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clem_c_rock Donating Member (989 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-10-05 11:43 AM
Original message
World On Brink Of Ruin
Edited on Mon Jan-10-05 11:43 AM by clem_c_rock
http://www.forbes.com/business/2005/01/07/cx_da_0107topnews.html

<snippit>

NEW YORK - Alan Greenspan, that Matador of the Money Supply, the esteemed Impresario of Interest Rates, has suffered precious few slings or arrows over his many years as chairman of the Federal Reserve. Even the White House has had to offer its critiques off the record for fear of roiling the markets or upsetting the chairman's Elvis-in-Vegas-like following. So when the chief economist of one of the world's most prestigious banks calls Greenspan a bum, that's a big deal.

And yesterday it happened. Stephen Roach, the chief economist for Morgan Stanley & Co. (nyse: MWD - news - people ), one of the most powerful investment banks and one of the 50 largest companies in the world, says Greenspan has "driven the world to the economic brink."

</snippit>
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Ezlivin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-10-05 11:46 AM
Response to Original message
1. Financial tsunami?
Are all of our assets about to be sucked out to "sea"?

As a non-economist, it disturbs me to hear such apocalyptic sentiments.
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IrateCitizen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-10-05 11:48 AM
Response to Original message
2. Forbes and Morgan Stanley are obviously a bunch of commies...
Why else would they advance such anti-American ideas such as this?
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Oversea Visitor Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-10-05 12:06 PM
Response to Reply #2
6. They are right
US need to correct itself. And they need to do it fast.
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IrateCitizen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-10-05 12:09 PM
Response to Reply #6
8. I guess my sarcasm didn't come across very well...
I completely agree that the US needs to correct itself. The problem is that the real problems surrounding our economy are fundamental, and there is no political will toward addressing fundamental economic concerns. All that will be done is tweaks around the edges until the crisis is upon us (assuming it isn't already), at which point it will be too late to do anything.
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Oversea Visitor Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-10-05 12:16 PM
Response to Reply #8
11. Its the Managing Directors fault
when a company goes bankrupt.When you hire a Moron to run a company what do you expect. After all one need to look at track record before one hire anyone to run a company. It is even more scary when the person hire doctored the figures that when shit really hit the fans.
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barb162 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-10-05 03:50 PM
Response to Reply #6
23. Hahahahaha (it won't happen; everything's fine!) Just ask shrub
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sam sarrha Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-10-05 11:55 AM
Response to Original message
3. when ~130 individuals pocess more wealth than the poorest 4,000,000,000
or 80% of the worlds population and they hord the wealth and it doesnt go round and round like it should... it goes septic and dies..

Dha..........:shrug:
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NJCher Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-10-05 11:56 AM
Response to Original message
4. the economic tsunami
Is the only thing that's going to convince ignorant Americans that bushco are the thieves that we here at DU know them to be.

I don't welcome it but this is the only thing that will bring it to the average American's attention.


Cher
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Nimrod Donating Member (999 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-10-05 12:07 PM
Response to Reply #4
7. I think that's pretty much it
It's going to have to be something monstrous. Not just Black Tuesday, but DIVE HEADLONG INTO THE PITCH BLACK DARKEST ABYSS TUESDAY. The money will simply have to disappear and cease to exist. Everybody from upper-middle on down will have to suddenly be missing meals. Since the elite will obviously respond by locking up all food and resources (no free lunches), THEN we might get to see the torches and pitchforks come out after a couple weeks of nationwide hunger.

Anything less will just get blamed on the Democrats.
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clem_c_rock Donating Member (989 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-10-05 01:22 PM
Response to Reply #7
14. Kind of like when Bechtel tried to strangle Bolivia's water
Edited on Mon Jan-10-05 01:23 PM by clem_c_rock
It's so unfortunate that it would have to come to this to wake people up.

Among the hardest hit will be the blue collar religeous right who voted for the monkey man.
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Nimrod Donating Member (999 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-10-05 01:32 PM
Response to Reply #14
15. Indeed, some people will suffer a LOT
I'm probably one of them, as I'm definitely near the bottom of the American food chain. If/When the storm comes, I have no idea if I'll survive it or not. All I DO know is I believe this is what it will take - something so monstrous and so unexpected that the elite won't have time to protect themselves from what they have wrought.
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tk2kewl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-10-05 12:01 PM
Response to Original message
5. Nice to see he gave The Big Dog some credit for the 90s
I wonder why he seems to lay none of the blame for the current economic state on bush*Co? :shrug:
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KlatooBNikto Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-10-05 12:10 PM
Response to Reply #5
9. He is afraid he might get an envelope with white powder in it.
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IrateCitizen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-10-05 12:12 PM
Response to Reply #5
10. Because Bush exacerbated the crisis, he didn't cause it.
Bush's policies are only making an already dim economic picture even worse, not creating the crisis in the first place.

