[Cold Iron]

Great article, well written and well concluded. This did not cause the collapse, but it is a perfect example of the rotten system. And the influence these people exert over government. This is just like every story you hear about mid 20th century eastern block countries - except without the mystery disappearance of dissenters. Corruption + poverty = revolution. Vive la Resistance!

[Grand Goombah Graeld]

The problem is though, the government isn't now just trying to regulate the markets and the business place. It's starting to try to run them. There are always going to be people who will stick it to someone else to further their own interests. That's why you have to have common sense regulations on a free market system - that's protecting the citizens. For those regulations to truly protect all citizens and do what they're purported to do however, the regulators must be a completely, truly disconnected from the entities they're regulating. In our case right now (and for quite a long time I suspect), that's not the case. The regulators have ties of all different sorts, to the marketplace and businesses they're supposed to regulate. It's time to COMPLETELY cut out campaign contributions. Completely end lobbying. Stop putting anyone with the any sort of connection to a given entity, industry or market in charge of regulating the one in question. Stop voting for dishonest F***s who are only interested in furthering their own interests and those of their family and friends instead of their constituents. Use our vote(s) to start making the government work for us again, rather than us working for them. Rant over.

[Adjutant Stormy~]

Try the HTML tag, <rant> </rant>, always classy.

Yes, well here's the rub- running for office costs a lot of money. And until:
A) It doesn't
B )There's a budgeted funding allotment for each candidate (with no donations)
C) People in positions of authority in the public sector stop coming from positions of authority in the private,
we'll have elected officials with people's hands in their pockets.

I think the political climate has to be one conducive to honesty in politics and earnest efforts for good government. So.... never.

edit: Stupid sunglasses macro

This post has been edited by Adjutant Stormy: 26 October 2009 - 11:38 PM

[Grand Goombah Graeld]

Adjutant Stormy, on 22 October 2009 - 12:01 AM, said:

There's a budgeted funding allotment for each candidate (with no donations)
C) People in positions of authority in the public sector stop coming from positions of authority in the private,
we'll have elected officials with people's hands in their pockets.

I think the political climate has to be one conducive to honesty in politics and earnest efforts for good government. So.... never.

The budget funding allotment would be ideal. Should even be simple enough the gov't. can't screw it up. People from positions of authority in the private sector are best only because we need people with that drive. The thing is, gov't. operations need to be transparent enough for us to easily see when they do what they shouldn't & have hardcore IGs who reallly investigate and make the results public.

[Nicodimas]

Here is a really great article about how it all went down. Very condensed and extremely readable. Enjoy, its amazing and you could give this to anyone to read I think. It's not news or anything to you all, but I found it compelling to send to some of buddies who think everything is fine again <or will be>.

http://www.zerohedge...ernment-walking

Just a waiting game for it to go "boom" at this point...

I am seeing this -->
http://www.apple.com...ndent/collapse/

This post has been edited by Nicodimas: 27 October 2009 - 08:13 PM

[Shinrei]

Simple historical illustration to help you sleep at night:

Under Carter in the '70s, the monetary supply in the US increased 13%. The inflation that resulted required the Fed chairman at the time to raise interest rates to 20% to curb it and hel p the dollar retain value.


Current interest rates are low. The money supply has increased over 120% in recent years (and this is already on top of a greater supply since the 70's mind). What will the Fed have to do to curb inflation? Can you imagine any small business or someone wanting to buy a house accepting a loan that offered a whopping 40+% interest rate?

The economy would (will) be in shambles.


We are fricking doomed!

[Grand Goombah Graeld]

Could they just bump up the interest rates a little, then take money back out of the system, like decommission it, at the same time? Kind of bump interest a little, then take a little out, then bump a little, then take a little out and so on until the rate of interest required for the amount of money out there and the amount of money kiind of meet in the middle? Forgive me for sounding stupid if it applies.

[Jusentantaka]

A much simpler solution would be doing what China does. Telling the world what our currency is worth, and if they complain, we raise import tariffs on their goods even further.

and that tit-for-tat thing really wouldn't work. There's already only about 500$ of currency for every American. (not sure if that is for every working american, or everyone of 300 million, but I'd think its more likely the former) Or, in retrospect if that's even a valid response to what you meant.

This post has been edited by Jusentantaka: 29 October 2009 - 08:34 PM

[Nicodimas]

Quote

A much simpler solution would be doing what China does. Telling the world what our currency is worth, and if they complain, we raise import tariffs on their goods even further.

See protectionism during the Great Depression. Eventually this will happen and people will do what needs to be done. Right now the US is essentially challenging the other countries on devaluing there currencies..

Quote

Could they just bump up the interest rates a little, then take money back out of the system, like decommission it, at the same time? Kind of bump interest a little, then take a little out, then bump a little, then take a little out and so on until the rate of interest required for the amount of money out there and the amount of money kiind of meet in the middle? Forgive me for sounding stupid if it applies.

For Bernakes PHD thesis to work in the situation he has to keep the rates low. If the rates rise the market will go down. If the dollar rises the market goes down. If he inflates the market he may destroy the dollar, but the market stays up. It's really much more complicated than any one thing also..


No easy solution in a debt based crisis and thats the underlying problem.

[Shinrei]

Some interesting statistics about debt. I didn't realize that Norway was worse of in debt than the US. But, Morgy still beats Dibs, what with Ireland coming in at #1. Australia was something like 18.


