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Guest Post: Our Economic Future - From Best to Worst Case
Submitted by Doug Casey of Casey Research
Our Economic Future: From Best to Worst Case
There is a great deal of uncertainty among investors about what the
future of the U.S. economy may look like – so I decided to take a stab
at what’s likely to happen over the next 20 years. That's enough time
for a child to grow up and mature, and it's long enough for major trends
to develop and make themselves felt.
I’ll confine myself to areas
that are, as the benighted Rumsfeld might have observed, “known
unknowns.” I don’t want to deal with possibilities of the deus ex machina
sort. So we’ll rule out natural events like a super-volcano eruption,
an asteroid strike, a new ice age, global warming, and the like.
Although all these things absolutely will occur sometime in the future,
the timing is very uncertain – at least from the perspective of one
human lifespan. It’s pointless dealing with geological time and
astronomical probability here. And, more important, there’s absolutely
nothing we can do about such things.
So let’s limit ourselves to
the possibilities presented by human action. They're plenty weird and
scary, and unpredictable enough.
THE MARKET FOR PROGNOSTICATION
People
are all ears for predictions, whether from psychics or from “experts,”
despite the repeated experience that they’re almost always worthless,
often misleading and more than rarely the exact opposite of what
happens.
Most often, the predictors go afoul by underrating human
ingenuity or extrapolating current trends too far. Let me give you a
rundown of the state of things during the last century, at 20-year
intervals. If you didn’t know it’s what actually happened, you'd find it
hard to believe.
1911— The entire world is at
peace. Stability, freedom and prosperity prevail almost everywhere.
Almost every country in Europe is ruled by a king or queen. Western
civilization has spread to nearly every corner of the world and is
received with appreciation. Stunning breakthroughs are being made in
science and technology. There’s no sign of a gigantic world war about to
come out of nowhere to rip apart the political and cultural map of
Europe and bankrupt everybody. Who imagined that a dictatorial communist
regime would arise in Russia?
1931— It’s early
in a disastrous worldwide depression. Attention is on economic troubles,
not on the virtually unthought-of possibility that in less than 10
years a new world war would be under way against Nazism and a resurgent
Germany.
1951— Except for Vietnam, all that
remains of the colonies the West had established in the 19th century are
quiescent. Nobody guessed almost all would either be independent, or on
their way, in 10 years. China has joined Russia – and many other
countries – as totally collectivist. Who imagined that Germany and
Japan, although literally leveled, would be perhaps the best investments
of the century? Who guessed that the U.S. was already at its peak
relative to the rest of the world?
1971—
Communist and overtly socialist countries all over the world seem to be
in ascendance, soon to be buoyed further by a decade of rising commodity
prices. The U.S. and the West are entering a deep malaise. Little
significance is attached to rumblings from the Islamic world.
1991—
Communism has collapsed as an ideology, the USSR has disappeared, and
China has radically reformed. Islam is increasingly in the news.
2011—The
world financial/economic crisis is four years old, but things are still
holding together. Islamic terrorism and collapse of old regimes in the
Arab world dominate the news. China is viewed as the world’s new
powerhouse.
BAD AND WORSE
Regrettably,
I’m not much of a linguist. But I do pick up interesting semantic
trivia. In Spanish they don’t say “in the future,” as we do in English,
which implies a definite outcome. Instead they say “en un futuro” – in a
future – which implies many possible outcomes. It’s a better way of
assessing reality, I think.
Here are three 20-year futures to
consider. There are, obviously, many, many more – but I think these
encompass the three most realistic broad possibilities.
BEST CASE – FACTS GET FACED
Realizing
what a disaster the complete destruction of their currencies would be,
most governments decide to endure the pain of allowing interest rates to
rise and limiting increases in the money supply. Poorly run
corporations and banks are left to fail. Talk of abolishing the Federal
Reserve, and using a commodity for money, becomes serious and
widespread.
Shaken, the U.S. ends its profligate ways, in part
because it lacks the means to continue, and in part because everyone but
collectivist ideologues has actually learned something from the brutal
‘10s and ‘20s.
Amidst massive protests, the government closes much
of its counterproductive apparatus, eliminates many taxes, and lets 30%
of its employees go. It also, albeit reluctantly, liberalizes its
regulation of the economy because it has become impossible to deny that
the U.S. has been falling behind in all areas.
Although there is a
resurgence of libertarian thought – reminiscent of the Reagan-Thatcher
era – simple practicality is mainly responsible for forcing the
government's hand. For one thing, it can’t afford the bureaucracy needed
to enforce detailed interference. For another, entrepreneurs are
increasingly just doing what they please, partly from necessity and
partly from a growing sense of righteousness. Interest rates go to 25%,
to compensate for high levels of inflation. That's high enough to make
it worthwhile for people to save, and the capital base starts growing.
The stock market has collapsed to its lowest level in living experience
(in real terms), but the values available encourage people to become
investors. Business is restructured on a sound, debt-free basis, with
little speculation.
The U.S. radically cuts its military spending
and pulls almost all troops out of their foreign bases and wars. The War
on Drugs comes to an end, and the crime rate in both the U.S. and
Mexico plummets.
