[Arraya]

The dollar will probably benefit from the problems in europe as well short term. But, gold is kind of a panic meter. To me, it looks like another round of debilitating deflation is on the way. Though, Gold will probably hold up.

[Arraya]

No FED. No ECB. No IMF. No Obama. They are now powerless. They’ll try for sure but it won’t work and all boosts will be temporary. Bottom of this bear Market is Feb 2013.

Shit’s about to get real.

[Arraya]

[quote=Allan from Fallbrook]

Arraya: Regarding the Great Depression setting the conditions for WWII: There is much to that. I read a quote somewhere regarding the 1930s that said, “America chose the future, Italy chose the past and Germany chose oblivion”.[/quote]

Try “The Great Transformation” by economic historian Karl Polyani. The book was written in 1944. It’s actually quite a famous book in social sciences circles. He actually cites both world wars as a consequence of economic collapses.

[Arraya]

Alan – I agree, I was just pointing out it was still FDRs policies and Keynesian stimulus – and poking a fun, a little;)

Ironically, it was probably the depression that set the conditions for the war.

[Arraya]

[quote=Allan from Fallbrook]

As Shlaes’ writes convincingly in her book, WWII had a far greater effect as far as lifting the US out of the Great Depression then did the economic policies of FDR.[/quote]

Alan, correct me if I am wrong. Are you saying government spending coupled with working together for the greater good is what we need?

Isn’t war government spending? That would fall under Keynesian-like stimulus. Hmmm

However, FERs polices did get some people working again and built things of value, when the country was mired in unrest and starvation. Sure, at the time, the prevailing ethos was laissez faire(which ironically was a planned doctrine), so it made his policies very divisive. You can’t use a logic of IF his polices did not fully pull the country out of depression THEN doing X(nothing?) would have been better. It’s just not an argument you can make.

The reason the war further pulled the country out of depression is because it was a SOCIAL cause with direction and a “higher” purpose. It changed the mood and coalesced the country as well as obviously increasing economic activity. Basically the war effort was socialism – people working together for the greater good. Imagine that, socialism pulled us out of depression.

Then, of course, the destruction and rebuild of Europe coupled with suburbanization of the US, built the middle class our manufacturing base and furthered US primacy .

The post WWII rebuild boom dwindled by the late 60s -early 70s and stagnation reared it’s ugly head again.

Which lead to the Reagan/thatcher neo-liberal revolution, globalization, the financialization of everything and bubble economics(which came to an exciting finale with the housing bubble collapse).

Now, we are at another inflection point – where they are stuck in a crisis of creativity focusing mainly on trying to reinflate the bubble with a banking system that is faking it and a populace that is both commodity and debt saturated as well as there being no true engine for job growth.

It’s not a pretty sight and political discourse makes all the more maddening.

The system is too debt saturated where more debt with interest attached to it does not pack the same punch it used to. In fact, it’s getting to the point where it has an inverse effect. Conversely slashing spending ushers in deflation and contraction and all that that entails. Where it stops nobody knows.

Hello rock, meet hard place

[Arraya]

[quote=briansd1]
*

There definitely are cultural and psychological problems more than food and medical issues.

Arraya mentioned that our modern society is inducing a lot of stress that wasn’t there before. We are constantly bombarded with media messages that affect our self-esteem.

.[/quote]

It’s something I’ve been looking at a lot this past year. We socially stress ourselves and these stresses are encouraged, to some extent. A lot of it is neurologically based rather than genetic. But, what we’ve seen over the past 4 decades is unhealthy patterns of behavior increasing on multiple fronts that turn into health problems. And these things spread like a disease throughout the social body.

Also, like CAR said, a lot has to do with dramatic changes in food and lifestyles from one generation to the next. I think another part of it is people being pushed to consume more. Which really started to ramp up after WWII. Personal consumption doubled from 1945 to today. The two working parents is also a big change and probably not the best thing for young children not to have an emotionally available, unstressed, parent available at all times. At least up to 5 or so.

The other very interesting study is what Navydoc posted about fetal programming. Prenatal stressing can cause a host of issues. Also ACE( Adverse Childhood Experiences) can cause the brian to develop in ways that can cause issues down the road. Human infant’s brains are undeveloped at birth. So the younger somebody is, the more vulnerable they are to environmental stresses that cause changes in neurochemistry that can last a lifetime.

I posted this before. It goes into the brain triggers with addiction. I think it is, at least, tangentially related to the behavioral changes taking place throughout society. Including over eating.

Brain Development & Addiction

[Arraya]

America’s medicated kids

Fidgety in class? Drug em. Have the blues? Drug em. Have oppositional defiant disorder? Drug em. Drug em young; drug em old; drug your dog.

[Arraya]

America’s medicated kids

Fidgety in class? Drug em. Have the blues? Drug em. Have oppositional defiant disorder? Drug em. Drug em young; drug em old; drug your dog.

[Arraya]

America’s medicated kids

Fidgety in class? Drug em. Have the blues? Drug em. Have oppositional defiant disorder? Drug em. Drug em young; drug em old; drug your dog.

