People "look" very worried!

"Cash is King"? Good luck with that when a true worldwide financial crisis occurs.

 

Politicians using the livelihood of every day citizens to ransom perhaps?

 

Point of order here. Just because the Chinese people are still here does not prove their empire has survived 2000 years. Just because Buddhist temples still survive in China proper and Tibet does not mean the empire they were a part of still exists functionally or culturally.

The successors of the Chinese Empire, the Kuomintang, themselves only formed early in the 20th Century and lost the Chinese civil war of the 1940s to an entirely new civilisation, that of the Maoists. I suggest reading Life and Death in Shanghai by Nian Cheng for a first hand account of the Maoists taking control and smashing and killing their way into uncontested control of peoples minds and the living culture of the Chinese. Are you aware, I am lead to believe, that over time the communists have even simplified the Chinese/Mandarin system of alphabet that removes a lot of the subtle meanings of and contexts of use within language - just like in the novel 1984 with the removal of words from the language so that people have less ability to even form the thoughts of dissent.

What I am getting at is when the Kuomintang fled to Taiwan and set up their republic, that was the inglorious end to the Chinese Empire.

 

Fearing and having great concerns....what's the difference in your view?

 

I agree with your last statement but disagree with your first assertion. China today is basically the same China it was just after Qin Shi Huang in around 221 BC unified the 7 kingdoms. The Empire of the Sun is still strong and lives on. If you are arguing that because the politics have changed, the geographical borders have changed somewhat, and that they have industrialized and such things, then you would have to argue that the US of the 19th century has also nothing in common with the US today...which in my view isn't a truthful assessment of how, while nations may change the empire that they have established is not dead.

In the year 2276, some 262 years from today, at the tender young empire age of 500, the American empire may still not have ever seen the total destructive meltdown that today's doomsdayers are painting the picture of. I don't know either way, I possess no supernatural crystal ball. All I'm saying is that for those in control of the big money decisions here in the US, there's no rush for them...they don't run around like the scurrying doomsday prepping mice in the maze. Their time frame of significant events is vastly different I think and it's because of this reason that I believe that the impending doomsday scenario is more fear based than anything else.

Is is smart to pay attention and have a hand crank or solar powered radio, extra batteries, some gasoline, potable drinking water, a small amount of non-perishable canned or freeze dried foods at home? Sure. But these guys who have storage sheds and bunkers filled with these things are wasting lots of unnecessary time, money, and emotion on what amounts to unfounded fear I believe.

I own a 3 gallon emergency gravity feed water filter. It didn't cost a month's salary, doesn't take up much room, and if the whole shit doesn't turn into hell over the next 5 years, it's no big deal at all.

One doomsdayer whose blog I was reading months ago was suggesting that other like minded people consider going to small, off the beaten path cemeteries to dig up corpses for the purpose of extracting any silver fillings. Silver he argued, will become invaluable in a few months when the shit hits the fan. It's this and similar sorts of thinking by doomsdayers that troubles me the most.


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The person I referenced did one of the most briliant things I have ever heard of and followed it up with one of the stupidest things I have ever heard of.

Years ago, you could go to a federal reserve branch, give them $10k and they would give you a bag of silver dollars. On their vacations, he and his wife went to those banks, gave them $10k, and got a bag of silver dollars. They would go through a bag, keep the valuable dollars and exchange the bag + the shortage for a new bag. Rinse and repeat. Claimed he sold the coins for $800k.

Followed that up by putting all the money into gold at $800oz.

By 1985, he was slowly selling off the gold, so I don't know if he held any through the upturn. Interesting guy, but not one you would want at your party. In the end his one brilliant move still put him ahead of the game, but buying gold at $800oz cost him most of those gains. If he had put that money into stocks or bonds in 1980. he would have become a multi millionaire.

The most important thing is that he uprooted his family based upon a belief that was not accurate.

 

Again, you are trying to shift to non present value accrued numbers when you were originally talking about budget deficits as defined by the US Government. The statistics are what they are and your trying to make fun of them only makes you look pathetic. I don't know whether you are incapable of admitting you are wrong or so caught up in the conspiracy theories that you can no longer see reality. Either way, you are beyond hope. Good luck with your end of the world views, it is only going to bring you monetary loss and misery. The rest of us will live our lives and value the present.

Here is an global times article showing the deficit through August to be $755B, well short of 1.2T with only September to go. But hey, the source isn't a conspiracy site, so the data must be questionable.

http://www.globaltimes.cn/NEWS/tabid/99/ID/810992/US-government-runs-148b-deficit-in-August.aspx

 

It probably depends on how you looks on things. I wouldn't say that American Empire lasts since the beginning of USA as well as Roman Empire didn't exist in times of Roman Republic. That's true that probably today's China has more in common with old than some other countries.
Actually it's hard to say when some country is empire or not. It could occur that empire dies, yet it lives on in other "form". Like Soviet Union. Russian Federation is still empire since it "includes" nations that were/are occupied. Turkey is also gaining power, but it's far from old Ottoman empire. I agree that there is no proof that all empires will "fade away" soon. I however believe that in the last centuries most of empires didn't last as long as in the old day. However the case of Alexander the Great and some other also shows that short lived empires existed many years ago. Usually when some empires fall that also change the face of the world. So I think these are more philosophical questions than not.

I would say that country which is having most "solid roots" is Vatican. It survived many things (for a long time). Its very small even for our country, but its influence it still very very big. Not to mention that Vatican coins are always very popular.

And I also think that media has a lot to do with people's mood. I mean how can you be in good mood if all you see on TV (talking about news) are wars, killings, raping, accidents, etc. I mean, can't they show one happy freshly married couple or new born kid. Only killings and desperation.

And looks like doomsday will wait. There are forecasts that Greece will have 0.1% GDP growth next year. And I feel that waves are now changing course towards my country...

 

Some Russian couple live on a boat (will try to find his weblog) and float around US coast. They believe that when there will be no oil in the world left, all hell will break loose. And they say it's much easier to get food on sea that plant it or hunt down animals...

 

Good points in you next to last post, Stark!

As for eating from the sea, it may be easier but most seas and all oceans are actually very toxic environments. Where does much industrial waste end up? Being dumped directly in water or dumped in the ground which leaching ends up that many of those ground dumped chemicals end up in underground water tables or waterways which empty into the sea or ocean.

That said, there is a huge difference between eating seaweeds and fish, especially larger fish. Seaweeds that are tested even in the filthy Atlantic ocean can test negative for residual industrial toxins but there is not a single fish from any ocean or sea that I am aware of that has tested free from some amount of these toxins. That's because these toxins tend to bio-accumulate in fatty tissue. The smallest animals are eaten by larger, and larger, and finally the largest fish which is often what humans net and kill to consume. Fish is a very toxic choice.

I believe we are better off on land in spite of the initial hardship that a post doomsday world will bring. Besides, if they stay off the radar at sea for lets say 2 or 3 years while the world pulls itself together, they'll be the outcasts and they will have a harder time re-integrating into the new world I believe. I would think it's better to be close enough to where the shit is happening without being so close that you are a weekly target of someone else.

But doomsday is not going to be seen by us or even our grand children I believe. I may very well come some day but not some day soon.

In the meantime, pm's are an asset that have decent potential for good value appreciation...especially if those pm's are in the form of semi numis and numismatic coins.

Speaking of which, I just bought me a couple of 2013 MS70 1 oz silver Libertads. They will hopefully see decent appreciation over time.


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