The government solves most of its overhanging
financial problems with a seriously devalued – but not hyperinflated –
dollar. The Social Security deficit is eliminated by abstaining from
benefit increases and by inflating away much of what had been promised
before. Most Americans suffer a severe drop in their standard of living,
as they’re forced into new patterns of production and consumption. A
generation of college students find that their degrees in sociology,
political science, economics, English lit, Black studies, gender studies
and underwater basket weaving are of no real value.
When it's all
over, the tough times that started in '07 prove to have been no more
than a cyclical bump in the road, like all the other recessions since
WW2, just much bigger.
A rough and memorable ride, but it ends with a return to prosperity.
MIDDLE CASE – FACTS ARE IGNORED
The
world’s governments continue under the delusion that printing massive
quantities of paper money will solve problems when, in fact, printing
lies at the base of the problems. Most currencies lose most of their
value. Some lose it all. This destroys the most productive people in
society, the middle class, who produce more than they consume and save
the difference... in currency.
And it injures successful
corporations that have billions, or even tens of billions, in cash. Few
of their managers know what to do with such sums other than to hold
currency; at best they’ll buy their own and other companies' stock. The
result is a stock market boom in the midst of a grim depression. But
only one person in a hundred will be in a position to benefit from it,
because most will be living too close to the edge, and the stock market
will be the last thing on their minds. The destruction of capital sets
technology back quite a bit in the U.S., Japan and Europe. Chindia
increases its relative strength.
The U.S. government, believing it
has both the obligation and the ability to “do something,” redoubles
its control of the economy. Price controls and capital controls are the
order of the day. Petroleum products are rationed. Enforcement of new
regulations is assigned to a new agency, the “Economic Recovery
Administration,” which resembles the TSA in most regards – except it has
many plain-clothes employees, to better ferret out violators.
People
think increasingly of politics as the way to get what they want. More
and more Americans move abroad – although things are deteriorating in
most places in the world. Poor, backwater countries offer the best
opportunities because their governments are either weak, or corrupt,
enough to allow new economic activity.
WORST CASE – WAR
War
is the worst thing that can happen to an economy, but it’s also the
most likely thing at this point. When the going gets tough, the people
in charge like to blame somebody else for the problem. That’s compounded
by the foolish – but widely accepted – notion that war is good for the
economy and that, for instance, it pulled the U.S. out of the last
depression.
Like all wars, this one results in a complete stifling
of civil and economic freedoms. If my second scenario is unpleasant,
this alternative is grim.
The big conflict has already been teed
up – the continuation of the Forever War between Islam and the West.
I’ll hazard the major situs will be Europe – which has pretty
much always been the case for wars in general for the last 2,000 years.
Europe will be the worst place to be over the next two decades. And
North America will be locked down like a police compound.
China
will have serious social turmoil as it is forced to reorient an
export-driven economy catering to Europe and the U.S. As in the past,
South America will be out of the conflict and in a position to benefit
from it. India will also be a net beneficiary, largely uninvolved, and
happy to watch their ex-colonial masters rope-a-dope themselves into
poverty.
People will always argue who really started it. Was it
the Muslims when they poured out of Arabia in the 630s? Or was it the
West when it invaded the Near East with the Crusades starting in 1099?
Or was it the Muslims when the Turks took Constantinople in 1453
(although only 40 year later the Muslims would lose Grenada, in Spain,
as the reconquista was completed) and then moved on to almost conquer
Europe before being turned back at Vienna in 1683? Or is it more
relevant just to look at recent history, starting at the beginning of
the 19th century, when the West conquered and colonized every single
Muslim country? Or the very recent past, when Muslims were
counter-attacking, using a new military approach popularly called
“terrorism”?
My bottom line is that the next twenty years may be
dominated by the Forever War that started in the 600s, being resumed in
earnest. At least in Europe, it has the prospect of becoming a war of
survival, much nastier than either WW1 or WW2.
That resumption is
being accelerated by what is going on in the Middle East now. The
chances that the upheaval in the Arab world will just peter out and
everyone will return to the status quo ante are about zero.
It’s a culture-wide affair, much as the revolutions in Eastern Europe
were. Or, for that matter, the revolutions against Spain in South
America at the beginning of the 19th century.
The Arab revolutions
are a good thing, in that they’re getting rid of criminal regimes. Some
will be replaced with equally repressive cliques, although manned with
different criminals. I suspect a few might be more like the French
Revolution of 1789; good riddance to the old regime, but then came
Robespierre. And after him Napoleon.
Regardless of how the tumult
plays out in any particular country, the erstwhile docile collaborators
with Europe and the U.S. are being elbowed aside, and the regimes that
replace them are going to accommodate the vast public constituency for
hostility toward the West, if only for the sake of internal political
advantage.
The war is not going to be fought with conventional
armies. First of all because the Islamic world doesn’t have any that
would last more than a day or two against a Western army. But also
because a Western army is useless against an amorphous mass of millions
of people.
So what will the conflict be like? Amorphous and
disjointed, chaotic and without fixed fronts. Millions of Muslims are in
Europe – Pakistanis in the UK, Turks in Germany, North Africans in
France, Indonesians in Holland. Europe’s destructive conquest of the
world has come back to bite. These people will approach majority status
over the next 20 years, both because they reproduce at several times the
rate of the Europeans and because they’re not being absorbed. And
because, now, millions and millions more are going to arrive as boat
people.