Personally, I think that this crisis has been some 50 years in the making, with fits and starts. Then again, I'm a big admirer of John Kenneth Galbraith, who has been warning of bad policies that came to form the bedrock of the US economy since the 1950's.
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clem_c_rock Donating Member (989 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-10-05 12:22 PM
Response to Reply #10
12. Agreed. But I think Bush's policies have increased the dangers tenfold
Where before we were moving at about 10 mph, now we're moving @ about 100 mph.
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IrateCitizen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-10-05 12:47 PM
Response to Reply #12
13. I don't dispute that at all.
Like I said, Bush's policies have only exacerbated the crisis, making the possibility of a soft landing less and less remote. However, I think we were moving at about 55 mph before Bush came in -- not 10 mph.
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shorebreak Donating Member (10 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-10-05 02:29 PM
Response to Reply #12
16. It goes much deeper than Bush's policies
If you look at the state of the dollar from a global or macro perspective, you can see that this problem has been brewing for quite some time.

Take dollar hegemony, for example, as it relates directly to the sales of oil. OPEC agreed back in the '50's to sell oil only for U.S. dollars, meaning that every nation on earth needed to keep dollars in their central banks to meet their energy needs. It was a huge trump for the U.S. because it created a self-perpetuating cycle that ensured continued global proliferation of U.S. dollars. This led to the dollar becoming the premier currency for all other forms of trade and to massive investment in T-Bills and other U.S. securities as nations struggled to keep supplied with U.S. currency to maintain their economies.

Now enter the removal of the gold standard. In times past, as a nations wealth grew, it could be measured in terms of gold bullion. Now, the only way to tie value of currency to something tangible is to assign it to a product or a commodity. In the past, if you had a million dollars, it was worth x amount of gold. Now, it is worth either a house, some portion of commodities, or a percentage share of a company. The value has become purely speculative, based on consumer confidence.

This has been successfull over the last several decades because dollar hegemony has endured - primarily because oil has continued to sell for U.S. dollars. Now enter the Euro dollar. It was established in 1999 as a unified European currency. The U.S. economic comfort zone ended in November, 2000 when, contrary to OPEC's agreement, Saddam Hussein began selling oil for Euro's. For the first time in almost half a century, other nations in the world could turn to another currency besides the U.S. dollar in order to meet their energy needs, and global investment in the Euro began a sharp climb as many nations began dropping U.S. dollars in exchange for Euro's.

Among other accomplishments, the war in Iraq put an end to that. Meanwhile, other oil producing nations such as Venezuela, Iran, and Sudan are changing their central banks over to Euro's, and Iran is preparing to open the worlds fourth oil exchange which will be the first global exchange to allow the sale of oil in non-U.S. dollar denominations. The three existing exchanges sell oil only for U.S. dollars.

The result is that many nations - with China taking a huge lead - are rapidly pushing dollars off of their plates in exchange for Euro's. As a result, the dollar is losing value at an unprecedented rate and will continue to do so until something dramatic takes place - either economicaly, politicaly, militarily, or some sort of combination of the three. The only assured way to stabalize - not improve - is to maintain direct control of global energy reserves. According to U.S. policy, controlling access to oil reserves is CENTCOM's primary role within it's theater of operations - especially with regard to both Iraq and Iran. A successful effort will result in the short term assurance that nations will re-invest in the dollar in order to keep up with growing energy demands.

In the long run, our current economic system is doomed to fail us. It is dependent upon continued investment in order to remain fluid. Even if continued military aggression in the Middle East enables short term footholds, it places us in direct competition with other economic and military giants like China and Europe who also realize that the nation(s) in control of oil will also control their own destiny - hence the current Sino-Russo joint military excercises meant to show the U.S that their is determination to prevent further hegemony, and the recent blatant accusations by Russia of U.S. election tampering in Ukraine, as Russia allies with the Euro and Russia struggled to place a Ukranian candidate who would follow.

In short, we're in a whole new world of mess that the U.S. has never before witnessed. Our current economic system has been established, built, maintained, and praised by both Democrats and Republicans alike. They've shared a common goal in gaining a global advantage and controling every nation as a result. That shared vision continues today as the economy wanes and we are faced with prospects that may eventually entail fully uniting our economy and our nation with other countries in order to avoid a complete economic collapse. This is plainly evident in one way that sends a message that is loud and clear. Although the federal government has been preparing for and fighting in this battle for almost a decade, neither party has spoken out and told the American people the truth. They continue with their co-agenda, and they will continue to use the American citizenry as their pawns to achieve their goals, as the economy and the nation begin to crumble around us.