[Arraya]

[quote=Aecetia]Gas and oil prices are a scam that the big corporations are involved in including Agrimoney. We do not need to impoverish ourselves for oil or create crappy electric cars with batteries that damage the environment.

“Many Russian geologists and petroleum researchers credit the rise of Russia over the past 50 years as the largest producer of oil and second largest producer of natural gas in the world to the successful application of the abiogenic theory of oil and gas formation. The Russians claim to have successfully drilled over 300 ultra deep (around 40,000feet) oil and gas wells through granite and basalt based on this theory.”
http://seekingalpha.com/instablog/400230-vinod-dar/47079-abiotic-oil-and-gas-a-theory-that-refuses-to-vanish

be an oil “Truther”[/quote]

You mean the world has been finding smaller and smaller deposits for almost 50 years on purpose? All in a big elaborate ruse to pretend that oil is finite and jack up the price?

[Arraya]

[quote=Aecetia]Gas and oil prices are a scam that the big corporations are involved in including Agrimoney. We do not need to impoverish ourselves for oil or create crappy electric cars with batteries that damage the environment.

“Many Russian geologists and petroleum researchers credit the rise of Russia over the past 50 years as the largest producer of oil and second largest producer of natural gas in the world to the successful application of the abiogenic theory of oil and gas formation. The Russians claim to have successfully drilled over 300 ultra deep (around 40,000feet) oil and gas wells through granite and basalt based on this theory.”
http://seekingalpha.com/instablog/400230-vinod-dar/47079-abiotic-oil-and-gas-a-theory-that-refuses-to-vanish

be an oil “Truther”[/quote]

You mean the world has been finding smaller and smaller deposits for almost 50 years on purpose? All in a big elaborate ruse to pretend that oil is finite and jack up the price?

[Arraya]

[quote=Aecetia]Gas and oil prices are a scam that the big corporations are involved in including Agrimoney. We do not need to impoverish ourselves for oil or create crappy electric cars with batteries that damage the environment.

“Many Russian geologists and petroleum researchers credit the rise of Russia over the past 50 years as the largest producer of oil and second largest producer of natural gas in the world to the successful application of the abiogenic theory of oil and gas formation. The Russians claim to have successfully drilled over 300 ultra deep (around 40,000feet) oil and gas wells through granite and basalt based on this theory.”
http://seekingalpha.com/instablog/400230-vinod-dar/47079-abiotic-oil-and-gas-a-theory-that-refuses-to-vanish

be an oil “Truther”[/quote]

You mean the world has been finding smaller and smaller deposits for almost 50 years on purpose? All in a big elaborate ruse to pretend that oil is finite and jack up the price?

[Arraya]

The idea of a global economic system predicated on exponential growth built with non-renewable energy(which is now in decline) within the physical framework of a finite system (the planet earth)was a giant ponzi scheme from the word go. It just took a long time to build to climax.

Ripping more things out of the ground will not solve this deep foundational, philosophical and structural issues. Regardless of what sophists and magical thinkers tell you.

When the Mayan civilization was collapsing they would go build more pyramids to appease the gods(hey it worked great before) – which exacerbated there structural issues. Ripping more things out of the ground for mindless economic growth at all costs is our pyramid building. It just makes things worse for the sake of short term profit maximization and the inevitable end of consumption based economics.

Now, we have a mountain of debt predicated on future huge economic growth and a physical system unable to provide it. As well as a monetary system that relies on increasing debt for economic expansion.

Welcome to the end of a paradigm.

[Arraya]

The idea of a global economic system predicated on exponential growth built with non-renewable energy(which is now in decline) within the physical framework of a finite system (the planet earth)was a giant ponzi scheme from the word go. It just took a long time to build to climax.

Ripping more things out of the ground will not solve this deep foundational, philosophical and structural issues. Regardless of what sophists and magical thinkers tell you.

When the Mayan civilization was collapsing they would go build more pyramids to appease the gods(hey it worked great before) – which exacerbated there structural issues. Ripping more things out of the ground for mindless economic growth at all costs is our pyramid building. It just makes things worse for the sake of short term profit maximization and the inevitable end of consumption based economics.

Now, we have a mountain of debt predicated on future huge economic growth and a physical system unable to provide it. As well as a monetary system that relies on increasing debt for economic expansion.

Welcome to the end of a paradigm.

[Arraya]

The idea of a global economic system predicated on exponential growth built with non-renewable energy(which is now in decline) within the physical framework of a finite system (the planet earth)was a giant ponzi scheme from the word go. It just took a long time to build to climax.

Ripping more things out of the ground will not solve this deep foundational, philosophical and structural issues. Regardless of what sophists and magical thinkers tell you.

When the Mayan civilization was collapsing they would go build more pyramids to appease the gods(hey it worked great before) – which exacerbated there structural issues. Ripping more things out of the ground for mindless economic growth at all costs is our pyramid building. It just makes things worse for the sake of short term profit maximization and the inevitable end of consumption based economics.

Now, we have a mountain of debt predicated on future huge economic growth and a physical system unable to provide it. As well as a monetary system that relies on increasing debt for economic expansion.

Welcome to the end of a paradigm.

[Author]

Posts