The natives aren’t going to like it, for lots of reasons.
And the outcome will likely resemble what always happens when large
numbers of unwelcome foreigners invade a territory: violence.
One
consequence of the war, and especially of the collapse of the regime in
Arabia (in 2031 it’s no longer called Saudi Arabia, because the ruling
Saud family – at least the ones who couldn’t get to their jets in time –
has been massacred) is a cut-off of oil until the U.S. invades.
I
hate to overemphasize oil, but the world still runs on it. When
something does happen in Arabia, you can count on a disruption in the
shipment of oil. And absolutely count on active U.S. intervention.
A
prolonged guerrilla war, similar to those in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya
and other Arab countries will follow. But there won’t be any cover story
about ousting a bad guy or bringing democracy to the oppressed. It will
be pretty obvious to everybody that, from the West’s point of view, it
will start out simply to answer the question: What’s our oil doing under
their sand? But from the Muslim’s point of view, it will be a different
question: How can we rid ourselves of these aggressive infidels once
and for all? Then the West will rephrase their question to: These people
want to kill us! How can we stop them once and for all?
You may
be thinking that the U.S. can’t lose a war because it has a large and
extremely high-tech military. All those expensive toys can be useful
from time to time; they can win lots of small battles. But they’re
basically useless for winning the next generation of warfare, as useless
as cavalry in WW1, battleships in WW2, tanks in Vietnam or nuclear
missiles today.
What? Nuclear missiles obsolete? Of course.
They’re expensive, clunky, and the enemy can tell exactly where they
came from. A plane, or a boat, or a truck – or a FedEx package – is a
much neater delivery system. And there will be plenty of nuclear devices
to deliver. If they’re within the grasp of tiny countries like Israel
and North Korea, they’re within the grasp of anyone.
In fact, the
centerpieces of today’s military are well on their way to the scrapheap
or to museum displays. There may well be a few aircraft carriers,
nuclear missiles, B-2 bombers, F-22 fighters, and the like around in 20
years. But they’ll be oddities reserved for special purposes, like
typewriters. Laser, electronic and robotic weapons will have replaced
those using gunpowder, and they’ll be readily available to anyone (an
accelerant in the collapse of the nation-state). The military's reliance
on centralization and on computer power will prove an Achilles heel; a
gang of teenage hackers (not only the best kind, but the most common
kind) can devastate a military for pure sport.
Conquest of wealth
or territory will be pointless; that’s one thing even the Soviets
suspected in the ‘80s, when they still had the power to invade Western
Europe. It’s now nothing like in the old days, when a successful war
yielded lots of gold, cattle and slaves. This lack of an economic return
will obviate one reason for a military. The hollowing-out of
nation-states will obviate another; governments will find they just
don’t have either the financial means or the popular support for serious
military establishments.
The military, as the cutting edge of the
nation-state, is in serious decline. Conflict between groups will still
exist, of course, but it will be more informal, more the kind of thing
that a Mafia or an Al-Qaeda might conduct. The growth of private
military contractors, like Blackwater (now Xe), which only need be paid
when in use, is indicative.
A BASIC PLAN
Sorry
I can't do any better than a best-case scenario that just isn't very
rosy – at least over the near term. And there’s a high likelihood of the
worst-case scenario. There will probably be some overlapping elements
from all three, if I’m on the right track.
From an economic point
of view, I see only two things as being predictable: One, that many
people will always produce more than they consume and save the
difference; this will create capital, which is critical for not only a
higher standard of living, but for the advancement of technology.
Two,
that since there are currently more scientists and engineers alive than
have lived in all previous history combined, technology will keep
advancing; technology is the major force to advance the general standard
of living. So that’s essentially why I’m an optimist. Let’s just hope
the savers aren’t wiped out, and the scientists don’t do too much
government work.
The most sensible plan for the next 20 years is
to plan to survive. The days of “He who dies with the most toys wins,”
and of two whole generations living way above their means, are over.
20
years isn't forever. Think of it like a bear market, when the best
thing to do is take your chips off the table, grab some books and retire
to the beach for a year – except that this is going to be a lot longer
and more serious. Nonetheless, I expect my fundamental optimism to get
through it undamaged, as should yours.
For one thing, the
long-term trend is favorable. Mankind has risen from subsistence and
living in caves as little as 12,000 years ago, to reaching for the stars
today – and the rate of progress has been accelerating. Why should that
stop now?
But, as I mentioned earlier, thinking too far in the
future is perhaps pointless. So what should you do now? The essential
advice remains the same:
- Own gold and silver. At Casey
Research, we’ve made a lot of money on them – and they’re no longer
cheap – but they’re going higher, simply for lack of alternatives. Look
at them as you would cash. - Produce more than you consume, and save the difference. This is no longer the time for promiscuous, conspicuous consumption.
- Be
alert for speculations. Some markets will collapse (for instance, I
wouldn’t want to own a McMansion in the suburbs or a “collectible” car).
Other markets will likely turn into manias, benefiting from trillions
of new currency units (I suspect mining stocks will be one of them). - Diversify
your assets (and yourself) politically and geographically. As big a
risk as the markets will be, your government is an even bigger one.
