by shortonoil » Sat 01 Nov 2008, 19:03:35
TheDude said:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')f $5 trillion of this funny money has been taken care of we've barely even started. Banks were leveraged 10:1 in the GD; FannyMac were at 100:1 when they imploded. Central banks have much less authority than they are credited with for addressing these problems, too. Greenspan himself once remarked that the perceived notion of their being infallible was "puzzling."
As
DP and myself have commented on many times, a debt based fiat currency can not be sustained in a post Peak world. The failure of banks to let Letters of Credit is only one of many recent developments in the financial system.
We have seen the collapse of MBS, ARB, CP and even F&F are having problems moving explicitly government backed paper. The largest banks in the world would now be failing if it were not for direct government intervention. This latest event, in shipping, is merely a continuation of an unravelling in the world's monetary systems.
Once shortages become wide spread even cash will become inconsequential. Ironically, as Central Banks pump more liquidity into the market the faster asset values decline and the faster the system comes apart.
As massive amounts of currency are pumped into the system (M1 is now growing by 19% per year) the money (value, wealth) to back that growth must be coming from somewhere?
As fossil fuels' energy contribution for the production of NEGS (non energy goods and services) declines so too does the wealth to back the currency that represents it. The wealth to back this explosive growth in currency formation is appearing from a reduction in the value of asset classes.
We are now seeing almost every asset class decline in value. Stocks, bonds, housing, commodities, autos, and now ships. The last class to fall into the abyss will be cash itself.
At that point we will witness the end of our present technological petroleum based society. Central governments will collapse, technological innovation will cease (if it hasn't already) and we will begin to construction a new civilization based on (hopefully) more sustainable principals.