It's Over. (economic armageddon ahead)

[grasswire]

http://www.kitco.com/weekly/paulvaneeden/nov192004.html

The last three paragraphs:

Since the day after George Bush was re-elected as president of the United States interest rates have risen and the dollar has declined. It’s too soon to call it a trend, but my own feeling is that the dollar is heading much lower and the gold price is heading much higher.

The US trade deficit is a virtual guarantee that the dollar will fall and the budget deficit is a guarantee that interest rates will rise. It’s busy happening, and there is no end in sight.

Prepare yourself, buckle up, and hold on.

[rkc3]

1. I had an amazing disucssion with a bush supported on Nov. 1.

He was voting for the dumbass because of his economic policies and how they were right for America. Somehow I didn't slap the shit out of him, but I pointed out how we couldn't continue to finance tax cuts, a stagnant economy, and a war in Iraq using foreign investments in our debt.

He shrugged off my analysis. Perhaps I'll send this link to him and then slap the shit out of him.

[grasswire]

3. even FAUX news is furious

I saw a panel with Steve Forbes and some other bigwigs, and they were slapping the Bush administration around for the coming crisis.

[Nay]

15. Isn't it interesting that Fox has only gotten furious AFTER the

election?? Before the election, they were Bushie's biggest fans. So, WTF has changed in a WEEK?? We were facing all this, and it was being discussed everywhere, way before the election. Frauds.

[jmowreader]

26. I can believe Steve Forbes is anti-Bushanomics

Forbes is an ardent flat-taxer, but I think he understands the government can't spend money like a shipload of drunken sailors on three days of shore leave in Bangkok; his flat tax proposals have always been accompanied by serious cuts in the government. They especially don't come with more wars like Bush's tax cut proposals do.

Given the terrible duty of being forced to select either Steve Forbes' awful tax scheme or George Bush's awful tax scheme, I gotta go with Forbes every time. I just have a problem with running the country into the ground just because you can.

[charlie]

28. Yeah, but what's true today

was true 2 weeks ago... hell, 2 years ago. So why didn't that pudding-faced putz make the case against Bush economics in his rag, instead of endorsing Bush for prez? It pisses me off no end to hear these jackasses go all Cassandra now, when it's too late to do much about it.

[THUNDER HANDS]

6. slap him anyway

in fact, i offer we have 'Slap A Republican Friday' every week until November 2008.

Maybe by then we'll have slapped enough sense into them.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

8. Only Friday?

Sign me up for the Seven Day A Week Plan, please.

[rkc3]

9. I'd be suffering from Corporal Punishment Syndrome by then.

[secedeeconomically]

18. Now we are talking.

Open hand or closed fist? lol

[secedeeconomically]

17. If you need some help i'll help u lol

[BurtWorm]

19. Give him a slap for me too.

:grr:

[laruemtt]

41. throw a punch in there for me too!

[killbotfactory]

2. The rich don't have to worry

It's just us morlocks that are gonna get screwed.

[ProfessorPlum]

4. You mean eloi, I think

wouldn't the GOP be the morlocks?

[LSparkle]

5. Time to light the torches

and head for the castle ...

[MaryH]

7. But he donated the most to Geo. Bush and most probably

voted for him.

I don't think the world is going to end. We made it through Nixon and that man was just plain crazy.

What is wierd is how fast the Republicans are turning on him.

This may actually get kind of fun. (Well, except for this awful war)

[boblzer0]

12. no big deal

I'm gonna take off my seatbelt and hope we can get this Iraq thing under control.

[newyawker99]

44. Hi boblzer0!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Warpy]

10. Short term, this will be a disaster

Long term, it'll put the US worker in a much better position against the rest of the world. There is no way a US worker can compete with a worker whose currency trades at a great disadvantage against the almighty buck. A living wage in bhat will translate to that famous three dollars a week, not enough to keep a person in the US in enough food to keep him alive, not even if he lives in a box under a bridge.

Since our lovely leaders haven't thought to enact protective tariffs (which, by the way, third world countries that have imported our manufaturing base have) to keep strategically important industries witin the borders and protect US citizens, we'll have to hope the disaster of a devalued dollar will do it.

Consider what this country faces in the next big war: we no longer make shoes, cloth, vital electronics, or even enough bullets to supply the troops in Iraq.

We are screwed six ways from Sunday, no matter what happens.

