[Heineken]

Martin, I recommend you read "The Sorrows of Empire." Maybe those $300 hammers are gone, but they've been replaced by even worse abuses and squanderings.

Or, how about those ridiculous overcharges by military contractors in Iraq? The mysterious disappearances of millions of dollars?

[cube]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', 'G')o ahead, Cube. Give me the truth.

[nobodypanic]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MrBill', ' ')In a bear market one does have not to try to make money, but to try to lose as little as possible relative to everyone else. Just keeping your job, a roof over your head and enough to eat may be enough to emerge from a recession/depression in tact, and may be considered a significant victory relative to those that lose everything.

[nobodypanic]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', 'M')artin, I recommend you read "The Sorrows of Empire." Maybe those $300 hammers are gone, but they've been replaced by even worse abuses and squanderings. Or, how about those ridiculous overcharges by military contractors in Iraq? The mysterious disappearances of millions of dollars?

[Captain_Meh]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('cube', 'B')ut once you open the Pandora's box and create a gov. program that essentially takes money from Person A and gives it to Person B it's a slippery slope.

[Heineken]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('nobodypanic', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', 'M')artin, I recommend you read "The Sorrows of Empire." Maybe those $300 hammers are gone, but they've been replaced by even worse abuses and squanderings. Or, how about those ridiculous overcharges by military contractors in Iraq? The mysterious disappearances of millions of dollars?

[Heineken]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('cube', 'A') modest proposal no matter how small will eventually grow into a beast as what we're seeing right now with all the gov. bailouts. If we take your example, health care, sure it may be overwhelmingly popular. But once you open the Pandora's box and create a gov. program that essentially takes money from Person A and gives it to Person B it's a slippery slope.
It's not going to take that long before someone else says, "Hey that sounds like a good idea. Maybe I should do the same thing too but this time make the money go into my pocket!" Now multiply this out over 100 years and you end up with what we have now. This is exactly what the founding fathers hoped to avoid.
A gov. "income redistribution" program rarely dies-off. It tends to just breed and spawn even more programs. It's best just to ask everybody to, "paddle their own canoe."
But of course this is all theoretical / wishful thinking, Libertarian governments (think of the USA back in the days) tend to NOT remain Libertarian very long.

[the48thronin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Mr Bill', 'I')n a bear market one does have not to try to make money, but to try to lose as little as possible relative to everyone else. Just keeping your job, a roof over your head and enough to eat may be enough to emerge from a recession/depression in tact, and may be considered a significant victory relative to those that lose everything.

[MrBill]

Hey, this turned into a great thread afterall. Thanks RR. Did I not read somewhere last week that elimating all 'earmarks' or whatever they are called in the US would save 'just' $18 billion? A large amount to be sure, but a drop in the US' annual operating budget. I get as mad as the next guy about a wasted $1 million here or there, but if we keep it all in context we have to keep our minds focussed on the really big ticket items that add up quickly. Believe me I come from a country that counts its nickels and dimes. But sometimes you can be penny wise and pound foolish. Focus on what's important and fund it properly. The rest is chump change.

[MrBill]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Byron100', 'J')ust one more thing I'd like to toss out there. Nothing, I repeat, *nothing* gets done without labor. Food doesn't get grown without labor, land doesn't become habitable without labor, gold in nice, shiny coins don't become that way without labor, and even stocks don't get traded without people actually doing the work performing the trades.
So why is it that labor is so undervalued in society...when it should be the most valuable commodity there is? Especially the kind of work that actually gets stuff done, such as harvesting crops or building houses, teaching children, etc. I'd love nothing more than to see everyone stop work for a full month...I do mean everyone. (Might actually happen someday if we get a bird flu pandemic or whatever.) Let's see what society thinks of the value of labor then. Just something for you folks to chew on, is all.

[ReverseEngineer]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MrBill', 'H')ey, this turned into a great thread afterall. Thanks RR. Did I not read somewhere last week that elimating all 'earmarks' or whatever they are called in the US would save 'just' $18 billion? A large amount to be sure, but a drop in the US' annual operating budget. I get as mad as the next guy about a wasted $1 million here or there, but if we keep it all in context we have to keep our minds focussed on the really big ticket items that add up quickly. Believe me I come from a country that counts its nickels and dimes. But sometimes you can be penny wise and pound foolish. Focus on what's important and fund it properly. The rest is chump change.

