation and then Central Banks were only created as a way of funding wars.

Wars existed thousands of years before Central Banks were created.

[Injin]

+1

Taxation and then Central Banks were only created as a way of funding wars.

Wars existed thousands of years before Central Banks were created.

No, they really didn't.

if you check your history you'll find wars = devaluation, coin clipping, inflation, paper money etc etc

[Flatdog]

Snip:

There is no collectivist exit to the current crisis.

Self preservation means the collectivist route isn't going to triumph.

History tells us that control, influence and greed has always defeated collectivism.

Logged in to HPC this evening to check out what was really happening..couldn't help but respond

to this post...no freakin' idea why.

[scepticus]

There is no collectivist exit to the current crisis.

of course there is. both the individualist and collectiviist exits always remain open at all times.

the question is only which exit will be passed through in the near future, a decision that can only be taken by the society as a whole. Even if you hold as you do society doesn't exist, then merely the aggregate interactions between individually autonomous entities produce a system response vector which is outside the control of individuals.

and even then the exit passed through is only a point scored towards the collecitve or individual bias of humanity, and does not say anything in the long run about the final choice of humaity in this respect. And ofc ultimately the heat death of the universe remains as the final judgement upon either.

[South Lorne]

+1

Taxation and then Central Banks were only created as a way of funding wars.

Wars existed thousands of years before Central Banks were created.

...used barter and pawnbrokers.....

[scepticus]

+1

Taxation and then Central Banks were only created as a way of funding wars.

Wars existed thousands of years before Central Banks were created.

quite. I am looking forwards to see how the first punic war is explained in terms of inflation.

[scepticus]

wrong. you cant spend credit. you need a bank to do it for you.

You can spend money.

nope, these days to spend money you need the government to do it for you because tenners are government debt, just like credit-money is bank debt.

do try and be consistent.