I've just returned home from a very interesting lecture (melbourne free public lectures) by the former Senior advisor to Barack Obama and the Clinton administrations budget creator (the only surplus the economy has had in 50 years.....). A very open "non US-exceptionalist". He was very lucid and realistic with the fiscal challenges facing the US and felt that Australia was in a position to be a model for the US in their approach to governance. He also noted that federalism was a plague on the system that was too thirsty. I thought I'd share a thought that really struck me: being an optimistic pessimist, I am all too frequent to jump in the doomsday bandwagon while looking at the fundamentals of the US at present; debt, lack of growth, employment and all the other stuff... What was brought to me tonight after meeting and talking with him was an off-handed comment he made that the US was always the scoundrels and in some trouble but that they always muddled through. Just this time he was not quite sure HOW they would just yet. But he still said they would...... Bringing me to my next point that a currency reset/change in reserve currency/dollar going to zero/civil riots etc etc etc etc etc, are all extreme scenarios and they exclude one thing-US optimism. I've spent a lot of time there and through bad situations they muster on and I just wanted to now throw it open to the floor and use this as a counter point to our Aussie lenses which can too often be through the cynical filter. I've just re-read everything and realised I didn't make my succinct point as I wanted to (damn the 6 beers afterwards) but what are people's thoughts on a protracted recovery, the capacity for optimism and the chances that they can turn their ship toward brighter shores? I am still convinced that things are not looking good but it was nice to look at things from his perspective which was quite bleak but also long game of "The US ain't going anywhere soon. There'll be a way."
BTW, I promise to not post an illegible ramble after beers again... Next time I'll be illegible while sober
IMO the $17 trillion debt can be managed by hyperinflation.. DERIVATIVES, well thats the one that can bring down the US financial system in a matter of hours. Some financial gurus estimate derivative investments(bets) at $600 trillion while just tonight on 'The Keiser Report', one reported that he believed the amount to be over a Quadrillion $$$. If one big bank goes down, it starts the domino effect and no government can bail out banks that are all insolvent. Maybe they could bar banks from trading in derivatives but I fear it is all too late for that. The day that Investment and Commercial banks were able to be one in the USA, is the day the USA was in deep S... Therefore, I think that the sun is indeed setting on the US. Regards Errol 43
Did they muddle through the Civil War, the Great Depression, Vietnam, the GFC? Optimism is a state of mind about the state of play. I think the fundamentals strongly indicate a GFC2.
Fracking = jobs and cheaper energy = US manufacturing advantage to offset higher wages = things will get better if we don't continue to screw it up. Stay tuned.
The US Govt/Treasury isn't printing $85B/Month (buying up subprime derivatives left over from before the GFC) for no reason... there's a crisis in the upping....they're $#!t scared.
Clawhammer you are being ridiculous. It is the Fed, not the US Government and it is only $75B/Month. :lol:
As I reach the age for Medicare this spring I have only one argument that says things are just not that bad. Old men of every generation say to anyone who will listen, 'Things are not what they used to be, the economy and society is going to hades in a hand basket, and I hope my grandkids can survive it.' And then life goes on, the grandkids never realize what bad times they are living in, and things are just fine. Not much encouragement, but that's all I can see. I talked to my son-in-law (a bright, educated fellow, proud to have in the family) about fiat, silver, brass and lead, and his reply was 'I don't know much about that stuff, we just go to work every day and pay our bills each month.' I'm hoping we balance each other out. And the QE tapering is down to $65 thousand million a month, not that it matters much.
I actually thought he was technically correct in that the Bureau of Engraving and Printing within Treasury prints the notes on behalf of the Fed - so your both sorta right in a pedantic way, which then defeats the sarcasm you went for dccpa, so sorry about that chief :lol:
The same people against 'fracking' will then say they support renewables. If I ask them "Does that include Geothermal" they answer "Yes". Of course the process of gathering available geothermal energy requires hydraulic fracturing, from what I understand. Hypocrisy of the chattering greenies and nimby protesters.
Fracking opposition probably reached its zenith a year or two ago. At that time, Obama was talking tough, one-sided movies were coming out, etc., etc. But most of the opposition to fracking was a result of misrepresentations by the Hollywood/environmental extremists. Now, Obama has shut up about fracking and natural gas is no longer being called dirty energy. The earthquake scaremongering seems to have died down too. The Keystone pipeline will be approved and that tells you which side is winning. A lot of people are slowly realizing that the environmental extremist are just as dangerous as are those in the energy industry that ignore drilling guidelines. People want jobs and they want cheap energy, so the war was over before the first battle started. The one good thing that came out anti energy movement is that they highlighted the few incidences of environmental damage done by some people in the energy industry. IMHO, the guilty parties should be put in prison.
And a fair bit of federal & state grant money too from what I hear. add up the $ figures for some of these projects $62 million here... $90 million there. http://www.agea.org.au/geothermal-energy/australian-projects-overview/ despite what the website says, these comapnies have been recieving grants since the early 2000's & still haven't turned a generator in anger yet. One Geo I know jokes it's the best Govt. job he's ever had.
The US obviously has shit to deal with but by no means is the sun setting on it yet. It isn't the world's largest economy with only 4% of the world's population because of nothing. A small shift in its internal and external dynamics can easily return it to being a strong engine of economic betterment of mankind within the next decade. In contrast, places like China and Russia require large internal structural changes to allow them to not flatline by the end of the next decade.
As I said, they have some shit to deal with but the jobs will come have no fear. Energy and technology will sustain them as they transition through the past large misallocation of resources. Their ongoing and future municipal and state debt defaults will allow a grassroots reset even if the Fed Govt and Fed Reserve continue to screw them over. Worth noting that not all states are in trouble and some (like Texas) are still growing strongly.
For me, "we'll muddle through" doesn't really acknowledge how young the America is as a nation. Sure, the 70s sucked and the Great Depression before that was tough, but Hawaii and Alaska only became part of the United States fifty-odd years ago. Seventy years before that and they were still in sporadic armed conflict with native tribes. Maybe they will "muddle through" but the golden age of sovereign empires - or at least economic empires - don't last as long as they used to. If you take the end of the Great War as the beginning of the American Empire, they've had a good hundred years to Great Britain's 250-odd years, Spain's 400-odd years and the Ottoman's 600-odd years.
Yeah, if they manage to get their politicians off their global policeman fetish that they've had for the past 60 or so years then they'll skyrocket back to greatness.
If the USA gets to make the trade agreement with the EU and the PTT with Pacific nations, then the US will then be able to do what it likes. Corporations will make the laws for business and not National Governments.. They will be strong again in the twinkle of an eye. Regards Errol 43 Wonder what policy the blue and red teams have on this matter.. Once it is brought into law, Corporations will be a law unto themselves. Have a look at Max Keiser (2nd part) 560.
