Financial topics

[aedens]

It should be evident to any thoughtful person that politics mobilizes the most vicious, socially destructive attitudes and practices known to mankind. Lies and deceit, coercion, intimidation, the forcible taking of property, killing, the setting of people and groups against one another, the imprisonment and punishment of individuals, the manipulation and control of the behavior of people and, above all else, the arrogant assumption that such power is "rightfully" exercised by those who possess it and the moral condemnation of those who resist.
Butler Shaffer The Insanity of the State

[Higgenbotham]

I don't think anyone knows what is coming. There are a lot of people who think they know what's coming, and I'll certainly admit it could be a bad time indeed.

And someone like me may think a Dark Age is coming but, even if that is right, it's of very limited practical value from the standpoint of knowing what to do right now. That may define the scale of an upcoming collapse but the timing can't be known and the path can't be known, both of which are more important to know. As bad choices have been made that could lead to a worse outcome, the potential paths to get there multiply in number too.

[aedens]

More than few:
An O win means we move our company offshore.
An R win means we wait 6 months and reassess.
Stopped caring when I was asked for ID to by cold medicine but not to vote.

He said he has no remorse and no regrets. He asked them to convict him quickly so he can watch football on TV.
Closing arguments were scheduled for Tuesday. Murdered two with a shot gun.
Countless know they can do what ever they want since you cannot or will not change but dump countless billions
to them. It s been over...

[vincecate]

I don't think anyone knows what is coming. There are a lot of people who think they know what's coming, and I'll certainly admit it could be a bad time indeed.

And someone like me may think a Dark Age is coming but, even if that is right, it's of very limited practical value from the standpoint of knowing what to do right now. That may define the scale of an upcoming collapse but the timing can't be known and the path can't be known, both of which are more important to know. As bad choices have been made that could lead to a worse outcome, the potential paths to get there multiply in number too.

There are those us us who think we know that paper money will become worthless, but even we do not know exactly when. However, we think that if you put your money in gold coins instead of government bonds you will be much better off 5 years from now.

[aedens]

FUD over COG as we posited and forumed but we will see 20 trill wispered in there ear. Taxpayers lead to debt slaughter.
http://generationaldynamics.com/forum/s ... ywords=fud

[Reality Check]

Myself, I see two major problems in the US government that aren't even close to being fixed, and these have to be fixed before we'll make progress on anything else. First is the fear of new ideas, which is partly a fear of the public resistance to new ideas and partly a fear that any change will cause the US to lose power or prestige or wealth. Fear of change is both common and futile in human affairs, we will have change whether we want it or not. Controlling the direction of change is the political task, and we aren't doing well at it. Our second problem, and certainly the largest, is the desire to run our affairs in accordance with strict ideology.

I would add an additional problem I see in the short to middle term.

Incompetence and/or a total lack of caring ( empathy ) for the country on the part of political elites who are now ascending to positions of unprecedented raw power in the United States.

The poster children for these concerns are President Obama, Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Cuomo.

The total lack of preparation for the Hurricane by the Obama administration and the failure to correct the deficiencies immediately after the storm are probably the most concerning events of the past two weeks.

Lessons learned in the last few decades regarding hurricane preparedness; and the political price that can be paid for not taking reasonable, well known steps, were totally ignored by the Obama administration in the week before and the week after the storm hit, and this was also true of the Mayor and governor of New York. The political price Bush ( W ) paid for making similar mistakes was only avoided by Obama because the Media covered for him to help him with re-election. But it was in Obama's political self interest to do things like stock pile drinking water and generators before the storm, and yet he acted clueless even though it could have cost him the election. That is almost certainly an indication of incompetence and probably a lack of empathy as well.

Obama is now in ascendency regarding power. He exercised unchecked executive authority, to re-write federal statutory law without consulting Congress. prior to the election; He was not effectively called on it by his political opponents, nor by the fourth estate, and now has a mandate to do so on a wide spread basis for at least two years, and likely for at least four.