And,
incidentally, we’re going to be looking carefully at the stock markets
in the Arab world. It’s too early to buy. But there’s a time and a price
for everything.
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Our economy? Centrally rigged, er............planned casinos are not economies.
Container Leasing Reveals Economy Accelerating: Freight Markets
May 25, 2011, 12:24 AM EDT
May 25 (Bloomberg) -- The global trade rebound is pushing shipping lines to rely more on leasing companies such as CAI International Inc. and TAL International Group Inc. for the containers used to transport everything from bananas to blouses.
“We’re seeing perfect conditions,” Brian Sondey, president and chief executive officer of Purchase, New York- based TAL, said in an interview. “Relatively strong growth in trade creates a good level of need for containers, supply is very tight and shipping lines aren’t purchasing as many containers as in the past.”
Shipping lines that competed for containers in 2010 may face an even bigger shortage this year. Demand for steel cargo boxes may increase as much as 11 percent and manufacturers are limiting production. Sea carriers, including A.P. Moeller-Maersk A/S, operator of the world’s largest container line, are also sailing at slower speeds to save on fuel costs and are directing more capital to new vessels.
Even with enough containers currently in use to circle the earth 4.3 times, the shortfall has pushed new container prices to a record, allowing lessors to raise rates.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-05-25/container-leasing-reveals-ec...
Very cool, as always, Spalding.
You know, what with the negative news flow and the "disappointments" and what all, if equity markets don't go down and stay down (stay down is the key as I expect another V shaped bottom sometime in the near future), well, I guess that would mean that they are very strong (and that would be for a reason, uh, something like what you regularly post).
Oh, and imagine a rally without the help of the hypothetical QE3!
They say a good trader needs to be prepared for the unexpected (as in the market does exactly the opposite of what was expected).
We could also be at the end of a PM cycle (whether that would be cyclical or secular, I'm not willing to speculate yet.)
You could grow up and pull you head out of your ass but that is not the base case scenario. Why would you dopes try and pump shit here? Know your audience.
Because they get paid by the post....please don`t feed the paid Shills.
T.E.I.N. everyone!
why not speculate? a market moves "towards us" because we all agree we can be wrong first and foremost. the not so technical term is "wall of worry" when the market moves in our direction--"and when it doesn't we say past performance is no guarantee of future results." precious metals have no worries--been true for a decade now. still "silver prices corrected." my worry in that space if i were critiquing "what could go wrong here" is "what if a large silver producer defaulted on its sovereign debt?" would that cause the price of the metal to decline? i say yes and more to the point "if the best credit risk in the form of euro and yen denominated debt is imploding" who benefits? i say "Ben Bernanke." period.
what exactly is a cyclical (pm) cycle?
puff puff pass, please...
Excellent post Spalding!
We disagree on a lot, but you post news sometimes that I do not see anywhere, not even here at ZH.
Our bearings go in 20' containers, stuffed in there with other companies' cargo. I'll ask Peru to check to see if their LCL Ocean Freight rates have started up. I had no idea that rates were up, much less prices of new containers.
+ $1540
There is a free Bloomberg site Einstein.
E=MC^2, yeah that's me!
Thanks for suggesting Bloomberg. I'll go check it out and see if it is worth adding to my reading list each day.
Container prices and leasing rates are secondary news for me, prices for bearings are much more important to us.
Spalding posted a nice piece that I had not seen. That's why I said something nice.
:-)
Heavy-duty truck orders remain strong in May
6/6/2011
COLUMBUS, Ind. — A preliminary reading of heavy-duty Class 8 commercial vehicles net orders for North American markets fell from April’s high water mark but remained strong, according to ACT Research Co. Net orders were up 85 percent from year ago May. Preliminary net order numbers are subject to revision and are typically accurate to within 5 percent, ACT noted.
May represents the seventh consecutive month of orders above the 24,000 unit level, a clear sign of elevated Class 8 demand. Though May had the lowest order intake of the last three months, orders were booked in excess of a 365,000 unit annualized rate from March to May, according to ACT.
http://www.thetrucker.com/News/Stories/2011/6/6/Heavy-dutytruckordersrem...
Truck cycle is real. Good place to invest depending on valuation as that is no secret...
Too bad the BDI doesn't confirm.
http://www.investmenttools.com/futures/bdi_baltic_dry_index.htm
Uh, yeah. But it came from a Bloomberg News story word-for-word despite Wilson's obvious boots on the ground in what is left of industrial America. Waiting for my "nice."
Suggesting a site worth a look IS nice. But, I read a lot and have to be picky where I go.
But, since I am a married guy, I am hesitant to call you "nice", but OK.
Peace, Love, Woodstock.
:)
Unlike your loving-feeling fan I wonder what your point is. Are you pointing out a short-term lack of container supply or a bullish call on economic momentum? Or do you work for Business Week?
Point being the economy is not teetering on the edge of the abyss
Every shop I walk into has work. Grinders, chrome platers, heat treaters, machine shops ...
