American Heading Towards Economic Collapse Worse Than 2008

[celtic_crippler]

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/brea...ollapse-worse-2008-europe-says-155504860.html

People ignored his predictions of the housing and economic collapse that began in 2008, he is now predicting an even worse collapse in the next few years.

American can not afford, litterally can not afford, to continue along it's current path of bigger government and bigger spending.

 

[Sukerkin]

Aye :nods:. Mr. Schiff is not the only economist who predicted the collapse of the card-house of overly 'clever' fiscal instruments and extreme risk taking; I did too .

As did others too but the problem was that those in charge of the institutions reaping the profits of the 'trade in debt' were convinced of the safety of the investments.

The coming situation is going to be very bad and there are few ways of avoiding the pain, sad to say.

 

[blindsage]

Mr. Schiff is not an economist. He is however the guy that has said that speculation and a lack of lending standards contributed to the collapse. He's also the guy, that despite his "accurate" prediction, couldn't prevent his own company's investments from declining in value significantly.

 

[Sukerkin]

True, Mr. Schiff is not an economist, he's a financier. Similar field but not the same I do agree; he is not technically an Economist and I am - I had 15 seconds to type my response above before the Net Nannie locked me out of the Web so I didn't elaborate on what was an intro rather than really my point .

What I was getting at is what I have said a few times in these pages already - the USA has not even begun to address it's deficit issues as it has been keeping the economic motor limping along with the printing press whilst waiting for the global situation to stabilise. Over here in Europe-land, some steps have been taken at dealing with the structural debt but not enough to make any real difference I fear. In Asia, things have been better but growth has still tailed off, so still not huge help there either.

This means that the global upturn that the American government has been hoping to see, so that they could begin unwinding their debt, has not come to pass. It was a good idea to try it but the wait hasn't paid off - indeed, there is some talk in serious economic circles (the sort of circles that don't often get quoted on 'tabloid' internet sites) of a 'generational' depression. Not so devastating in the short term as the Great Depression but lasting for twenty or thirty years. That is scary and I, in a most un-mathematical way, have my fingers crossed that it doesn't come to that.

Even if it does't take that long to climb back out of the hole, globalisation of labour and the over-emphasis of the financial sector means that for most of us, times are going to stay lean for a long while. This is especially so when the action of the system has been to drain wealth out of the real economy and into the 'virtual' one, converting it from 'wealth' to 'money' in the process. These are not the same thing, which I know is confusing. But one generates more wealth, benefiting everybody, whilst the other only generates more money, most of which does not touch the real economy where most of us dwell.

If the real economy falters too much, then the more doom-laden of the predictions may come to pass.

 

[Flying Crane]

Aye :nods:. Mr. Schiff is not the only economist who predicted the collapse of the card-house of overly 'clever' fiscal instruments and extreme risk taking; I did too .

as did I, more than 15 years ago.

As did others too but the problem was that those in charge of the institutions reaping the profits of the 'trade in debt' were convinced of the safety of the investments.

The coming situation is going to be very bad and there are few ways of avoiding the pain, sad to say.

yup, this runaway freight train started rolling a long long time ago. You cannot stop it on a dime.

 

[WC_lun]

Making matters even worse is the inability of congress to take decisive steps that would help the situation or at least mute the repurcussions. Politics has come first.

 

[Flying Crane]

Making matters even worse is the inability of congress to take decisive steps that would help the situation or at least mute the repurcussions. Politics has come first.

Seems to me it's not so much an inability, as it is a deliberate refusal to do so, for perceived political gain.

hang the ****ers.

 

[seasoned]

The power is in the VOTE. One may be as bad or worse then the other, but, we the voting public, can switch gears on them and head it all in a different direction.

 

[celtic_crippler]

as did I, more than 15 years ago.



yup, this runaway freight train started rolling a long long time ago. You cannot stop it on a dime.

And shoveling more coal into the engine ain't helping either!!!!

Seems to me it's not so much an inability, as it is a deliberate refusal to do so, for perceived political gain.

hang the ****ers.

Amen to that.

People will get another chance in November... guess we'll see how self-destructive we are then.

 

[celtic_crippler]

Mr. Schiff is not an economist. He is however the guy that has said that speculation and a lack of lending standards contributed to the collapse. He's also the guy, that despite his "accurate" prediction, couldn't prevent his own company's investments from declining in value significantly.

Dr. Thomas Sowell is an economist.

“In politics what matters is not what the facts are, but what people believe. Because people vote on the basis of what they believe.” ~ Dr. Thomas Sowell

 

[elder999]

The power is in the VOTE. One may be as bad or worse then the other, but, we the voting public, can switch gears on them and head it all in a different direction.

The vote this time around is going to leave all disatisfied: Obama: 38%, Romney: 32%, Everyone else: 30%.

Or, even better, Obama 38%, Romney 37%, Everyone else, 25%.

Or, more believably, and in line with current polling, Obama 42%, Romney 40%, Everyone else 18%.

Obama wins, with a majority of the popular vote going to someone else.

The electoral split will be convincing as well, with Obama winning in the states he needs to win in.....it's going to be chaos!:lfao:

 

[blindsage]

Dr. Thomas Sowell is an economist.

“In politics what matters is not what the facts are, but what people believe. Because people vote on the basis of what they believe.” ~ Dr. Thomas Sowell

An amusing quote coming from Sowell.

 

[celtic_crippler]

An amusing quote coming from Sowell.

Yeah... friggin' hilarious. And what are your qualifications again?

 

[blindsage]

Yeah... friggin' hilarious. And what are your qualifications again?

The ability to read multiple economists to get a picture of what is actually happening by cross referencing multiple expert opinions instead of cherry picking one who I happen to agree with, that sticks to a simplistic fundamentalist belief about economics despite ample evidence to the contrary, and significant disagreement from his peers.

 

[Makalakumu]

Ludwig Von Mises predicted all of this in the 30s. Looks like the Austrians were right!