by allenwrench » Fri 03 Oct 2008, 12:07:44
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('CarlosFerreira', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TWilliam', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MrBill', 'B')ut, of course, it is hard to absorb cost increases if your savings are negative and a good chunk of your disposable income is already commited to repaying debt.
BINGO. Consumer credit is one of the biggest scams going. People have been conned into believing that using credit enables one to live a richer lifestyle, when what it really does is make you pay more for everything, meaning that ultimately you live a POORER lifestyle, since over the long run you have less money to spend and are therefore able to buy LESS.
For example, that $2000 big screen TV for $30 a month at 18% interest (which is lower than a lot of cards nowadays) will end up costing you $8,490 and take you nearly 24 years to pay off. But if you weren't carrying $1,000 a month in unsecured debt service (which is not unusual for the average household), you could buy it cash in two months, and pay $2,000 for it.
Another example: $200,000 7% fixed-rate 30-year mortgage. At About $1,300 a month, you end up paying around $470,000 for the home. However, live without using credit cards and add that extra $1,000 per month to the mortgage payment and you end up paying off the house in about 10 years at a total price of around $276,000.
As professor Bartlett says, "The greatest shortcoming of the human race is its inability to understand the exponential function."
There's been a lot of talk about the fault of debtors. Indeed there seems to have been much irresponsible lending to people who couldn't afford it. The ownership society was a trap.
But it was a needed trap. Economic activity needs that amount of transactions, that consumerism, because there are contracts signed, stuff to sell in the warehouses and factories pumping out stuff. There is an overproduction of goods, and I don't believe there's enough wealth in the world to buy so much stuff.
In a sense, I believe the problem is with the need to grow. The GDP, the economic activity, needed to be ever greater to pay for the faster ever advance. It sounds pretty much like a positive feedback loop.
And at the same time, there were lots of market failures, because we weren't paying for the environmental cost of that progress. We used air, discharging toxics in it, but didn't pay for it. We extract, but don't add just the externalities.
These banks are not predators; they were needed. They fuelled the great growth that an otherwise stagnated economy in the US and the UK would have (pretty much like the rest of Europe). Why do you think the US and the UK grew so much more than everyone else these last 5 or 6 years, and now are tumbling so hard?
Debtors Anonymous What are CNBC's worriers now?
The 700 billion will be hoarded by the banks and no 'quality' loans can be made so the consumer can't keep on keeping on. Sure liar loans can be made. They can keep on with the derivative crap shoots.
But when it comes to quality investments, well it is painfully clear that AAA ratings are not the same as there were back in granddads day. Back then they had a modicum of ethics and honor. Accountants actually meant what they said.
But whenever honor is brought up we must remember ...'Honor dies where interest lies.'
When we were in the darkest hours of the bailout meltdown, a commentator on CNBC complained how the 'poor taxpayer' will be stuck with all these bailouts. Then they backed off of their pity switching some of the blame to the taxpayer, for living beyond their means and consuming too much as a cause for Americas financial problems.
We complain when the consumer stops spending, so the stock market doesn't tank. Then we blame the consumer for doing what we push them to do with ultra low interest rates, 24 hour advertising and loans that require no proof of ability that the loans can even be paid back aka "Liar Loans."
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/liar_loan.asp
America has been built on debt and spending. 70% of our 'economic heath,' better termed as 'economic sickness' is based on consumer spending. When the consumer can't compulsively spend any longer our economy collapses...we are not a healthy country. Without compulsive spending and conspicuous consumption we would fail as a country.
In a TV commercial, Discover card was promoting endless consumption 'as a good thing' and they wished to do us a favor by helping us spend money better as we create more debt that we can't afford to pay.
Do you see the insanity of all this?
Add the rapidly approaching depletion of all fossil fuels and global warming to this pro consumption picture and we can see we have created a time bomb. Our whole system is based on an unsustainable model that will eventually collapse no matter how much money that is printed up by the fed.
Well, the fed can do what it likes. After all, it creates money out of thin air. Used to be the fed at least printed money. Now all that needs to be done to create billions is to magnetize a silicon chip. This is what fuels the hard commodity people that want something tangible for real wealth.
Wall street has degenerated into a greed fueled, legalized 24 hour crap shoot with the blessing and full faith and credit on the US of A behind it. It is like an alcoholic that has inherited a whiskey factory. More of their drug wont fix them - it only increases the sickness. Same with greed. Greed is never satisfied by attainment - it is only satisfied by contentment.
