Well, thanks Dave. For a second I thought the banks were trying to sustain the unsustainable at the cost of the whole society and manipulating their books to milk investors before their day of reckoning, which will come sooner or later. Next time I’ll check my corporate accounting text book before posting such drivel. Karl is a hysterical kook with ADHD, no doubt. Though he does occasionally bring up some very interesting points.
Still time marches on and the MASSIVE amounts of debt transfered, due to some very wealthy people losing bets, to the public pretty much have a ZERO percent chance of getting paid back without massive devaluing or default. That concerns me on a personal, national and international level.
Unlike banking, some aspects of the world aren’t lucky enough to play the shell game of modern financial accounting and this is the bigger problem. Soon the banking world will have to join the real world. For now everybody is content playing tiddlywinks on the beach as a tidal wave approaches and you are head tiddlywink engineer for piggingtons. Good job!
See, everything they are doing is predicated on huge economic growth or any for that matter and looking in my future binoculars, using common sense and logic, I just don’t see it. Nowhere on the horizon.
So they are either:
a) Completely clueless and mired in denial
b) Have nefarious secret plans
c) Just don’t give a shit about anybody else but there own continued seat at the table of power.
Any plan to stimulate growth that does not take this energy reality into account is highly suspect and is probably flawed. Why this most obvious of all connections is not being openly discussed will be for future historians to dissect. For now, it is up to each of us to define for ourselves how much importance we place in this line of thinking.
http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/ What they’re missing is real simple: peak oil means no more ability to service debt at all levels, personal, corporate, and government. End of story. All the other exertions being performed in opposition to this basic fact-of-life amount to a spastic soft-shoe performed before a smokescreen concealing a world of hurt. If the “quantitative easing” (money creation) and fiscal legerdemain (TARPs, TARFs, et cetera) happen to jack up the “velocity” of the new funny-money, and the world resumes its previous level of oil use, the price of oil would rise again — this time astronomically because the previous crash of oil prices crushed the development of new oil projects to offset depletion — and the global economy will crash again. Only the next phase of the disease is liable to move beyond the financial and into the social and political realms. Disorder of various kinds will rule — toppled governments, civil unrest, international tension and conflict.
The general picture is clear enough. A combination of peak oil, climate change, and the bursting of the mother of all economic bubbles will result in a collapse of the global economy, perhaps of civilization itself. If we are still to avert the worst of a crisis that could eventuate in untold death, destruction, and tragedy, we need to restructure the world’s energy systems and money systems immediately
.
See, I always preferred physics over finance, evolutionary biology over business and reality over illusion. The mostly illusionary world of corporate finance is about to get a lesson in thermodynamics and it won’t be pretty and arguably, invalidates the way money works.
The feedback loop of public anger to failed financial plans is going to be immense. You might want to think about that. No doubt, the spin masters will be spinning their heads off but I don’t think it will help much at some point. They may even use banker logic and chance methodology of economic indicies to change perception, but that only works for so long. But foresight was never really banker quality which I think is quite apparent to all at this point.
Retired geologist Colin Campbell (Texaco, BP, Amoco) cautioned:
Throughout history, people have had difficulty in distinguishing reality from illusion. Reality is what happens, whereas illusion is what we would like to happen. Wishful thinking is a well-worn expression. Momentum is still another element: we tend to assume that things keep moving in the same direction.
The world now faces a discontinuity of historic proportions, as nature shows her hand by imposing a new energy reality. There are vested interests on all sides hoping somehow to evade the iron grip of oil depletion, or at least to put it off until after the next election or until they can develop some strategy for their personal or corporate survival. As the moment of truth approaches, so does the heat, the deceptions, the half-truth and the flat out lies.
We are currently enjoying a reprieve from oil constraints which was only possible from the implosion of the credit markets. This head fake could last another 12 months or more if the dollar loses reserve currency status. Still, all we are doing is pretending at this point. Unless you see electric cars being sold in the tens of millions and a few other mass marketed alternatives we still have a major fly in the ointment of any stimulus plans and the future of banking in general
Funny thing about the human animal, it is a master at deception, self and otherwise as well as short term thinking verse long term planning. These were evolutionary developed traits that aided survival for most of our time walking upright. Looking at the top of the food chain which most dwell in the financial industry, it’s pretty obvious that they have honed those survival skills to perfection.
This compartmentalized and specialized world full of sound bites, talking points, wish-upon-a-star analysis and repetitive lifestyle images has people in a consensus trance similar to a “hologram”. Being unable to see from outside their cultural and media induced “hologram” blinds them to the big picture and that big picture will eventually crash into the “hologram” and have epochal social ramifications.
So Dave, given the fact that we are at peak oil with no massive alternatives being deployed and the next oil spike is approaching quickly. How do you suggest all this debt your boyz are transferring to me is going to get paid back. For that matter how do you suggest a debt based monetary system that requires constant debt creation with no or negative growth will work. Don’t answer, it’s a rhetorical question. We know you don’t have an answer. Anything to save and unsavable even if it is for just a few more years.
So have fun with your “virtual-theoretical”, smoke and mirror filled maze and bedazzling us with your intimate knowledge of the intricate inner workings of the banking industry. It won’t last long and sooner or later reality is going to come calling and all the manipulations will fall short in a monumental way.