Fair enough. Is that a coincident or leading indicator? Are these "shops" hiring? Is the U.S. economy driven by honest manufacturing anymore? Don't get me wrong: I am not rooting against America. I am mourning the Country we used to be, and we could easily still be today except for the EVIL work of the Global Bank Cartel that decided ethics were expendable in the interest of massive, ill-gotten gains; aka EVIL.
The shops are not hiring. My bud had 135 machinist and when the shtf he cut 50%. But the insurance payments killed him ( I think he was on the hook for 80% of the insurance cost per month of those fired including family members $70,000 per month when no work is coming in for fired workers ). That will not happen again in his words and the office workers and shop managers are still taking a 20% cut off former salary ( pre 2008 )
I think the insurance bullshit is making owners stay lean and mean. Once its goes one way or the other then you might see some action.
Our shops are hiring. Major driver is US military orders, though. Bullish for the worst-case above, and also indiciative of the starting phase of a Weimar-style hyperinflation, from what I can figure.
Large orders with demands for ever shortening lead times from some of the first hands to hold QE2 money doesn't sound like a recipe for long-term sucess to me...
I have no personal beef with the people many on ZH think of as needlessly antagonsitic (to put it mildly), and this even includes MomoFlowRoboFader (though most of his comments are idiotic and devoid of thought, whereas Spalding at least takes the time to explain or break down his opinion), but Spalding is delusional if he can't recognize that government spending, whether within the confines of traditional governmental circuits, or within what is typically better viewed as the province of the private sector, has created a temporary floor to prevent a full blown crater speed depression, nor that this can't last much longer without some extremely painful and very long lasting (maybe permanent) damage to the organic economy and private sector in ways that even the brightest minds can't fully contemplate or predict or quantify at this time.
Aside from all that, there's a lot of fudging of numbers in many aspects of the transport index right now, and moreover, as LowProfile mentioned, the Baltic Dry Index is not confirming what are largely anectodal claims of strength in cargo/transports as relayed by Spalding.
Huge numbers of containers will be needed to haul around the dollars Bernanke is going to print when QE3 rolls around.
Of course contain sales are high; China is planning a land invasion of 500 million soldiers disguised in containers as shipments to Walmart.
Look @ the bond market!
Look at Pt, Ag, et al! It`s only Thursday, but it feels like Saturday Night (which is my cue). Logged.
"soft landing" looking a bumpy--i agree. i say "send them free subscriptions to Playboy" as our first foray into if not IN CELEBRATION OF "the prosperous teens."
We're all fucking doomed. Gold, silver, guns, butter and a bug out vehicle. Oh yeah, and gasoline to get there.
Preparation is very hard and expensive. All of what you say and so much more. I need to find a way to secure a water supply and store more food, we are "bugging-in".
Farming is just too hard for old non-farming Bearings...
Those who have never been around a farm--hell even a good sized garden !/2 acre + are in for a shock. You are going to use muscles you didn't know you had. First year is a bitch because you have to do things over or repair after the cow gets loose in a newly watered field. You;ll come to appriciate the ole boy down the way and how things get done. Believe me, I've been there. Milestones
Alternative to farming: Start networking (now) with people who live in the surrounding rural areas that are self sufficient and let them do the farming for you in exchange for something they need that you can provide. Fresh farm goods are readily available, all the time, at great prices. Look online for local farms in your area; go to a local farmer's market get their cards; or just go to a rural livestock feed/seed store and look on their message board for posts or ask the feedstore guy at the counter -- he'll know them all. When I was a kid we had milk, eggs, meat on our 5 acres and we always had more than we could consume so we sold the extra to neighbors -- our 'regulars'. People still do that.
I just put 20 lbs of strawberries in the freezer for smoothies from a local farm. Less than a $1 per lb. Made friends and found out what was coming up next on their harvest schedule. They're third generation and with lots of land and know what they're doing. Don't fight it. It'd cost me $4 per lb trying to do it yourself making all the mistakes.
Unfortunatly the average american farmer is a baby boomer, roughly 58 years old, and probably wont be producing as many strawberries if he has to do all the work himself.
It is no secret that many young people want to leave rural areas, and we've witnessed both the brain drain and family ties to land being eroded in farming communities.
Somebody's got to farm, and I'm not sure hopw good the soil on the west coast is anymore either
Depending on where you're at, it wouldn't be an awful idea to get some catchbarrels under your rain gutters and a hand pump to go in them. You can filter water yourself with sand and charcoal, and chemically purify it with bleach, iodine, peroxide or ozone, and if you have none of those, you can always boil the filtrate, though it uses fuel.
Aquaponics is easy.
you forgot your Playboy mags. Fess up, buster. You got a load of those, too "in your survival kit."
Under the best case, it is postulated that "[m]ost Americans [will] suffer a severe drop in their standard of living, as they’re forced into new patterns of production and consumption...". Accordingly, that is not the best case and should not be considered as such.
The velocity of the destruction wreaked by Modern Money Mechanics!
Bon Apetite, bitchez!
Modern Money Mechanics: How To Make and Destroy MoneyDoug Casey always says the same thing over and over.
If it ain't broke...
"I’ll hazard the major situs will be Europe – which has pretty much always been the case for wars in general for the last 2,000 years."