In simpler times, we had stock and bonds to invest in. Most accountants did their jobs and earning did not have to be restated year after year and earnings were real. EBITDA had not been invented and our US dollar was backed by gold and later by silver.
In 1973 stock options were added to the mix. Then the late 90's brought us internet day trading as a new way for the masses to gamble in the privacy of our own homes.
Fast forward to 2008 and things have become much more complex when it comes to financial gambling. We've got interest rate swaps, total return swaps, equity swaps, forex swaps, currency swaps, constant maturity swaps, basis swaps, volatility swaps, credit default swaps, variance swaps and many more 'derivatives' to place our bets on.
We talk of living in a sustainable world, yet our actions betray our true feelings. All we have to do is to look at the stock market to see what happens when growth declines even a little.
Even if a company yields stable earning, but does not grow its earnings it is looked down upon. Stability and balance is part of a sustainable footprint, yet we shun such balance.
With one breath we talk about cutting global warming and how we have to cut our dependence of fossil fuel.
Then with the next breath we demand no cut backs in our standard of living, we must spend and consume above all else...build more, build faster, build bigger.
The GDP must only go up, up and away...all the while this consumption just increases global warming and keeps depleting the fossil fuels faster and faster.
Sick...sick..sick mentality, buy more cars, build more houses and monstrosities of architecture, spend more but 'cut back' to save our dear fossil fuels. For all practical purpose we will be out of crude oil in 2 or 3 decades and possibly much sooner.
Consumption is ingrained in us and we know no other way. And even if we wished to amend our ways, how could all our retirement funds take the hit?
Our world population has grown to levels where it has passed the point of no return for supporting a sustainable human population as we know it today when it comes to their energy demands.
And what does all that consumerism lead to?
It leads to the mess we are in now and the bigger mess the world will be in once India and China pick up momentum to copycat the envious lifestyle that they have held in high esteem as the 'American Dream'
Fueling the problem of consumption is the games the Federal and World banks play with interest rates. They manage the economies in ways to fuel consumption and mask the real trend.
Witness the recent cries for Federal bankers to lower interest rates...so the stock market can go up...fueled by spending of the consumer. It is drug habit that Greenspan got us hooked on and we just can't get away from.
Our economy is not based on sustainable health - it is based low interest credit to encourage compulsive spending, debt and living a life of constant consumption with a 'disposable mentality' when it comes to durable goods.
All this consumption to artificially fuel our economy to make our retirement funds only go up contributes to more and more global warming and the depletion of our natural resources.
Then the governments juggle the numbers to make the inflation figures seem artificially low, so everyone's retirement portfolio will make them happy so they will continue to buy and consume more...and on it goes....IT IS ALL WE KNOW and the bill is coming due soon!
We must accept we have built a defective model for long term population support. We can only keep on keeping on as long as the crude is free flowing and affordable by the masses. Once we officially come clean with peak oil and accept responsibility as a country, we can at least be at a semblance peace with the outcome of our actions and recover a modicum of honor in the process as we restructure our country for a post carbon world.
Until that time, we are living in a dream world that is rapidly becoming a nightmare. We have the tiger by the tail and cannot let go...but our grip is getting tired and all hell is going to break loose soon.
Thoreau didn't think much of those that lived beyond their means and he said so in Walden: "Some of you, we all know, are poor, find it hard to live, are - sometimes, as it were, gasping for breath. I have no doubt that some of you who read this book are unable to pay for all the dinners which you have actually eaten, or for the coats and shoes which are fast wearing or are already worn out, and have come to this page to spend borrowed or stolen time, robbing your creditors of an hour. It is very evident what mean and sneaking lives many of you live, for my sight has been whetted by the experience of others; always living on the limits, trying to get into business and trying to get out of debt, a very ancient slough, called by the Latin - 'Res Alienum' or 'another's brass' for some of their coins were made of brass. Living, seeking to curry favors, lying, dying, and buried by 'other's brass'; always promising to pay, promising to pay, tomorrow, and dying today insolvent." (Quote shortened)
That sounds a lot better than going back to the stone age or 1859. One thing I'm unclear on is how the guy that ponyed up $20,000 to wifi a fishing village in Chile gets his money back? Dose he take it in sardines?
??? Based on what, exactly??