20. United States
External debt (as % of GDP): 94.3%
External debt per capita: $43,793

Gross external debt: $13.454 trillion (2009 Q2)
2008 GDP (est): $14.26 trillion


11. Norway - 199%
External debt (as % of GDP): 199%
External debt per capita: $117,604

Gross external debt: $548.1 billion (2009 Q2)
2008 GDP (est): $275.4 billion


3. United Kingdom - 408.3%
External debt (as % of GDP): 408.3%
External debt per capita: $148,702

Gross external

1. Ireland - 1,267%
External debt (as % of GDP): 1,267%
External debt per capita: $567,805

Gross external debt: $2.386 trillion (2009 Q2)
2008 GDP (est): $188.4 billion

[Grand Goombah Graeld]

Good god. No one sees these as a problem? We're headed down the WRONG path.

[Cold Iron]

From another site on irish foreign debt:

Quote

The figures are distorted by the IFSC and foreign multinationals using Ireland for tax/regulatory reasons. The article refers to this. It aint as much a big deal as the opening poster's title would make you think. The real figures of concern are the government debt and the private sector figures of around 400billion which are true figures of Irish peoples indebtedness.

[Morgoth]

Banks and people in Norway have a lot of loans. The state however does not

[Shinrei]

Yeah Morgy, don't you owe me something like $30,000?

[Morgoth]

Shinrei, on 11 November 2009 - 11:35 AM, said:

Yeah Morgy, don't you owe me something like $30,000?

I told you I'd pay it back goddammit. Why don't you give me a break for once

[Cold Iron]

Considering you can barely buy dinner in Norway for $30,000 I'd say he's good for it.

[beru]

that would be a small dinner...


and morgy, pay that already, you can get that kebabb later, and anyway its a bit costy...

[frookenhauer]

Wow. Its doom-monger central round here. Cheer up guys, we are now past the point where the excrement matched co-ordinates with the fan (markets collapsed) and we are past the cleanup operation (printing money) and are now in the long level flatness of the recovery period (endless bitching and whining).

The present picture shows that markets are moving, people and corporations are buying and selling shares. Mortgage companies in the UK are selling their books and using the money to offer more mortgages. House prices are steadily rising. Gordon brown looks less of an idiot...No, actually he still looks like an idiot. While significant damage has been done to the banking sectors image/credibility, people still need the money that they hold and they will go back to them, they have to, who else is going to lend em cash. Life will go on and in five years they will be teaching this 'incident' in economic classes.

Look, right now the people who are making the most noise media-wise is the doom mongerers and they have the podium because they were right...for once. And as for the guys who are looking at all the facts and figures and showing such and such equals total annhialation world ending Barbara Streissand (or whatever the hell her name is), any expert can make statistics say anything. Don't buy into it guys, its all a load of jibber jabber and the media are the worst culprits cos they know that doom and gloom sells papers, gets people watching more news and then they can charge more for advertising slots.

My advice: Relax, buy shares and be happy. I'm taking orders

[Cold Iron]

If we've learned anything from this it's that shares are as open to manipulation as any other market, or even more. Why buy into something that at any moment could be the target of a huge sell off that is completely out of your control? Hell if councils opened up huge swathes of land for development, resulting in the crashing of your house value, there'd be marching in the streets, but this shit happens on the markets all the time. It's a big boys game and the little guy has no place in it. Stick to betting on horses and buying lottery tickets.

This post has been edited by Cold Iron: 12 November 2009 - 09:49 PM

[frookenhauer]

I have to disagree with you there cold iron. With regards to your analogy about councils opening up huge swathes of land for development, why would they? By doing so they would NOT get the market value on said land and lose money on the deal. The long term repercussions for doing so will mean that while there is plenty of land up for development where are the investors? Where is the money to make that land worth something? Hey presto industrial wasteland a la Detroit...and so on.

The shares market is the same, nobody, but nobody would want to lose money on the shares they own/control, its cutting your own throat unnecessarily. I dare you to find instances of such behaviour that have actually benefited the culprit.

With regards to the little man making money in the stock market: The rules are simple. Buy shares in companies that you consider to be undervalued. Thats it. Did I say rules, plural? Yes, but if you stick to this one simple principle you will WIN. Earlier this year I was talking to my (then) richest client. He'd just done an investment for his wife with me and we were basking in the aftersales glow and chatting investments and we swapped ideas for investment opportunities. I told him it would be a very good idea to buy into Taylor Wimpy and he said it would be a good idea to buy into Barclays (amongst others). Both of our flagship choices had taken massive hits in the market, but we both felt they were both undervalued. My choice has yet to reach its full potential . But Barclay, Goddamn!, was at a price a little below 50p per share ( when we had our chat: Jan '09) and is now worth over 300...320p as of this moment and it reached this figure in just over 4 months. I should have gambled the farm and would now be typing on my own private Island, but hey ho I only dipped my toes and got a pretty significant chunk of change. Opportunities like this are, to be fair, going to be hard to find, but you are still going to be able to at least double your money with investments in a matter of months. For any man on the street, I'd say do some reading and see whats out there and learn. There are free investment programs that you can play the market with monopoly money and all sorts to get a feel for it. You could make millions, but you could also lose the farm.