Shame on them.
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Buns_of_Fire Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-10-05 02:54 PM
Response to Reply #16
18. ...a most excellent post -- and welcome, shorebreak!
:hi:
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clem_c_rock Donating Member (989 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-10-05 04:17 PM
Response to Reply #16
24. I agree entirely and GREAT POST. I will adjust my stance a bit - adding
Edited on Mon Jan-10-05 04:21 PM by clem_c_rock
Maybe I exagerated the 10 to 100 mph but, I still believe that Bush's policies have greatly accelerated this situation.

I also believe this is a giant reason the PNAC wanted this war so badly. They forsaw this crisis as they did the upcoming peak oil crisis. A millitary solution was the only way they feel this situation could have been resolved and w/ the US firmly entrenched at the top.

Obviously this is failing miserably and the anger it has generated around the world can only fuel contries urges to drop the dollar all the more quickly. What friends do we have left? Also, it appears that many countries (ie. Russia) have been upping their millitary expenditures (keep tabs on Russia's missle technology) which only means we will have to keep doing the same.

At the price of at least 2 billion a month, and at this rate for years, we could have probably changed from an oil economy to a hydrogen economy w/in a decade w/out the death and destruction.

Maybe oversimplifying things, maybe not.
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barb162 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-10-05 02:52 PM
Response to Original message
17. I am glad a person of this stature has finally said what needs
to be said. Greenspan has been ignoring a lot of things the last few years, the Bush tax policy, the gargantuan deficit, etc.
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shorebreak Donating Member (10 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-10-05 03:16 PM
Response to Reply #17
20. Greenspan should be imprisoned for treason.
The Fed is a violation of the Constitution and is one of the largest reasons we are in the economic situation that we find today. Here is what Woodrow Wilson wrote in regret a few years after signing the Federal Reserve Act:

"I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men." -Woodrow Wilson

Greenspan is a criminal, continuing to take advantage of the money raised by the American citizens for the gain of the private banks whom he represents.

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midnight armadillo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-10-05 03:21 PM
Response to Reply #17
21. Actually he supported the Bush tax cut
And the old bastard has come out in favor of cutting SS benefits as well.
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barb162 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-10-05 03:48 PM
Response to Reply #21
22. I remember how critical he was of Clinton, but he said the economy could
handle the Bush tax cuts, while fighting that damned war. He was looked on as such a real guru in the 90s but he is just a Bush henchman now. I predict a really deep recession around Spring.
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Plaid Adder Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-10-05 03:08 PM
Response to Original message
19. Wow! That's my brother's firm!
And actually, although he doesn't blame Greenspan (everything is always the Democrats' fault, somehow) my brother believes that the US economy is going to be driven over with a tank by China's pretty soon.

My mother had us all around the dinner table Christmas eve and asked us "Are you optimistic or pessimistic about the future?" You can guess for yourself what I said. I was surprised that my brother, with whom I agree on just about nothing from an ideology standpoint, was equally pessimistic for different reasons. He said he thinks America's economic dominance is on the wane and wound up with, "I wish I were living in China right now."

Maybe that's why things are so insane on that end--they all see the Apocalypse coming.

C ya,

The Plaid Adder
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flygal Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-10-05 04:26 PM
Response to Original message
25. So what do we do?
They mentioned a real estate bubble bursting. Where do you put your money?
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shorebreak Donating Member (10 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-10-05 04:52 PM
Response to Reply #25
27. Put Your Money in gold or in Euro's.
The gold market has been booming - mostly as a result of savvy investors who've seen this event coming for quite some time.

The "what do I do with my money?" question is the primary reason that we've recieved silence from the media and the government.

Countries across the globe are bailing out of U.S. dollars at a steady rate. If the general population in the U.S. decided to take their savings and investments offshore as a safety precaution, we would lose the economy over night.

Hopefully things aren't as bad as they sound, but with the continuing dollar decline and the warnings coming from Wall streets top players, I'm not taking any chances.

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robertpaulsen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-10-05 04:50 PM
Response to Original message
26. I believe Roach used the words "economic Armageddon" in private.
Economic "Armageddon" Predicted

By Brett Arends/ On State Street
Tuesday, November 23, 2004

Stephen Roach, the chief economist at investment banking giant Morgan Stanley, has a public reputation for being bearish.

But you should hear what he's saying in private.

Roach met select groups of fund managers downtown last week, including a group at Fidelity.

His prediction: America has no better than a 10 percent chance of avoiding economic "Armageddon."

more...

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/112304_economic_armageddon.shtml

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