[grasswire]

30. I saw a financial roundtable last week..

...where the experts said that this is the Chinese centuryn-- Americans will migrate to China for jobs as other people have migrated to American for work.

Chilling.

[DemocracyInaction]

11. On one of the financial news networks today........

..they were discussing latest comments by Greenspan and showing how this guy goes up and down with the politics of the moment. His last outburst is that he thought everything was going to be peachy keen awhile back but now says that this economy cannot withstand the personal debt owed by our citizens. Now go out and shop until you drop to keep these fucking corporations going, folks----I say, if they keep screwing the American worker, then they might as well go into the toilet along with the citizens of this country.

[jokerman93]

13. Sometimes i think

Sometimes i think the Bushies are deliberately destroying America. They have nothing to loose - the winners in this are all trans-national corporations who have no loyalty to anything but greed. I think the American people are being systematically pacified and brainwashed and eventually, all our assets will be liquidated and divvied up by the new "ownership" society of stockholders and corporate elites - the "real" Americans.
*sigh*

[killbotfactory]

14. Bush loves nepotism

Being poor is your own damn fault for being born into a poor family.

[jokerman93]

25. Yep. And...

Being poor is a result of not being in God's favor too. Don't forget that. The way the RW fundie churches are networking their businesses now and funneling money...

oy vay!

[SharonAnn]

33. It's not "nothing to lose", it's "everything to gain"

In an economic collapse, the well-off can buy up at a cheap price everything that gets devalued.

Then later, they have lots more assets and when there's an economic upturn their assets appreciate.

[crispini]

16. Um, FWIW

http://www.kitco.com/ looks like, um, a gold market website.....

Not saying it's not right, just not the most unbiased source in the world.... (flame away)

[charlie]

23. Yeah, he's flogging gold

Like almost all of these sites, prognostications tend to be alarmist. Not that he needs to embellish much, it does look like we're tipping onto the downward slope into the sewer. But if you read his columns going back to 1996, most of them close with an exhortation to buy gold now, because the pricing has never been more attractive and the economic signals indicate stormy weather ahead.

[BurtWorm]

27. Krugman is similarly pessimistic, for what that's worth.

:shrug:


http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=GUFNLLOANEZIKCRBAELCFEY?type=politicsNews&storyID=6888422&pageNumber=1


Crisis might take many forms, he said, but one key concern is the prospect that Asian central banks may lose their appetite for U.S. government debt, which has so far allowed the United States to finance its twin deficits.

A deeper plunge in the already battered U.S. dollar is another possible route to crisis, the professor said.

The absence of any mention of currencies in a communique from the Group of 20 rich and emerging market countries this past weekend only reinforced investors' perception that the United States, while saying it promotes a strong dollar, is willing to let its currency slide further.

"The break can come either from the Reserve Bank of China deciding it has enough dollars, thank you, or from private investors saying 'I'm going to take a speculative bet on a dollar plunge,' which then ends up being a self-fulfilling prophecy," Krugman opined. "Both scenarios are pretty unnerving."

[grasswire]

31. yeah, I understand that.

But it isn't just gold sellers who are predicting the crash. Read Paul Krugman's latest article. Turn on Steve Forbes on FAUX.

[secedeeconomically]

20. I have an idea

Why not set up a Progressive fund. Where we only invest and support ethical companies?

[crispini]

24. Google "progressive investments"

and you'll find what you want.

[Fleshdancer]

21. One of the creepiest statistics from this article:

"To finance its current account deficit with the rest of the world, he said, America has to import $2.6 billion in cash. Every working day.

That is an amazing 80 percent of the entire world's net savings."

How F*CKED UP is that??!!?

Thankfully my husband and I decided years ago to cut up the credit cards and work on paying down our debt. We're not completely free, but we're close.

I read another article about how America is beginning to lose foreign investors to China and with the dollar dropping and the Chinese economy becoming more heavily invested in, we run the risk of China not financing as much of our debt as we once hoped.

I'm still learning how all this works so it's been pretty scary and interesting reading these articles. One thing I'm not clear on though is why countries help finance the debt of other countries. If you have any info on this, please let me know.

[Bluebear]

22. At least we'll have a utopian theocratic society

where those pesky gays can't marry and women "choose life".

[Eurobabe]

29. jeebus thankgosh we just got that 4.75 15 yr mortgage locked in!!

at least we'll have a place to live when the walls come tumbling down.