----------
This is asine, euro-centric bullshit. Ever hear of the Sino-Japanese War? What happened in the Pacific between 1941 and 1945? What happened in ... Korea ... Vietnam ... Cambodia? How about throughout the Indian subcontinent throughout much of the 20th century? How about what has happened throughout Africa for the past 30 years? Oh, did we forget ... the Spanish conquests in the Americas? The American War of Independence? The U.S. Civil War? 100 years of warfare between the Europeans and Native Americans?
This kind of simplistic B.S. is symptomatic of the entire "Economic Future" prognostication.Fills space, though, doesn't it?
excellent point. in fact whether judged by total dead or percentage killed of total world population, most of the worst wars involved china: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_and_anthropogenic_disasters_by...
Did you really not know you would lose your entire audience on ZH with the phrase, "...resurgence of libertarian thought – reminiscent of the Reagan-Thatcher era"?
I'm a Libertarian and MAYBE Eisenhower was the last President even close; maybe...
Yes. That was a surprise. Reagan: paid for by Merrill Lynch. Remember Don Regan?
Yes I do. And for those who don't "Inside Job" puts him in context. Lots of people on ZH didn't need "Inside Job" but if the MSM is going to produce insulting shit like "Too Big To Fail" it serves as an important counter-balance. The scene where Regan barks orders at Reagan is priceless...
total touche bobby. completely agree. thatcher and reagan were shills for corporations and the military industrial complex. authoritarians by policy and reflexive zionists. puke city.
Goldwater was more recent. He lost the election, but he was definitely the real deal.
I do not understand when forecasters try to project outcome of human societal behaviour come up with 1) best case 2) middle road 3) worst case 4) Surprise case. Human history has always proven that the "Worst case" scenario is always the outcome. Point is we can never really get along. I just wanna see Hangover 3 now.
The worst we can imagine seems to be becoming "best case scenario" as mankind adapts to new levels of vileness towards each other. 12 monkeys at some point becomes a logical tactic in defense of some dastardly wrong or bag of dirty tricks.
Too many genies are being created by ever cheaper technology that allows for scaling of cause and effect in geometric proportions, a single vial of an engineered virus could reduce an entire contintent's population to its knees in a single flu season.
I have no faith in institutions, or human enlightenment, we're clearly at this point in the hands of the gods territory and we all know how fickle deities are.
Stand by sluts. This is big.
WARSAW, Poland – NATO and Russia teamed up Tuesday to test their ability to fight terrorism, using a military transport plane to simulate a hijacking over Poland and sending in fighter planes to save it, an official said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110607/ap_on_re_eu/eu_poland_nato_russia_3
no it is not you ugly fat dumb pig it is week old news.
What do you have against week old big? I'm still bragging about the hottie I hit last week.
Anyway, the author of this pos article is a moron with no time in the real world.
Carry on.
Buy a silver contract on the 100 hour bounce. Do it in LATE ASIA! Yen
Thanks Yen, but to be honest, I don't even know what that means.
Thanks for the input. Yen
Yen, thanks for the input. Mean it. GF
go back to school and learn how to write. some intelligence would have helped too. awful.
Always my favorite anarcho-libertarian!
Please host WW3 somewhere else, Europe is sick of providing the playground every freaking time...
The worst mistake was already made. Pumping. Anything. Including gas.
All it did was prolong and worsen the inevitable agony.
When the SHTF, we'll have a chance to lead by example. Those that don't wake up then, are dead.
Dupe
This is a very well thought out article. I am deeply concerned for my 7 and 4 year olds future. The generation ahead of me and mine (I am 47) will have indebted the future generations so much that I see a theft rate (tax) of 85% or more just to keep this disgusting bloated government running. I also have accepted the fact that my kids will never be able to move out because being an entrepreneur will be impossible. Only well connected government hacks and crooks will be able to live like the middle class of today. It's a shame to watch my country melt away and know that the only hope we had was a free press that did not take sides but exposed both crooked parties for what they are. The internet showed up a little to late - it was a great tool that became a tool for dividing and conquering us. People have to stop voting party lines and for incumbents and start voting for plumbers, doctors and carpenters. Never vote for a lawyer again!
rattman
Strongly agree with you rattman. Never vote for a lawyer, millionaire, billionaire or such... Vote for a regular person like most of us are... Only people like us can resist the bankers, and block all bulshit laws that are beeing created.
Strongly agree with you rattman. Never vote for a lawyer, millionaire, billionaire or such... Vote for a regular person like most of us are... Only people like us can resist the bankers, and block all bulshit laws that are beeing created.
Strongly agree with you rattman. Never vote for a lawyer, millionaire, billionaire or such... Vote for a regular person like most of us are... Only people like us can resist the bankers, and block all bulshit laws that are beeing created.
Strongly agree with you rattman. Never vote for a lawyer, millionaire, billionaire or such... Vote for a regular person like most of us are... Only people like us can resist the bankers, and block all bulshit laws that are beeing created.
Strongly agree with you rattman. Never vote for a lawyer, millionaire, billionaire or such... Vote for a regular person like most of us are... Only people like us can resist the bankers, and block all bullshit laws that are beeing created.
Strongly agree with you rattman. Never vote for a lawyer, millionaire, billionaire or such... Vote for a regular person like most of us are... Only people like us can resist the bankers, and block all bullshit laws that are beeing created.
