Exact dates of collapse are impossible to predict. But one of the best known facts about empires is that they do collapse. No exceptions. ~ Dmitri Davydov
The best sign at my hometown "tea party" was a giant banner that spelled out in huge letters: $12,000,000,000,000. It took at least ten people standing in a long line along the highway to hold it.
The 12 trillion number is new federal obligations assumed since the economy began to unravel in 2008. It's enough money to pay off nearly every home mortgage in America .
Here's another number for you: $101 trillion.
That's the amount of unfunded Medicare and Social Security liabilities going forward through the end of the boomer retirement (1).
Well before the economic crisis was in full swing, Russian blogger Dmitri Davydov put together a presentation about the similarities between the USA now and the USSR as it neared its end. Here were three distinct similarities he cited:
1. Out of control military budgets.
2. Unsustainable deficits and foreign debt.
3. A balky, unresponsive, corrupt political system, incapable of reform.
I'd add two more parallels between the USA now and the Soviet Union then.
4. Rampant government interference in the market economy, causing tremendous pricing and investment errors.
5. A shockingly expensive, unwinnable war in Afghanistan .
Link
6. Uniform acquiescence of the population through propaganda, media control and indoctrination. Patriotism. Nation building. Strong feelings about national borders. The worship of technology as problem solver.
ReplyDeleteOk so that really makes 10
ReplyDeletepfft. The collapse has been coming for ages. Never arrived. Probably never will. Capitalism will live on.
ReplyDeleteIt is impossible to know the future. Yet, I believe the next 10 years will be vastly different from the last 10 years. I also strongly believe that the US dollar will one day have a reckoning. When? Who knows? It is possible that the economy could be on life support for years. A 25 trillion federal debt load may not be out of the picture over the next decade and even then may be sustainable for a while. I'm not a magician but in my experience things usually take a long time to get worse.
ReplyDeleteDidn't Gerald Celente say that we are facing the greatest depression?
ReplyDeleteBy the state of things I am starting to give him more credit.
Dana
Toronto, Canada
"pfft. The collapse has been coming for ages. Never arrived. Probably never will. Capitalism will live on."
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately capitalism has been usurped and has basically become statism in the west. This is the reason for the collapse. It isn't that capitalism isn't working, it's that there really isn't any capitalism anymore.
Can't have pure capitalism when you have a Federal Reserve that regulates the 'free market'
ReplyDeleteThe natural evolution of the path we are currently following is economic destruction, riots, revolution, martial law and then the total loss of all rights.
Funny thing is, the things I listed are ONE single event away from happening. Scary isn't it?
I sure hope to God we can recover from this but it seems we headed in a direction we cannot correct.
ReplyDeleteTruth be told, statism has always been a part of capitalism. The two have evolved side by side, hand in hand. The one allows the other to exist, for if you do not have the force of the state no one will abide by capitalism's contracts and so called "rights" of the profit-maker, which is the most important part of the equation. Capitalists want to have their cake and eat it too: that is they want to get rich on the backs of many and sip their wine in relative comfort, free from all the negative implications of capitalism's social order.
ReplyDeleteAnd the old dichotomy between capitalism or socialism should be dead now.
The Santelli Putsch has come and gone and everything remains the same. The Messiah still defiles the Black House, and the economy is still going south.
ReplyDeleteCyclopsis to an extent I agree but the ideal situation is to have only enough government to maintain basic rule of law and keep the playing field level.Of course, to many that means redistributing wealth, but once you start down that road, only ruin can come of it. I abhor your use of scare quotes around the words rights - profit makers do have rights and they are not some abstract concept dreamed up by the ultra greedy.
ReplyDeleteI am sorry you abhor them! I am not surprised by such reactions. But what I infer is that somehow the "right" to profit off others in the market place is so much more glorious than other forms of freedom (conservatives seem to believe all "rights" flow from there). An example is copyright. Its hard to think of another form of law that stumps intellectual growth more. In truth, no one should have the right to regulate what others do as long as it doesn't hurt others directly. The sharing of electronic files is just one example. As for commerce, I believe honesty can be "encouraged" in other ways.
ReplyDeleteIf copyright laws were eliminated this world would be light years ahead of our time.
ReplyDeleteHeh! Ok maybe abhor is too strong a term.
ReplyDeleteAnyway I think too many people look at this the wrong way. It's not as if the people who make the mega profits don't reinvest a good chunk of that money starting new companies and creating new jobs, and inventing things. Free enterprise ensures people aren't paid too little or too much for the value of their labor, but of course we have gotten away from the free market.
The wealthy don't typically sit back eating bon-bons and squandering their wealth. They got wealthy for a reason, and it is usually because they worked hard working to make someone else rich first. Trust fund kids and celebrities don't count. The bulk of the wealthy are hard workers, or at least started out that way, and created lot's of jobs on the way up.
No, they don't sit around eating bon bons, they are usually busy telling the butler to pull up the Mercedes so they can go out to the golf course, throw around a few hundred bucks on beer, wine, and cheese, and then come back home to their 20,000 sf energy hog McMansions (don't forget a fuzzy little present for Fi Fi the dog). Total cost including 3 strippers at lunch hour: $10,000.
ReplyDeleteIn other words, rich lavish lifestyles tend to be wasteful ones. You can't tell me that it "all trickles down" to the poor every day person. That's just silly. Meanwhile, there are those in the third world who wouldn't mind just one meal a day.
ReplyDeleteI do get very tired of people trying to punish others for being successful. That all depends on HOW they got that way. Reference to that would be, "Well I guess my son John won't be getting a part of my estate when I die because he doesn't need it. His siblings need it more." I'm a firm believer that everyone should live their lives for only what they need, not what they want! Nobody NEEDS a McMansion, butler, nanny, etc...Trust me, it will eventually get to people living as they SHOULD, not the way they SHOULD not. They will be forced to and it must happen if anything is to change for the better.
ReplyDeleteNobody would argue that people's inheritance be taken away or given to someone else. But if somehow the private jet, the 2nd mansion in Colorado, or the stretch humvee got left out, well I for one wouldn't shed a tear.
ReplyDeleteWhat would be the incentive for people to create new technology if it were not for copyrights? Why would someone invest their time, creativity and money into something if the moment they showed the world that idea would be taken and mass produced by the lowest bidder.
ReplyDeleteI'm not crazy about copyrights but there must be some sort of reward for those that come up with new ideas. They have to eat as well.
It would only be "mass produced" if it was a great idea and if it was a great idea then it would be reason enough for many to embark upon, such as those conceived by Da Vinci or Einstein, and countless other scientists today and back then when there was no such thing as copyright and "intellectual" rights. Ideas really can not be owned. And besides, as useful as ingenuity is to the human race, it does not give people by default the right to police others in their actions and behaviors just because one claims the right first (it is only bestowed upon us by the courts and their batons, fees, and jails).
ReplyDelete