[natrat]

32. rethuglican strategy : divide,conquer, lay waste to the land

pick up the pieces real cheap

[indepat]

34. These are but small prices to pay to be safe

[oc2002]

35. WORD of Caution, that article is on a GOLD INVESTMENTS site.

...therefore what is in that article should be taken as a worst case senario and a hard sell to buy GOLD.

I myself have been looking into switching some of my stock investments to gold, and found that the easiest way of doing so is buying into the newly NYSE registered gold stocks where a share is a equivalent of 1/10 an ounce of gold, or around 44+ dollars per share.

if your thinking of buying gold, as I am, and do not want to buy coins, or bars, then this is the best option. As you can go through a standard stock broker to buy and sell them.

I am no expert on these matters, so if there is someone more knowledge on this or experienc, please correct me.

for more information.

http://streettracksgoldshares.com

and articles on this at.

http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache:qYDhFVCEq34J:www.reuters.com/advisorToolkit/newsArticle.jhtml%3Ftype%3DfundsNews%26storyID%3D6858908+streettracks&hl=en

One last word. As long as the Almighty Dollar is the worlds 'FIAT' currence, or a kind of 'Gold' standard in its own right, it will retain its value....that is as long as that is true. For instance, OIL is bought in terms of the Dollar, not the Euro.

[BurtWorm]

36. Stopped watches are right twice a day.

;) (Paul Krugman and others are also jittery about the foreign debt, especially in light of recent moves by China and Japan toward divesting of dollars.)

[Squeech]

37. Probably reasonable

It's really hard for me to conceive of a scenario where the dollar tanks but you can still buy your groceries with Krugerrands.

If the economy collapses completely, it's guns in the streets and every man for himself, or else a Handmaid's Tale world, and in either case nobody will honor your gold. And I don't think that's likely, I think the powers that be will contrive to maintain American corporate feudalism in something that looks like the dollar economy we're used to.

[taught_me_patience]

38. probably not over...

but not looking good right now for a miriad of reasons. I'd say that Greenspun should take the most blame for raising the money supply so high that he's created a monster housing/equity bubble. It doesn't help that Bushco is spending money like a drunken sailor.

Eventually even the fed cannot stem the tide of a devaluating dollar.

One investment advice... DO NOT BUY GOLD!!! As Malkiel points out in "A Random Walk Down Wal Street" - the price of gold is "random" and will make the average investor's stomach turn at night. Not only that, you'll lose a lot of money on the spread between the bid and ask on gold coins. DO NOT TAKE INVESTMENT ADVICE FROM GOLD WEBSITES... they are notorious for always predicting doom and gloom and always exaggerate problems with the economy to "scare" you into buying gold. If you're really worried, then buy AAA bonds or gov't bonds.

taught.

[mslawstudent]

45. If you're really worried bonds are the very last thing you should buy.

The bid ask for gold coins is like 1% I looked it up. Any investment loses money from the bid ask spread. Its not the end of the world. Some load mutual funds charge 5%. 2 alot of things look random but really aren't conversely alot of thing look random but are really ordered.
The world has used gold for currency for like 2000 years. Paper non backed money has only been widespread for like 30. If the us hyperinflates to get out of this mess gold and silver will be the only currency that will be honored. And your 4% for 10 year t-bills will get hammered 80-90% when a pack of gum is $20.
Low debt oil field service stocks, or low debt stocks in general are probably good investments. Or high debt stocks that produce commodity essentials as their debt will go down with inflation.

[Taxloss]

39. Economic "armageddon" predicted

... by a Morgan Stanley analyst:

http://business.bostonherald.com/businessNews/view.bg?articleid=55356

Roach is a notorious bear, but he's been right in the past.

[kentuck]

40. Time for another dose of hte Republican remedy for everything....

Another taxcut !!

[Taxloss]

42. Using tax cuts to prevent a recession

is like trying to fix a leaking gas pipe with a blow torch.

[shesemsmom]

43. I'm afraid..............

It's already here

[GetTheRightVote]

46. One dollar is more then Enough = Bush's gift to the people

We will conquer his evil one step at a time,

----- never again will I trust this government not to throw my vote away, never again will I trust these elected puppets to protect my vote, never again will I not march on lost rights, such as my vote.

I am going to march all over downtown Wash, D.C. this weekend and go on and on about the stolen election, even if I am alone it will make me feel so much better about everything .... I can't wait to see the looks on people's faces when I walk by with my sign. I am strong, I am an American, I have rights no matter what they say, I will be free, even if it is just me, I will march.