Strongly agree with you rattman. Never vote for a lawyer, millionaire, billionaire or such... Vote for a regular person like most of us are... Only people like us can resist the bankers, and block all bullshit laws that are beeing created.
What the hell...???!!! How did I manage to make so many posts???
Your kids future looks like this
http://www.paulchefurka.ca/Population.html
and this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse:_How_Societies_Choose_to_Fail_or_S...
Indeed, career politicians will be the death of us.
i stopped at "1911-the year that the whole world was embraced in love peace happiness tranquility and group sex."
" The movement of events is often as wayward and incomprehensible as the course of human thought; and this is why we ascribe to chance whatever belies our calculations"...
Pericles.
Attempting to foresee the future is futile: Own Gold it is you're best insurance.
Are the government interventions like TARP in some sense the worst possible kind of intervention?
Surely random intervention, e.g. monetary injections at random points in the economy for no reason, would be destabilizing and harmful.
But the government seems to put a band-aid on any time a crack appears. Each time there is a crisis, it is the one element of the economy that is most ripe for rupturing that is preserved!
We did vote for CHANGE--- remember?
We did vote for CHANGE--- remember?
chump change, pocket change, change of scenery....
A scary picture, indeed. Only, your reference to the Indonesians in Holland as a threat made me laugh. Actually, they're pious Christians, mostly, who escaped the cleansing of the archipelago of Dutch colonialists by the Sukarno regime in the 1950s. They adore the Queen and to me, seem more patriotic than the clog-wearing, tulip-raising, gin slobbering cheese-heads themselves.
Besides, most of them are living in Spain because of the climate.
simply said: All of the ME will be a No Fly Zone in twenty years. Muslims may have the bomb but getting it off the ground will be another thing. The age of American innocence has ended. America will never again give away as much as it does right now. In the future foreigners will pay to play. Friends of America will prosper, damn the rest of them.
Compassionate liberalism is DOA. The resumption of emminent domain will see most of Mexico annexed off in a new US land rush. In exchange for cleaning out the drug cartels, Americans will be allowed to own land and businesses in Mexico, where the US will take over border security.
The American economy will be gangster capitalism. Technology will be nationalized, stolen, and otherwise usurped by the US, mainly corporations which are fronts for the DOD. (none of this is new really, but this is what you will know in twenty years, what was going on today)
The No Fly Zone will extend to the borders of China. Right wingers will want to cover that country. As usual there will be no debate, just mission creep, until we finally have fighter jets over Bejing. Chinese labor will be in a state of indentured servitude for a century, causing many Chinese to go back to the farms, where they are forcibly rounded up and taken back to the factories.
A US President murders a private citizen, which causes a scandal. No charges are brought. Those who have wealth must spend it on security. Vast parts of the country go off the grid. There is no political reason to open them up, and they are left, vast wastelands of self sufficent people who have some means of resistance, but want nothing from Washington, and pay nothing. Washington is not on anyones destination, unless of course you have business there. The levers of power are absolutely corrupt, but they control less of America all the time. Like the Romans they wait for the hoards to cross the Potomac, but the barbarians never arrive, having built their own lives outside the system, the center collapses eventually.
by this time knowledge and skills are universal across the globe, there is no need for wars of conquest. Can't see farther than that.
not bad... A little "manifest destiny" that ends in relative peace... hmmm ?
for the next century you want to be an American or a territory, or something. and those who bailed out on America (some rather wealthy types no doubt) may have a hard time getting back in, and really where do you want to be when SHTF, Costa Rica?
Read: Gene Wolfe, Seven American Nights. Future.
Im a bit confused now. Is it US annexing Mexico or mexicans annexing the US?
the immigration problem is this way. 400M Americans, less than 100M Mexicans. Which way does the water flow?
Well, it´s actually 300mil americans and 110mil mexicans. Of 300 mil americans, one third are minorities and of this 50 mil hispanics, mostly mexicans. Moreover, hispanics are the fastest growing ethnic group in US and, according to Census bureau, will become the biggest group among newborn by 2050. So, how you see it now?
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/08/13/census.minorities/index.html
census will show 310 mil probably, though the real number living within the borders is probably 350mil. remember, under govt. math, the homeless/undocumented dont count as people.
No fuckin' way.
Bare minimum of 20 years for the USA to rebuild decent manufacturing infrastructure given the current financial picture. In principle we could start tomorrow, but that means floating a new currency, which effectively eliminates the global dominance of our current financial empire.
Wishful thinking.
India would be far from a net beneficiary. With ongoing religious turmoil with Pakistan, if there is such a war as you describe, India would likely be engulfed into a war with an unstable Pakistani regime which just might be crazy enough to decide to launch a nuke towards India.
if you Americans get your surrogate Paki army boys to shave every bearded man in Pakistan before leaving the land for good...you could save a war from occurring. That's all it takes; clean faced pakis... and we are back in 1956 when there wasn't a single Taliban in Pak/Afghan...just socialists in Afghan and Pashtun areas and conservative moslems but not rabid idiots in Paki. The rabid guys came with Bill Casey, the CIA bully boy, and his pet Paki general president : Zia ul Haq...The USA made that monster all on its own...