Benevolent dictatorships can sometime be useful during a time of one, or several, crisis, but if the dictator both lacks empathy and is incompetent ... the outcome will probably be the opposite of beneficial to the Republic and it's people.

[aedens]

Sums to as time marches on, the wannabes are biting less and less.
Those that took the brutal punches know who to regard.
Prepare for the obvious is all you should do.

[OLD1953]

On a long enough time scale, virtually everything we hold of value becomes worth a great deal less. Ancient texts speak of certain gems as "rare" and highly desired. Most of them I can literally buy by the handful now, and for very little money, the ancient mines mostly produced varieties of quartz or copper based gems. Sapphires and rubies were valuable until they were produced by the laboratory crystallization of corundum over a century ago. Spinels are even easier to produce in bulk. Silver was very valuable and so was copper until new mines were discovered in the new world and altered those values. Aluminum was the most valuable metal in the world until electrolytic smelting was introduced. Not many years ago titanium was so valuable it was a material of national security interest, and cost hundreds of dollars a pound - or so the fellows who worked at Boeing then were telling me. If you want a diamond made from your loved ones hair or ashes, just call life diamonds, they are overpriced but it's a specialty service. Salt and black pepper traded on an equal valuation basis with gold for centuries. The very word "salary" contains the ancient word for salt.

Gold is supposed to hold value, but so were most of these other items, and some held high valuations for thousands of years. We now discuss mining of asteriods and some have moved to start such projects, and no one can predict what Golconda will be discovered in those mines. Neither can anyone predict when some engineer will develop a cheap means of collecting gold from seawater (there are several possibilities).

And money is always worthless, if you take a long enough time scale. Except to collectors, of course.

[psCargile]

Obama is now in ascendency regarding power. He exercised unchecked executive authority, to re-write federal statutory law without consulting Congress. prior to the election; He was not effectively called on it by his political opponents, nor by the fourth estate, and now has a mandate to do so on a wide spread basis for at least two years, and likely for at least four.

Or eight, or twenty. When the President is ignoring the Constitution, why should he cherry pick?

[Reality Check]

When the President is ignoring the Constitution, why should he cherry pick?

Like all men, The President can only personally do so much. So, for example he worked on getting re-elected and talking about U.S. government's unlimited commitment and empathy for the storm victims, but neither he, nor Bloomberg, nor Coumo really cared. For decades the country has learned the lesson that immediately before such a storm you need to have drinking water and generators in trucks just outside of the possible destructive path and move them in immediately after the storm. FEMA had the water staging part down pat prior to the Obama administration, but Obama's administration ignored the planning entirely not even ordering the purchase of "pre-stagged water" until days after the storm hit.

Bloomberg attempted to ignore the whole storm immediately after the storms massive destruction to the housing, electrical distribution, water distribution, food distribution and clothing distribution infrastructure of New York City. The mayor diverted city generators away from their normal purposes not for storm victims, but to stock pile them for the upcoming marathon. The mayor announced the days long closing of the Bridges to Staten Island and Manhattan Island just at the time they were needed to deliver water, food, clothing and emergency medical care to the 10s of thousands of homeless, starving people shivering without heat and without adequate clothing to be living outside.

The Governor of New York held a press conference to announce that thanks to President Obama the governor of New York was giving away free gasoline to everyone in New York City from the tankers that were brought in for the purpose of re-fueling emergency vehicles. Pure theater.

Immediately after the hurricane the Mayor's priority was the marathon. Immediately before and after the storm the Governor and Obama's priority was getting Obama re-elected.

What will Obama's priority be for the two years after his re-election. He has the executive power and electoral mandate to ignore the Congress and the Constitution and do whatever he wants, but he can only do so much because he is just one man.

The risk is two fold, massive personal power in the hands of an individual who is incompetent, and a man without empathy bending the massive coercive power of the United States government to achieve an agenda driven by that one man's personal goals and personal daemons, while that same man without empathy ignores the needs of the country, and the needs of the people, he was elected to lead.