[MrBill]

RR wrote:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')nyhow, I am still looking for you to address the question of how you retain any wealth, how you invest wisely and in what to best protect yourself in the coming storm. What specifically would you invest in, and why? What retains value as the monetary system spins out of control and the *things* we built lose inherent value? How do you restart the engine of economics without extreme violence and a struggle to take through force any repositroy fo value that remains? How do you think this can be done?

[cube]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Captain_Meh', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('cube', '
')But once you open the Pandora's box and create a gov. program that essentially takes money from Person A and gives it to Person B it's a slippery slope.

[Captain_Meh]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('cube', 'I')f you're trying to argue that government naturally likes to "contain" itself, then I can safely say I don't have to bother listening to you anymore because you absolutely have no common sense.

[Nano]

Mr. Bill. I've seen several different people speculate that the mega-scale nationalisation of debt in de US is a prelude to an eventual debt default of the US government. The argument is that the US government is better able to default on debt than US individuals, and that the US is uniquely able to survive in economic isolation for long enough to introduce a new currency and rebuild international economic ties from scratch over the long term. What do you make of that line of thinking?

If this idea has any merit, what about the well-known line: "If goods do not cross borders, armies will."?

Is it even thinkable that a general US debt default would be the best option for US interests?

[MrBill]

We have discussed it before. There are precedents. But none on the scale of the USA. It would be Argentina or Russia debt defaults x 10 or worse. You're right. You cannot petition a country into bankruptcy or easily sieze assets. Some overseas assets might be vulnerable, but even Russia, for example, managed to keep most of theirs after the 'selective' default in 1998.

One big problem is that the USA does not have different classes of debt like US treasury bonds denominated in US dollars AND eurobonds denominated in euro or yen, for example. Therefore, whereas Russia could default on local ruble bonds, while suspending payment and eventually restructuring payment in foreign bonds - or Argentina freezing foreign loans, while allowing local deposits in pesos to remain unaffected - the USA does not have at this time that differentiation between what is owned by domestic or foreign creditors. It could hardly discriminate without harming local banks for example.

These are technical issues, but always worth considering. Most conspiracy theories fall down under closer scrutiny on such banal details. That is not to say that many feel the US authorities are not at this very moment scrambling for their lives. Here is one quite reputable example about how desperate (and how clever) the powers that be may be:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ' ')The move, which ultimately led to the Treasury taking control of Fannie and Freddie this week, touched off a chain-reaction of market events that culminated with the wrenching decline in commodities.

According to Mr. Coxe, the Fed's ultimate goal was to trigger a rally in financial stocks, which would, in theory, help banks hammered by the credit crisis raise fresh capital and repair their balance sheets. To accomplish this, the decision to support Fannie and Freddie was deliberately announced on a Sunday, which had the effect of maximizing the reaction from thinly traded financial stocks on overseas markets.

Because many hedge funds were using massive leverage to short financials and go long on commodities, when North American markets opened and banks initially rallied, the funds were forced to cover their short positions.

At the same time, the U.S. dollar was rallying because the risk of holding Fannie and Freddie paper had diminished. The rising dollar, in turn, made commodities less attractive, giving funds that were already scrambling to cover their financial shorts another reason to dump oil, grains and other commodities.

The losses were swift and dramatic. On the Friday before the July 11 announcement, crude oil closed at $145.18 a barrel. Over the following five days, it plunged 11 per cent. “Leverage was being unwound dramatically,” Mr. Coxe said on a conference call last week. “We had a true panic.”

[Captain_Meh]

Thanks for that link, Mr. Bill. I hadn't thought about last week's events in those terms.

[mmasters]

Surprised more people can't see health care is one of the next things up for nationalization. When you look at it few at this point can reasonably afford it and that's not going to get any better. The positive aspect of it now is at least you have options. In a nationalized health care system there will be a standard procedure for everything.

[Captain_Meh]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mmasters', 'T')he positive aspect of it now is at least you have options.

[cube]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Captain_Meh', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('cube', 'I')f you're trying to argue that government naturally likes to "contain" itself, then I can safely say I don't have to bother listening to you anymore because you absolutely have no common sense.