FAIL.
Crazy Casey...
Yeah...he forgot Balkan Wars, soon sparking into WW I....Nationalist uprising against Manchus in China and beginning of Chinese Civil War, utter bloody chaos in Mexico...as usual...etc.
Best case: we die
Worst case: we die
I'm looking for the middle ground.
but we're already in a coma
I think the forever war against Islam will continue, but mainly in the form of subversion and occasional "air strikes" with little conventional fighting. I think a war with Russia is more likely: we have expanded NATO to the suburbs of St. Petersburg, we are still trying to build that anti-missile thing in the Czech Republic or wherever, we have bases in Kazahkstan, etc. US policy is more anti-Russian now that it was anti-Soviet. Russia is one of the few remaining holdouts from the Anglo-American new world order and therefore a likely candidate for military aggression.
Doug Casey must love looking at himself in the mirror.
The description of the Thatcher/Raygun dogma as being of a liberterian bent proves the author to have some basic Weltanschaung problems :)
Other than that its a pretty basic Victim view of potential events, and does not admit of the possibillity that the USA, followed by the rest of the world, will do the right thing and maybe re invent itself in the guise of the Eisenhower years :)
The description of the Thatcher/Raygun dogma as being of a liberterian bent proves the author to have some basic Weltanschaung problems :)
Other than that its a pretty basic Victim view of potential events, and does not admit of the possibillity that the USA, followed by the rest of the world, will do the right thing and maybe re invent itself in the guise of the Eisenhower years :)
The description of the Thatcher/Raygun dogma as being of a liberterian bent proves the author to have some basic Weltanschaung problems :)
Other than that its a pretty basic Victim view of potential events, and does not admit of the possibillity that the USA, followed by the rest of the world, will do the right thing and maybe re invent itself in the guise of the Eisenhower years :)
The middle is now, not a future. The war is constant, not a future. I am not sure the propaganda is going to succeed much longer. The Russian people had very good names and uses for Isvestia and Pravda. When the people find out they have to pick the farm crops instead of immigrants, they won't like it. People will get to find out everyone is the same when the useless media are ignored.
Fed-ex a nuke? Kick ass!!! I never even considered that!
Doug Casey is a very intelligent fellow but from what I can tell he has a blind spot. Apprently he is not aware that most recent terrorists attacks on the west have been aided and abetted by the West. Does Doug really believe that men in caves in Western Pakistan got NORAD to stand down while 9-11 transpired? Does anyone really believe that one Adam Gadahn a Jewish boy from San Diego whose grandfather headed up the ADL is really one of the leaders of Al Qaeda!? Hey, and speaking of Al Qaeda leaders, what was one Anwar Al Walaki doing secretly dining at the Pentagon with the Secretary of the Army a few weeks after 9-11? Twenty minutes of research into 9-11 will raise many more questions than it will answer for the critical mind, but such minds are rare nowadays. Enjoyed the piece by Doug. He is a smart boy and so are you T. D., by the way:).
Tuco Benedicto Pacifico Juan Maria Ramirez
RE " Europe will be the worst place to be over the next two decades. And North America will be locked down like a police compound."
Europe will be the best place to be. Europe has high social consciousness, premium infrastructure and widely distributed local afrarian and industrial self-sufficienciency.
US is half desert and characterized by local dependencies on aid, goods and services from centralized supply centers and Federal authorities - i.e. massive vulnerability - and, here in the US - it's everyone against everyone.
Okey, dokey, yup, yup, yup.
You sir, are an optimist. I won't bore you with my three levels of predictions, but I see 7 billion souls balanced on the head of a pin, vulnerable to anything upseting the delicate balance of just in time delivery and zero inventory which feeds them.
In simpler times, nobody wanted WWI, and to this day, they still say it was touched off by the assination of Arch Duke Ferdinand. Preposterous bilge, it was just time for the apes to kill and burn. Look, kid, it's time to kill and burn. You can erase case #1, and case #2, we didn't build up the biggest melt down in human history to suddenly see the light. This is going, ALL THE WAY.
The other thing I didn't see in your very impressive and insightful analysis (because I agreed with your fertile mind's views almost completely) was the word EMP.
The Western world is completely dependant upon electronics. One well placed nuke in the upper atmosphere would bring us to our knees. Terrorists wouldn't nuke us, they would instead destroy our ability to feed ourselves. One nuke over the heartland could wipe out almost every microprocessor from Ontario to Miami. Gee, when you can totally destroy the world's biggest empire with one bomb, a weapon which is posessed by a lot of the world's countries, how long do you think it will take to be used anonymously? Google it, your enemies have.
You are a optimist, and the funny thing is everybody thinks you are Mr. Doom and Gloom.
Using MGO foods, Fluoridated (poisoned) water, Chemtrails (poison from the skies, food crops destroyed, Gulf of Mexico, US farm belt, pacific radiation, killer vaccines and endless warsy the NWO...... you suckers are doomed. They (eugenicists demons) are going to kill 80% of the humans. Period!
Is it just me, or the same day the USDX jumps, are the PM's/Oil on the rise too?
Abiggs, you wanna field this one for us?
"Divestment while the divesting is still good"
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